Chantal covers it all
TV work and movie soundtracks add to singer's success

There's evidence the intense and melancholy songs of Chantal Kreviazuk have won even more mainstream acceptance since her 1996 debut, Under These Rocks And Stones.

The Toronto-based singer-songwriter had to add a second show after her Convocation Hall gig on Saturday night sold out quickly, and she is much in demand for high-profile soundtrack and TV work.

The three bonus tracks on her sophomore effort, Colour Moving And Still, are cover songs for big projects. They are Peter, Paul and Mary's Leaving On A Jet Plane from the 1998 Armageddon soundtrack, Randy Newman's Feels Like Home from the 1999 Dawson's Creek soundtrack, and The Beatles' In My Life, the theme from TV's Providence.

"I've just been really lucky at it," says Kreviazuk of her soundtrack and TV work, during an interview at a local eatery. "So that's very exciting for me."

The folks at Dawson's Creek have even approached Kreviazuk about writing a new theme to replace Paula Cole's I Don't Want To Wait.

But film and TV exposure aside, writing and recording Colour Moving And Still, released at the beginning of October, was still a tricky bit of business.

Kreviazuk, 26, came off the road from touring her debut album with just one tune written, and felt major pressure to create an entire record full of songs that matched the intensity of Surrounded.

MADE ALBUM IN THREE WEEKS
But Kreviazuk's confidence had improved to the point where she felt she could "crack the whip" alongside producer Jay Joyce (Wallflowers, Lisa Germano) in the Toronto studio. They made the album in a mere three weeks.

"I realized I don't care if I sound like a bitch," she says. "It's my album and you know what? I've got to take that album on the road and I'm sorry if it may come off as me being a little bit aggressive or bitchy in the studio. It had to be that way."

As for the new album's first single, the upbeat and hopeful Before You, Kreviazuk acknowledges she gives a little shout-out to fiance Raine Maida, lead singer of Toronto rockers Our Lady Peace, in the line: "Ever since I met you on a cloudy Monday, I can't believe how much I love the rain."

"It's a little bit like if you were to give someone a signal if you were speaking in front of 30,000 people," says Kreviazuk, who also wound up co-writing two other songs, Little Things and Dear Life, with Maida.

"It was really natural," she says of the collaboration. "It was really fun that we got to do that." There are no immediate plans for the couple to duet anytime soon, though.

"Oh, no, that's not going to happen," Kreviazuk says with a laugh. "I never thought about it before. But that's an interesting question. I think because we're so wrapped up with what we're both doing separately, independently ... "

She does confirm they are getting married soon.

"I don't want to keep feeding into the curiosity," she says. "We're at the point where it's like, 'Yep, we are.' "

Kreviazuk adds that Maida provided her with more than two "co-writes" on Colour Moving And Still.

"A sounding board," she says. "I had someone who wasn't going to blow any smoke up my butt and who didn't have any agendas and I could say, 'Do you think it is done?' And he could look at me and say, 'It's not done. That's my opinion.' I always got an honest opinion from him."

By: Jane Stevenson