In with the Hip crowd
Kreviazuk lends voice to War Child benefit show

She may have been named Canada's best female singer at the Juno Awards in March but Chantal Kreviazuk can still walk her dog down a Toronto street without being recognized.

At least, she wasn't recognized in the time it took to talk to this reporter via her cell phone -- but that's a situation which suits the Winnipeg-born singer/songwriter just fine.

Months after the shock and euphoria of winning over the likes of Sarah McLachlan and Alanis Morissette have worn off, Kreviazuk insists she can't let herself lose touch with what keeps her grounded.

"At the time I was really, really shocked," says the 26-year-old, confirming she was indeed as surprised as she looked on TV that night.

"I mean, I thought I was the token fifth name thrown in there, and I thought 'Well OK, that's nice,' but I never considered that I might actually win.

"Now that it's happened I'm excited and proud that I've been accepted by the industry, but it hasn't really sunk in -- in that I can't let it get to my head."

Chantal won two Junos that night. Her most recent album Colour Moving and Still was named best pop/adult recording. Still, she insists that the accolades haven't changed her focus.

"I said at the time that awards don't write songs and I really meant that. For me the best way is staying on the ground and doing what I do to be musical and to write songs."

For Chantal, that means entertaining the muse whenever it strikes her. She and her husband -- Our Lady Peace singer Raine Maida -- have a music room at their Toronto home in which she keeps a Steinway grand piano, but she'll write anytime, anywhere.

"As a musician, you don't really consider yourself having a real job and you think, 'Oh, I can take a break today,' but then a melody comes, and you just have to work it out and get it down," she explains. "I've written tunes in hotel lobbies, at friends' houses during dinner parties and sometimes I just like to play whenever I see a piano. I love the feel of a new instrument."

Since the Junos, Kreviazuk has kept a relatively low profile in Canada, playing a select few summer dates and performing in the U.S. as well. She's also been working on new material, some of which she hopes to preview during tomorrow's War Child benefit concert at The Forks.

"There's at least one new song that I certainly want to play there, because I think it's inspired in part by the War Child movement and my experience with it. It's called G.I. Joe and it's about kids being subjected to war and in some cases even being given guns and asked to fight as young as eight years old."

Kreviazuk first became involved with War Child after meeting War Child Canada director Samantha Nutt at MuchMusic.

"She's really inspiring. She actually approached me about becoming involved and after meeting her and hearing what she had to say, I said there's absolutely no way I can't be involved somehow, please contact my manager.

"There are a lot of causes I feel passionately about, but this one just feels right to me. I've been torn in the past about what to commit myself to but I feel good about attaching myself to this. Just the fact that something like two million children have died in the last decade as a result of war is something that moves me terribly."

Kreviazuk has written honestly about stricken children, and friends, in the past, most notably in the songs Surrounded (from first album Under These Rocks and Stones), Eve and M, and the compassion is palpable in her voice as she winds up on the subject.

"I'm hoping, actually, to be one of the persons chosen to go to another country to do a TV documentary on the conditions of children in war," she says.

As for playing yet another major outdoor free show in Winnipeg just a year after performing for at least 40,000 people during the Pan Am Games festival, Kreviazuk says playing this show was a no-brainer.

"Actually, I think Winnipeg is the perfect place to do a show like this in Canada. The city always seems to pull together around crises like the flood and celebrations like the Pan Am Games. Winnipeggers always feel an empathy," she says.

"I'm excited that it's going to be there and I hope that, apart from being entertained, people become aware of the cause. For me, this show is all about the cause."

By: John Kendle