Preview
MAREN ORD
Thursday, April 7
Brew Brothers
In most articles about Edmonton’s Maren Ord you learn two things. She’s a Mormon and she has a relationship with Randy Bachman (don’t go getting creepy – the Canadian rock vet simply teamed up with the up-and-coming Ord as a songwriting partner and producer for her latest EP, Not Today). Now that those facts are out of the way, let’s talk about something more interesting – her music.
Yes, she’s a girl. Yes, she plays guitar. Yes, she released a record on the Nettwerk label and played the Lilith Fair tour (which led to some head-scratching comparisons to Sarah McLachlan). But ultimately, Ord wants to rock. Now releasing albums independently, the Juno-nominated artist isn’t surprised that people lumped her in with the ethereal Canadian pop diva. You can’t ignore obvious facts.
"I love to rock out onstage with a full band, but you have to remember my roots, too," she says. "I’m a girl with a guitar and that is what I love to do. I love to write songs and I love to sing. That’s generally where I came from."
Still, the first single from Not Today seems to do its best to obliterate the McLachlan connection. "Life is a Train," a chunky rocker featuring some simplistic lyrical assistance from Bachman, may not be Ord’s strongest moment, but as an album opener, the sonic blast of revved-up guitars certainly puts her in the rock camp.
The rest of the album is thick, sweet, hooky and even sweeping at times, leaving several clues to Ord’s musical past. Weaned on Brit pop in her late teens, Ord is taking care of business with Bachman (as she puts it "he knows how to write a hit"), but that doesn’t change the fact that she is a big fan of emo posterboys Dashboard Confessional. That influence ably explains the hooky mid-album stunner "Say Goodbye."
"I wrote that song when I started learning a lot of the different tunings that Dashboard Confessional uses," she says. "When you learn something new from different artists, you want to incorporate that into your own work."
As such, her album doesn’t repeat itself. Instead she draws her influences together and wraps them up with personal experience. As it stands, half of the album has been released as singles, so it’s clear that Ord wants to get her music out there. Having toured hard for the past few months, when she gets off the road she wastes no time getting back to the creative process. She is already writing songs for a full-length slated for a 2006 release, and thanks to a generous Christmas gift from her husband, in the form of a home recording studio, Ord has been plugging away on an acoustic album that should see light this summer.
Yes, an acoustic album. But don’t think that Ord is trying to reclaim the Nettwerk years. She’s just trying to live out her musical dreams.
"I don’t consider myself a rock ’n’ roll legend or anything," she says. "I like to have variety in the type of music I put out, so an acoustic album is something that I have always wanted to do. I’m just grateful to have gotten to the point where I can get away with doing something like that and continue on with a music career. It’s more for fun for me." |
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