Kathleen Edwards was “plowing through life like a f — king steamroller.”
A quarter-century later, that’s how the Canadian singer-songwriter, 47, remembers her early days. On Tuesday nights, she’d play the free slot at Toronto’s legendary Horseshoe Tavern. Sometimes she would drink a bit too much, get “a bit rude and sassy,” get scolded for being, in her words, an “annoying, drunk, little brat.”
It was a defence mechanism. She was barely more than a kid after all, albeit with a voice and lyrical ability so striking and self-assured.
It didn’t take long before that voice turned heads, but Edwards believes she came close to never escaping the bar scene. After a scrappy gig at the Horseshoe in the lead-up to her 2002 debut “Failer,” her guitarist decided to speak up. “If you want to be a bar singer,” he said as they drove to his apartment in Riverdale, “just keep on doing this.”
Speaking with the Star at an Airbnb in the west end ahead of her sixth album, “Billionaire,” the Ottawa-born musician describes that moment as one of the most important in her life: “It could have gone very differently for me.”
Of course, her career didn’t go that way and it didn’t go that way fast. By early 2003, she was playing “The Late Show With David Letterman,” where she became a semiregular. After a string of critically acclaimed albums, a memorable mix of snarky and soaring Americana, she holds a well-deserved spot in the pantheon of Canadian songwriters.
Today, her influence can be heard in the alt-country boom taking hold down south. Waxahatchee has covered Edwards in recent shows. Jason Isbell, who co-produced her new record alongside Nashville stalwart Gena Johnson, affectionately calls her “OG,” or “original gangster.” (“Don’t forget it,” she joked, “I’m basically your mom!” For the record, Isbell is only one year younger.)
OG or not, Edwards is carrying a chip on her shoulder, one born, at least in part, of her experience as a small-business owner during the pandemic.
In 2014, after stepping away from music amid a battle with depression, she opened a coffee shop in Ottawa named Quitters. It was a welcome relief from show business, a time she looks back on fondly. But then came the lockdowns, which Edwards, who was living in Quebec with checkpoints and an 8 p.m. curfew, has described as “punitive and illogical.”
And then there was all the squabbling over whether governments in Canada were going too far or not far enough.
“What was difficult about the pandemic was that the people who were most in favour of the sort of righteous finger wagging about what should and should not be done had no skin in the game,” Edwards said. “And it wasn’t their business that was closed, but they sure were happy to watch you lock the doors, so that they could feel better about themselves.”
Quitters closed in 2022, a couple of years after Edwards started releasing music again following an eight-year break.
When the Star mentioned the term “anti-vaxxer,” her eyes lit up. “Well, what does that mean to you?” she asked. “People who want to have autonomy over their own medical choices? Does that make you an anti-vaxxer? … I mean, who am I to decide for somebody else’s family what they do and do not do?”
On the new track “Need a Ride,” a slow burn that recalls Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer,” she sings about the holier-than-thou attitude she saw arise during the pandemic:
People get worked up about everything
People get worked up about an outdoor cat
People get worked up about a baseball hat
People get worked up about a uniform
They’ve never had to wear before
You get worked up about a truck I drive
Cry me a river, now you need a ride
The song finishes in a cathartic wash of organ and electric guitar, as if Edwards has finally broken free from political purity testing in a world where it can feel impossible to log off. Whether you’re nodding along or not, “Need a Ride” is one of the most compelling tracks off “Billionaire.” In the right hands, it also has the potential to become an anthem among the Freedom Convoy crowd. (For what it’s worth, Edwards alluded to her “reasonable centrist sensibilities” in our conversation.)
“Need a Ride” is certainly the most politically charged of the new batch, but its unsparing edge, both lyrically and musically, is littered throughout “Billionaire,” a muscular, impeccably produced album featuring some of the musician’s meatiest work in years — and, as always, that voice.
On “Save Your Soul,” the tone-setting opener, she calls out a trickster whose hustle gets them high, over catchy country rock. The chugging disco track “Say Goodbye, Tell No One” — which almost sounds like a sequel to her stunning 2008 song “Goodnight, California” — recounts the pain of a longtime relationship ending without a word.
On “Other People’s Bands,” Edwards’ cutting tone appears again as she sings “happiness comes and goes for everyone — you’re not special,” accompanied by a 12-string Rickenbacker and a Les Paul Junior, an homage to George Harrison and the Traveling Wilburys.
“I really wanted to make a rock ’n’ roll record,” she said.
After a year of feverish songwriting, she was restless to get into the studio. An online back-and-forth with Isbell, with whom she toured in the past, landed her last spring in Nashville, “the parts and services department of the music industry,” as she put it.
Oh, and about the name. Titling an album “Billionaire” at a time of record income inequality is sure to raise eyebrows.
Edwards, in promotional material, said she chose “Billionaire” because “the word is used in such a caustic way. But we should all want to be billionaires in life, to be rich in experience, friendship, purpose, and the pursuit of the things that bring us joy.”
The album cover captures this breezy philosophy. Against a cloudless blue sky and calm ocean, a sun-drenched Edwards sports shades as the wind blows through her trademark red curls. It’s no doubt a product of her new surroundings. The musician and her husband, a real estate developer, recently made St. Petersburg, Fla., their new home. (Of those Canadians who say they couldn’t stomach the politics, she asks, “Do you really love Doug Ford that much?”)
“I love it,” Edwards said of the Sunshine State, gushing about Florida’s beaches and springs and parks. “The beauty of the place really captured my heart.”
And you can hear that in some of the ballads that break up the new album’s thornier rock songs. That’s the other side of “Billionaire” and, in a way, the duality that runs through all of her music.
Next to her biting wit, there’s always tender sincerity, sometimes side by side in the same song.
“Little Red Ranger,” a gorgeous slow jam about a Canadian boy chasing his dreams in L.A. while his parents wonder if he’s staying out there for good, ends with this hilarious dagger: “Live by the ocean have a beautiful life — the Leafs still suck at playoff time.”
Edwards didn’t end up a bar singer, but thankfully she held onto her scrappiness.
