The Meaning of Chantal

Toronto singer/songwriter digs deep on strong third album

She is still in her 20s, but Toronto-based singer/songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk already has an impressively successful musical career behind her. Having her first two albums sell double platinum each in Canada is a feat matched by very few of our artists.
Those records, 1997's Under These Rocks and Stones and 1999's Colour Moving And Still, offered us Kreviazuk's signature style. It features her pure and haunting soprano and a writing style that fuses introspective and emotional lyrics and a sophisticated adult pop sound.
The fact that her second album won two Juno Awards in 2000, beating out the likes of Celine Dion, Alanis Morisette, and Joni Mitchell, also showed that Chantal is something of a darling of the Canadian music industry in general, and her label, Sony Music, in particular.
Her music has been generally praised in the press, though the occasional criticism of it as aural wallpaper for the yuppie crowd was likely further fuelled when the recent CD release party for her brand new album, What If It All Means Something, was held at trendy Queen Street West store Caban.
Tandem interviewed Kreviazuk prior to the album's release, and found the songstress clearly proud of her work. "I really like it and for me that is very important. I'm not someone who can make an album that perhaps would be embraced commercially or by critics without me liking it. If I made a record that was selling really well but that I felt was cheesy or was compromising my taste, I would be quite distraught about that. I feel really wonderful about this record and for me that is the most important thing."
Early media attention has often focused on the fact that some of the new songs were co-written by Chantal and her husband, Our Lady Peace singer Raine Maida. Of course, we're rather starved for homegrown celebrity couples up here, so this attention shouldn't be surprising.
Kreviazuk is full of praise for her personal and professional partner.
"I am very lucky to have my husband, as he is not only my sounding-board, but my rock, the person I can dump it all on. It is not just like having a comforting, understanding husband, but having someone with wisdom and experience. It surpasses any ideal you could have created for a partner!"
This dynamic pair have already worked on film music together. "We did a score for the re-release of Cleopatra a couple of years ago. That was amazing. This silent film has these little pop songs, really bizarre! Then we also wrote an end title song for a little independent film that we also had small roles in, called Century Hotel. We went to Dave Fridmann's studio in upstate New York. Raine and I are thinking of doing a record together, and it would be cool to get Dave [a member of Mercury Rev] involved. He is so f** brilliant and a wonderful human being."
Their songwriting process is a spontaneous one, explains Kreviazuk. "It is so loose. You should see our home. It is hilarious, we have books and papers and lyrics and oodles of tape recorders around. We're always going through tapes - 'migod remember this song?' There must be 150 songs there, not catalogued, just lying around the little corners of our universe. It'll be like 'remember that song I wrote back before I knew you and you loved it and we haven't done anything with it yet? Do you think it needs to be demoed?' Ohmigod, there would just not be enough time for me and Raine to attack that body of work."
Chantal is also able to compose on the road. Given the nomadic lifestyle of pop and rock stars, this is a real asset. "I wrote 'Turn The Page' in Vancouver, on the lobby piano at the hotel we were staying at when Raine was recording with Our Lady Peace. It was late at night, and when he came home I said 'I have to play this song I wrote.' He called it 'unbelievable,' and that really motivated me to write a lyric for it."
Five months later, she's about to record the song in New York when Maida suggested it still needed work. "We walked around Central Park with the dog till like 2 a.m., really talking over the lyrics."
What If It All Means Something is now out on Sony Canada. A Toronto date is expected shortly.

Publication Date: 2002-12-01
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=2078