March 8 is International Women’s Day, and in honour of the big day we asked some of Canada’s top female musicians two key questions:
1. What is one of the most hilarious, awful, bizarre and/or triumphant moments you've had as a woman in the music business?
2. If you could go back to your 18-year-old self and give her a piece of advice, what would you tell her?
The women who've responded to our questions include country icon Terri Clark, pop chanteuse Jill Barber, opera star Measha Brueggergosman, Stars singer and guitarist Amy Millan and many more.
From offers of Playboy spreads to fans blowing (hard) into their ears, here are some of the artists' ridiculous, thoughtful and telling tales — and their wise words to the next generation of female music stars.
1. What is one of the most hilarious, awful, bizarre and/or triumphant moments you've had as a woman in the music business?
Terri Clark: For some reason, I managed to come in second place in an online poll that Playboy magazine did, asking which female country artist readers wanted to see naked. I believe Shania was first. I remember the day the offer from the magazine came in for the cover, and a cheque that would have taken me the equivalent of two years on a bus touring to earn. I deliberated over what was more important, as anybody would. In the end, I felt that baring it all wasn't necessary, and what's between a woman's ears is as important as what's between anything else on her body, and I wanted to maintain the image I had already established and not have that overshadowed. To empower women to be who they are — even if it is being a tomboy, was way more important than any paycheque.
So I did not take the offer. But the bizarre part was the back and forth with my male manager (who never discussed personal things with clients) about whether or not certain parts of my anatomy could be "negotiated." Makes me laugh to think about it to this day.
Measha Brueggergosman:I was working with a world-renowned super rock star conductor and it was a huge, pivotal moment for my presence in Europe. I was the soprano in a soloist quartet, and we were going from excerpt to excerpt chronologically within the score. We turned to the next excerpt, my quartet starts singing, and I have no idea what they’re singing. I have never heard this music before in my life. I don’t know where it is, I don’t know how they came to know it, I don’t know how I’m going to recover, I think that the room is probably going to go black, and I will have passed out, and I’ll wake up from this nightmare.
And so I essentially was mortified but trying to be too cool for school, just moving my mouth, pretending that I’m singing it down the octave, but the whole time on the inside I’m like, “They're going to fire me. My career is over before it even began, and life has no meaning and I might as well go home right now.”
Thankfully, because we had a limited amount of time to get through it, we moved to the next excerpt — which I had also never seen before. The conductor still didn’t notice — or he noticed but didn’t say anything. It felt like those excerpts were three hours long, but in reality they were about 30 seconds. But I aged by about five years in those 30 seconds.
So afterwards people were packing up and the pianist was starting to put his score together. I went over to him ... it turned out he had no idea. He had no clue that I had no idea what was going on or that I didn’t know these excerpts. And this is the thing: people are so preoccupied with what is going on with them that a lot of the time, the mistakes you think are so obvious, no one actually notices. And it’s never as bad as you think, and it’s never permanent.
These gracious lessons in humility shape us. And if you’re open to the lesson and if you’re willing to take responsibility there is tremendous richness to the lesson that you learn as a result. But it was a total nightmare and I’ll never, ever forget. And I swear there is no depth, there is no end to the gratitude I have for that pianist.
Rita MacNeil: To hear from someone in the audience that a certain song you wrote, like "Flying On Your Own," has inspired them to move forward after going through a difficult time is wonderful. I have been blessed to hear those words many times, and it is a most humbling feeling.
Amy Millan: One time when I was 17, a casting agent came to my performing arts school and wanted one of the females in the class to dress us as a "slut" for a commercial they were shooting. When no one in the class volunteered, the men looked puzzled and demanded, "You guys are a drama school, they said you would be outgoing!" I replied that I thought us girls in the class weren't volunteering not because we weren't outgoing, but because we didn't want women to be represented as "sluts." He then announced to the class, "With that attitude, you'll be flipping burgers the rest of your life." I can't remember what his name was, but I think there are a few people who remember mine.
Kathryn Calder: One time I was in Paris, and I had just played a show with the New Pornographers. I was out getting a drink at the bar after the show, and a very Parisian young man came up to me and asked if he could take my picture. I said that would be fine, but he didn't just want the usual photo of the two of us together: "Non, non, non, juste ... your pro-feel." Which is awkward. A bit confused, I said, "Really? You want a photo of my profile? You don't want to be in it with me?" "Non, your pro-feel iz zo bee-autiful, zo bee-autiful." He really just wanted a photo of me turned to the side.
So I reluctantly did for some reason, he took the photo, and the next thing I knew, there was a wind tunnel into my ear! He had blown air with the force of a Jedi into my ear. It was definitely not a "gentle sexy blow," like you see in the movies (do people still do that?), which I can only imagine is what this very drunk man was going for.... It was the strangest, most unpleasant thing a fan has ever done, and what else could I do? Completely startled, I exclaimed, "What the hell?!" and I got out of there, laughing but totally weirded out.
Isabel Bayrakdarian: When I first started in the music business, I was surprised at the many negative stereotypes associated with the word “soprano”: egotistic, neurotic, narcissistic and high-maintenance, to name a few less-than-favorable adjectives. So you can imagine how incredibly satisfying it was to prove them that a soprano can not only be a very good and intelligent singer, but also have an honours degree in biomedical engineering, be fluent in five languages, who has witnessed and survived civil war and who can fix your heart/computer/car as confidently as singing a coloratura passage. I think the best advice I ever got was “Never say no to yourself; let others say it to you.” So I’ve never limited myself, regardless of what was expected or accepted.
Jill Barber: In the early days of my career when I was just starting to get some attention, I was invited to be the subject of a cover shoot for an entertainment weekly. I was thrilled and nervous and very inexperienced. The newspaper photographer knew that I was a girl who played acoustic guitar and he had a pretty strong vision for the shoot.
I arrived in the boardroom of this newspaper office and he spread out a sheet on the floor, and instructed me to lie down and "caress" my guitar.
Despite thinking that it was a pretty dumb idea, I played along and laid down on the sheet, grabbed my musical instrument and awkwardly wrapped my arms around it like it was some kind of lover. The photographer then straddled me and started to shoot.
Well, they say the camera doesn't lie. In every frame I look about as uncomfortable as you could possibly imagine. I grimaced and suffered through his repeated suggestions to "just relax" for a few minutes longer, before I summoned the courage to stand up, pack up my guitar and announce that the shoot was over.
I burst into tears the moment I stepped outside.
The next day I called the entertainment editor, and told him that the only way I wanted to appear on the cover of their paper was if they arranged a re-shoot on my terms, with a photographer willing to collaborate with me on a vision. He agreed.
Since that experience it has always been essential for me to be in control of my own image and to play an active role in any decisions about what I want projected to the world. Because if you're a woman in this business who doesn't take charge, I promise there will always be some photographer dude spreading out a sheet in a boardroom and asking you to get into bed with your guitar.
Oh Susanna: One of the best, most hilarious, emotional, frustrating, fruitful, passionate and educational experiences I had as a woman in music was joining musical forces with Kinnie Starr and Veda Hille and doing what we called the Scrappy Bitch tour. Aside from creating a kick-ass musical show, we all got to learn about ourselves from each other. It was a challenge to us all to tour together in a tin can. All of us were equally fierce in vastly different ways.
The tour was about being strongly independent and yet cooperative (equal billing, equal share). We had to face and overcome our feelings of jealousy, we had to learn to share, and to respect and learn from our differences. We loved each other, we hated each other. In the poster we cast ourselves as superheroes and we strove to be heroic — at times we succeeded and at times we failed. But through it all we triumphed as performers, as women and as people.
Emm Gryner: I think I realized fame was not especially exciting when an overzealous fan PhotoShopped my head on a naked body of a woman and sent it to me on email, along with all kinds of other disappointing correspondence, which included death threats. What that experience taught me is that the world is made of all kinds of people and you need to be tolerant.
I also became acutely aware of mental health and how vital it is that we educate ourselves about the kinds of help available to those in need. As a young woman in music, I found out quickly how to take care of myself and turn fear into something positive. At 25, I ended up taking a self-defense class in Los Angeles called Impact, which changed my life forever. I learned that women have immense lower body strength and you can fight from that part of yourself and even the smallest woman (me at five-foot-one) can take down a six-foot assailant with the right tools and knowledge. All these supermodels were in the class with me — Guinevere Van Seenus, Kirsty Hume, etc. It showed me that it doesn't matter who you are, women must support each other instead of find fault in ourselves and each other. Learning to defend yourself as a woman will always prevail over going to the cops.
Rose Cousins: Luckily I haven't had too many bad experiences due to the fact that I was a woman, but I was in a workshop once at a festival of all women artists and was devastated that it was called "Estrojam." Literally and actually the worst name for a workshop/round on the face of the Earth. Didn't see anything on the schedule called "Testostrojam." Blargh!
Madison Violet: I think one of the most degrading moments on the road was playing a country festival in Australia. A young, inebriated man kept yelling at us, "Show us your tits!" during a very serious ballad about the death of Brenley's brother. It felt wrong and disrespectful in so many ways. Eventually, Brenley asked for a security guard to escort him out, to which the audience replied with a blast of support, clapping and cheering. Once the man was out of the tent, I told the audience that now we would lift our shirts for their viewing pleasure.
Danielle Duval: One time I was living in dark moments and came out of it by spending every waking moment in my attic with headphones on, belting the songs of Sinead O’Connor, Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, Sheryl Crow, training my voice to soar. Now I get to do my thing, on the stages of the greatest theatres across the country, touring in support of Serena Ryder.
In celebration of International Women's Day, I emphasize the high importance of women to always act in support of one another, to inspire and encourage each other, to band together, build upon what's been built, thereby increasing the populations of women in rock 'n' roll. I feel strongly about an approach and modis operandi within the music industry of forging friendships and relationships based on a common interest in music as opposed to a focus on gender. I also strongly celebrate the role models like Joan Jett, Patti Smith, Stevie Nicks, Siouxsie Sioux, Kim Deal, Debbie Harry and Grace Slick, who have paved the way and inspire us all. The stereotype of women only singing opera and folk music is already broken. Women in rock 'n' roll is not a new thing, though I plan to help continue its legacy.
Laura C. Bates (Trent Severn): On more than one occasion I have been hired because I'm a petite female, never mind my ability to play the violin. I've been employed to wear heels while improvising along to club tracks. I've had my ass grabbed in vodka bars while performing Gaga covers. I've had a man expose his penis to me in the back parking lot of a church while I was lost and trying to find a wedding gig. I've cried. Lots. Now I think twice before taking any gig that requires a wireless pickup, and I never leave my house without my sense of humour and shoes I can run in.
2. If you could go back to your 18-year-old self and give her a piece of advice, what would you tell her?
Terri Clark: To enjoy the ride — the "firsts" only happen once. Do not let your ego or "appearances of living the high life," or other people's opinions, infiltrate your business model. Hire a savvy, honest business manager with a stellar reputation. Don't always assume the people who are there for you now will still be there in 20 years. Sometimes it's the ones who are the sleepers in your organization that become your biggest, most loyal allies — and they aren't always the ones who get the most credit. Treat every employee with respect until they prove they don't deserve it. The business is fickle.
Measha Brueggergosman: Always tell the truth — to yourself first, which will make it easier to tell the truth to others second. I think the tendency to lie is motivated by fear — fear of getting hurt, fear of insulting someone, fear of saying what you really think. But I feel like truth breeds courage. And if you are constantly telling yourself the truth about yourself and about the situations you’re in, then you will very quickly become quite courageous. And there are limitless benefits to courage — but it has to start with truth.
Tanya Tagaq: You are perfect and beautiful. Stop doubting that. You are lovable and worthy.
Rita MacNeil: I have always given the advice to young people to stay true to their dreams and music is a wonderful outlet to express emotions. Follow your heart and your music.
Amy Millan (Stars): Don't take advice
Kathryn Calder: This will probably be a common one, but it's very true: trust your gut! It's almost always right.
Isabel Bayrakdarian:Don’t worry too much and just go with the flow. Magic happens when you let go and God lays the plans.
Jill Barber: Just keep doing what you're doing. All those hours spent in your bedroom putting poetry to music, it will pay off. All those fantastic dreams of making music for a living, they will come true. All those false friends who tell you that you're crazy, that it's impossible, that you're not good enough, they're wrong. But you already knew that in your heart, didn't you?
Oh Susanna: Trust yourself and others. This still is the advice I need to remember even though it is 25 years later.
Emm Gryner:Read classic novels. Learn about great women and their achievements. Have more fun and stop worrying. Learn how to do taxes and be in charge of your money. Learn how to sew. Stop going to malls. Value art over celebrity. Have a stiff drink (in Quebec maybe!).
Rose Cousins: Trust your gut. If it feels wrong, it's probably a bad idea.
Madison Violet: I would tell myself to look around more. Take in your surroundings because it will inspire you to be creative. Touring for so many years, we rarely gave ourselves the time to discover the places we were in. We would be on the road for weeks at a time, with our heads in a book or an iPhone or just asleep in the van, missing some of the most stunning views. It's worth turning everything off once in a while to experience what's around us.
Danielle Duval: Trust your gut. From the loudest voice to the tiniest wimper in your head. Trust it and live by it.
Know how good you are, have faith in every skill you have, pay close attention to your imagination. Know that when you work hard, believe in yourself and your ability, you can become those you look up to and admire. On a constant basis, always push yourself to learn more, build upon what you've built, be open, spontaneous and improvise, and always aim higher than you imagine. Know that a life in music is possible when you keep to the above.
Never stop.
Dayna Manning (Trent Severn): Don't bother with shame, feeling it or making someone else feel it. It's an instant disconnect. Stay connected. Trust your instincts. When you use your heart, use your brain a little. Choose a path you want and believe in it. You're pretty much who you are inside; you're just going to start to look older. (My Mom actually told me this!)
In honour of Woman's Day, as a female musician I would like to take the opportunity to say this: I appreciate it when someone tells me I'm one of the best girl guitar players they've ever seen, but I'm better than a lot of men I know. Just sayin'.
Related:
Hope Rising!: Stephen Lewis Foundation fundraiser celebrates women
Q&A: In the Loop, a free workshop series introing women to electronic production