Kathleen Edwards injects Celtic passion into songs of love, death, war and Vancouver's Downtown Eastside Brutal honesty is a concept Kathleen Edwards has all but mastered. Bad days? She's had a few. But Edwards - a forthright, thought-provoking songwriter, with a straight-shooting personality to match - takes the hits and misses in stride. "I've been told that comes from my family background of Irish and Scottish spitfires," Edwards said. "I'm passionate about life, and have little tolerance for ambivalence." Edwards, 30, is more multi-faceted than her reputation suggests, although she appears to be happy with the ambiguity her songs have created. Though piercing and frank on her three recordings, Edwards is considerably warmer and kind-hearted in conversation. That isn't the impression you get from watching her new video for The Cheapest Key (from her latest disc, Asking for Flowers), during which she flips two middle fingers to the camera and drops the occasional politically incorrect word. The Ottawa native, who begins her latest tour Friday in a sold-out show at the Rio in Vancouver, has always favoured soothsaying over lip service. Her first recording from 1999, Building 55, took a shot at her former producer, fellow Ottawa rocker Ian LeFeuvre of Starling, while her debut full-length album, 2003's Failer, featured the music industry-bashing One More Song the Radio Won't Like. "My intuition generally tells me when something is not appropriate," she said, "not someone else." Edwards, a four-time Juno Award nominee, saved some of her boldest statements for Asking for Flowers, released last May. Her third album covers a wide range of topics, from the death of her grandmother and Vancouver's Downtown Eastside to a pair of real-life murders and the politics of war. The biggest jaw-dropper, however, is Oh Canada. The song is not, as some have said, anti-Canadian. But it absolutely is a finger-pointing rant, Edwards admitted. "Before the album went to press, I had two people at my record company who actually encouraged me to take it off the record," she said of the song, which speaks of Canada's laissez-faire attitude toward racism and poverty. "But if I have offended anybody, it's likely the people on the other side of the fence, whose voices don't need to be heard. I was writing a song about people who get pushed around in life, and those are the people who need to be spoken for." When she performs, Edwards draws the line between personal politics and music. That's easy in the studio - if people don't like her opinions, they won't buy the record - but Edwards is less confident about preaching from the stage. "My political views are my business. I don't need to endorse a politician or an issue directly on stage. I write songs because I suck at talking about this stuff. But that's also very true about songs about my personal life, too." The daughter of Canadian deputy minister for Foreign Affairs Len Edwards, she travelled plenty during her early years, and lived in Seoul and Switzerland until she was 16. When her debut garnered international acclaim, Edwards moved from her longtime home in Wakefield, Que., just north of Ottawa, to downtown Toronto to be near her then-boyfriend, guitarist Colin Cripps. That didn't last long: Edwards, a self-described green thumb, could barely handle the change of pace. "I went from living on a gravel road with a wood stove for heat to being in Toronto. It was a hard adjustment." Edwards and Cripps, now married, have since planted roots in Hamilton, where they own a house. She travelled to Afghanistan at Christmas to perform for 2,500 Canadian soldiers stationed there. She wrote about the war on Asking for Flowers but had never seen it up close. Edwards had ample opportunities to do so in December, thanks to escorted trips in tanks, helicopters and other assorted armoured vehicles. It has changed her internal wiring. "I have a very new perspective on what it is a soldier does, and a new perspective on why we're there. I'm a changed person from seeing it firsthand. Compassion for people, no matter what their colour or creed, is the only way in life. I really believe that." Mike Devlin The Vancouver Sun				Album reviews Feature articles Interviews Show reviews