Page 19 - Real Style September 2018

JANN
ARDEN
BY RODERICK THEDORFF PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALKAN EMIN
JANN ARDEN BURST ONTO THE SCENE IN 1993 with her first album Time for Mercy, but it was her second album Living Under June that gave her her biggest and most significant hit, “Insensitive.” Since then, the Alberta-born and raised artist has gone on to release nine more albums, receive 19 Juno Award nominations (winning 8 of them), earn a star on Can- ada’s Walk of Fame, see herself appointed as a Mem- ber of the Order of Canada and pen four books. Arden is also about to start filming a TV show loosely based on her life for CTV. With all these accolades though, Arden is quick to point out that fame has never been her goal.
“I don’t really have anything to do with show busi- ness,” Arden says. “I find it disinteresting and disin- genuous for the most part. And fame is a very empty goal. I hate to see young people in interviews saying ‘I want to be famous.’ I can’t think of anything worse to desire. It’s a very dangerous thing.”
Hearing Arden talk about fame, and the little at- tention she pays to it, is very inspirational. Especially these days where anyone with a phone or camera can become an instant celebrity. Perhaps, though, it’s be- cause Arden was just turning 30 and had a little more wisdom behind her when she signed her first record deal that she is able to see things differently.
“I didn’t have a big break,” Arden says. “I just had hundreds of these seemingly insignificant events that just happened and they propelled me forward. I think that’s why I’m still working, because I didn’t ever have mass popularity. It wasn’t part of my journey. A lot of young artists, all of a sudden, they’re these huge things and they’re all over the place. I never experi-
enced that. Mine was always a slow and steady climb. That’s the kind of career I’ve had, and that’s great. I quite liked that I’ve had such a slow burn. There’s nothing more frustrating than having to get up every 10 minutes and put a log on the fire.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean Arden didn’t make mistakes when she was younger. She even has some advice for her younger self. “Don’t worry about any- thing,” she says. “It’s going to be fine. You’re going to screw up a lot, but you’re going to come out of this. The best, seriously, the best is yet to come, but you’ve got a lot of shit to slug through kid. This is not going to be easy. There’s going to be times that you’re just going to want to lay down your guns and say, ‘Nope, not doing it anymore,’ but you win the race.” It’s these kinds of reflective moments that have always helped Arden express herself through her writing.
“I think part of the real satisfaction about being an artist is that I’m able to write about things that I could never talk about,” Arden says. “That’s the gift of music. I can sing things that I could never say in a million years. I think it’s a kind of collateral dam- age to have people come in that have had very similar experiences, and we find solace in our commonality. If anything, I think the job of artists is to make other people feel better about their own lives because they can listen to what you’re doing and go ‘Oh my god, I’m not that bad.’”
Throughout her career, Arden has been known for her songwriting abilities, both the music and the lyr- ics, but don’t go thinking her abilities are something she completely understands. “I don’t think about any- thing when I’m writing things down,” Arden says “I
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