Living Colour
Kreviazuk matures with second album

The title of singer Chantal Kreviazuk's new album, Colour Moving And Still, has a heartbreaking origin.

The title was taken from the lyrics of one of her songs, simply titled M. She wrote the words about a young fan she had befriended. The girl, whose identity Kreviazuk keeps anonymous, had an inoperable brain tumour.

"I was sort of able to be with her and her family prior to her death and share in a lot of that time," Kreviazuk says over coffee in a suite at the Lombard Hotel.

"There were so many incredibly moving things going on, and one of the things I observed was that her parents really wanted to take her photograph constantly," she says. "But she was a 12 year old, so she'd be like: 'My hair's not good,' or 'I don't have my cool pants on right now,' or 'I feel swollen (from her medication).'

"So there was this incredible conflict going on and it's so bizarre to think of her worried about her hair or the zit on her face while her parents just wanted to take enough pictures of her within the small amount of time to last a lifetime."

Hence the line in the song: "So I think we're gonna have to record her / Sometimes against her will / We're gonna keep her alive with black and whites / Colour moving and still."

"She passed away in June," Kreviazuk says.

M was the third song written on Colour Moving And Still, the followup to her 1997 double platinum debut Under These Rocks And Stones. The cut bespeaks of a new maturity in the dark-haired, fair-skinned 26 year old. She says the experience "led me to speak about how we need to capture things.

"It led me to a lot of discussions about taking things for granted, and how we're so out of touch, and how we don't realize how precious every moment is.

"I really feel that she titled my album," she says. "She influenced a lot of the tone and theme of the album, so that's really exciting for me because it allowed the album to be about something so very real and so very pertinent.

"I can take that to the stage every night and be with her," says Kreviazuk, who plans to return to the local concert stage with a performance next month. Details are still being finalized.

Kreviazuk happens to be dressed in black on the morning of our talk, but it's not like it's a mourning outfit. She happens to look really good in black and she's certainly self-aware enough to know that. She acknowledges that many of the songs in her latest work have a melancholy edge, but like the artist herself, they also sparkle with a certain bright vitality. Her disc, currently climbing the album charts, reveals her growth in the hothouse years after she signed with Sony Music three years ago.

Back then, her biggest claim to fame was her status as the daughter of Krevco Pools And Spas' owner Jon Kreviazuk. In the interim, she has blossomed into a certified pop star. That journey has taken her to concert venues around the world. She has resided in dumpy motels and four-star hotels. She has met true artists and false sychophants. And she has emerged from it all ... different.

"There's a bit more of me, you know what I mean?" she says. "I have kind of gone full circle, and yet even further outside the circle.

"I think I'm a little more refined as a result of all my travelling and I feel a little more schooled from all the people I've met from so many different places in the world."

The journey, she says, was sometimes lonely, but that too facilitated growth.

"That led me to be very focused on my close relationships, my family and it sort of allowed me to really rediscover my values, and just to become the person I want to become," she says.

Recently, Kreviazuk announced her engagement to Our Lady Peace frontman Raine Maida. She politely listens to questions about the whens and wheres of their impending nuptials and deflects them with a lovely, gracious smile.

"I totally understand why this society is geared to be curious about artists and actors and actresses' personal lives," she says. "For some strange reason, we all believe that this can't be it, there has to be more ... so we end up putting a little more curiousity on what other people have and what they're doing.

"I think it's deranged and silly, but it is the state of the situation," she says. "It's easier to confirm it and move on than to continually evade it and deny it and keep the curiosity up.

"I suppose I'll play that game of it, but I'm trying to be a singer-songwriter," she sighs. "I'm trying to stay focused on the record."

By: Randall King