Jun. 19, 2007 - Issue #609: Mother Mother

Shadows gives you a little French kiss

Okotoks native Danielle French’s musical career began in earnest 12 years ago while she was employed at a studio in Vancouver. An application came across her desk about submitting songs into a contest, so she took a chance, entered a song and ended up winning a $6000 recording deal with EMI.

“I remember thinking, ‘I’m such a fraud,’” begins French. “I’ve only written like three songs—how am I gonna do this? Eventually, out of necessity I just picked up the guitar, and with every chord I found, a new song came out.

“The hard part of it is that I’m doing everything completely by myself,” she continues. “I do my own marketing and publicity. It would be really nice if someone would just handle my bookings or something. I just want to play.”

Danielle’s third full-length release, Shadows, features guest musicians such as Martin Tielli of the Rheostatics, Jonathan Lewis of the Plaid Tongued Devils and Diego Medina from Chad VanGaalen’s band, to name a few.

“I’m super proud of this record,” French says excitedly. “Everything represents a transition, but I can look now and see progress. It’s kind of showing me the work that I’ve done over the years. I don’t have to explain myself to people anymore.”

It seems that the entire music industry is in transition these days. French says that it’s becoming ever more difficult for struggling artists to make a profit from record sales in the current climate.

“I got this email from a woman in Texas,” she recalls. “She told me how much she loved me, and then at the end of the email she wrote, ‘I can’t afford your CD right now, but it’s my b-day, so maybe you could just send me a copy.’ So I wrote back, very diplomatically, and told her that as an independent artist every sale counts, but I will cut the price down and autograph it. She didn’t accept that. I was trying to be accommodating, but could not give it away.

“Maybe they think you’re on some big label and you’re making a ton of money doing this because you’re on the internet,” she continues. “But that’s not the case. If you appreciate what the artist is doing, you need to support them monetarily and buy their product.” V

 

Sat, Jun 23 (4 pm)
Danielle French
Black Dog, free

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