Kathleen Edwards is seen with her dog, Fred, at Hendrik Farms in Chelsea, Que., on Aug. 4, 2020.Kamara Morozuk
Some time in 2012, Kathleen Edwards was walking in Toronto when a woman approached her. She said she was a big fan and told Edwards how much she loved her new album, Voyageur. It was a fairly standard moment with an admirer until the woman mentioned that it was a huge commitment and a compromise that artists such as Edwards make – that there were so many things a working musician gives up.
The brief exchange was a revelation for Edwards.
“It was the one of the most validating things that anyone has ever said to me,” recalls the roots-based singer-songwriter, speaking from her home in Ottawa. “You throw everything you have into a creative project. Everything else gets put aside. I had never thought about it before, but as soon as she said it, it really pushed a button. ‘So that’s why I’m feeling so unwell.’ "
After the Voyageur tour, Edwards, suffering from depression, quit the music business and moved from Toronto back to her hometown Ottawa. In 2014, she opened a coffee shop cheekily called Quitters in suburban Stittsville, Ont.
Now the seven-time Juno nominee is making a comeback. Her new album is Total Freedom, which, ironically is something she’s giving up as she jumps back into the music game after more than six years away.
Edwards says for public consumption, she has been 'just a singer' since breaking big with her debut album Failer in 2003.Kamara Morozuk
“One of the things I wasn’t able to do until I quit music was make a doctor’s appointment,” Edwards says. “You’re always at the mercy of your travel schedule. There came a point where I realized it wasn’t enough for me. I’m more than just a singer.”
For public consumption, Edwards has been “just a singer” since breaking big with her debut album Failer in 2003. The single Six O’Clock News charted, as did 2005′s sassy Back to Me and 2011′s Change the Sheets. She has a knack for material that is tuneful and playfully acerbic, but not too playful that her vulnerability and frustrations don’t clearly present themselves.
“Basically, I emote professionally,” says Edwards, 42. “That’s what I do for a living, and it really takes its toll.”
The path back to making her new album began with a Nashville songwriting session with country star Maren Morris and Kacey Musgraves collaborator Ian Fitchuk in 2017. The trio turned out Morris’s sunny song Good Woman.
Edwards is releasing her first album in six years after venturing into opening her own coffee shop in Stittsville, Ont., called Quitters.Kamara Morozuk
Buoyed by the experience, Edwards left her long-time label Rounder Records for a fresh start with the Nashville-based Dualtone Records and producer Fitchuk. They got about halfway through the making of Total Freedom before stalling.
Personal issues were affecting Edwards, and she wasn’t entirely happy with some of the tracks either. Her manager called Edwards’s Ottawa-based producer, friend and bandmate Jim Bryson to help finish the record at Bryson’s studio.
“Some days she wouldn’t want to show up,” Bryson says. “But I told her to come in, even if she just wanted to sit in a chair and look at her phone while I worked on things. I just wanted to keep things moving.”
One of the songs worked on was Hard on Everyone, which Edwards wrote on the floor of an empty house after leaving a bad situation. “I wasn’t ready to record,” Edwards says. “I needed to extract myself from a relationship that was emotionally abusive.”
After the Ottawa sessions, Edwards with Bryson in tow headed back to Nashville to finish the album with Fitchuk.
Edwards is currently in a new, healthier relationship. And she’s still running Quitters while promoting the new record. Her young staff at the café don’t know Edwards as one of this county’s most gifted songwriters. “They just know me as their boss,” the scone aficionado says.
It’s a refreshing change for Edwards, who enjoys her association with something other than show business. “Just because you’re not making music doesn’t mean you’re in a casket somewhere six feet underground,” she says.
Successful musicians live with pressure. They’re told they’re lucky to be having success and that they should ride the train while it lasts. “People don’t understand,” Edwards says. “You tell them you’re unhappy, and they say, ’But you’re so good at it.’ But that’s not a reason to stick with something if it’s causing you to be unwell.”
THE SONG THAT SPARKED THE ALBUM: GLENFERN
The opening song of Total Freedom is Glenfern, a nostalgic look at a house in Hamilton she shared with her former husband and bandmate Colin Cripps. After the couple divorced in 2011, Edwards had a short-lived relationship with American musician Justin Vernon of Bon Iver.
“After years of not writing, the first song I wrote was Glenfern. It’s an expression of gratitude to Colin Cripps. With my last record, 2012′s Voyageur, there was this awful public narrative that it was a divorce record, and that I made it with my new boyfriend, Justin Vernon. The truth was that a lot of the songs were written when Colin and I were happily married.
“Once I wrote Glenfern, I knew it was in the spirit that I wanted to be writing songs from now on. My personality comes through. I’m a pretty grateful person. It was nice to see myself reflected a little more authentically in this song. And it just opened everything up. It was the pilot light, and I just kept going.”