Tour De Force the daughter of diplomats, kathleen edwards has spent her whole life on the road, from living in seoul and geneva as a child to touring the northern hemisphere incessantly today. she is as used to travel as she is being poor from it, despite her notable nod from rolling stone, which warned us to keep an eye on her. she plays the folk fest mainstage tomorrow at 2 p.m. with many of her moody, wine-soaked songs from failer, and chances are it'll be a good show. more importantly... fish: i read that you have a crush on jock rocker andrew w.k. i think i have a crush on kazzer. what's happening to us? kathleen: you have a crush on kazzer? yeah, andrew w.k. hasn't really exploded the way i thought he would. he's just a really great live performer. fish: last time i talked to you, you were on the road with richard buckner about a year back. can you tell us some of the big events that have happened to you since then? kathleen: i've been all over the u.s., i played south by southwest this year, i went to europe three times in six months and played glastonbury. not to mention this sars benefit thingy in toronto. fish: as someone who used to live in korea, what do you think about what's going on right now? kathleen: i've been hearing little pieces. when i was in south korea, when i was about 13 to 16, we had an emergency evacuation plan. i've been to the dmz (demilitarized zone). it really is just this line in the sand. it's pretty, there's no wall. there are buildings built so that one half is in north korea, the other half is in south korea, so people can meet over a table. fish: like prison? kathleen: like a jail, yeah. the north koreans wanted badly to be reunited. they're not living a high quality of life. the idea that north korea has nuclear power plants and stuff like that, i may be naive, but i think they're just using it for heat. they're such a poor country. fish: i'm asking everyone this: what do you think of the image of canada as a gay, disease-ridden, amoral wasteland, according to cnn? kathleen: that's definitely something i think that the bush administration is perpetuating. the american economy is struggling, you can see it in their dollar, and ours is looking stronger. they never play fair. it's a monument to the bush administration that americans are now living in fear of canada. notice that they're not giving mexico the same kind of hard time. fish: do you stick around after shows and chat to the crowds, and have you met any scary people that way? kathleen: i've had people talk to me and seem totally normal, then gotten five letters and a bottle of wine and a dozen roses later. a little over-the-top obsessive, to put it mildly. just 'cause i talked to him for five minutes, he thought we were engaged or something. i have a code word to get me out of situations like that. we were talking about buckner. he always attracts weirdos. this one time, buckner and i were in kentucky in a dry county, and he had to get the hell out, of course. we stopped just outside. i went to freshen up and he went to this bowling alley. after, like, five minutes he was hanging out with this big guy with a wooden leg, and his wooden leg was on top of the table. this guy was fucking insane, he was drinking out of his leg! fish: how do you get around from city to city? kathleen: for stuff like the folk festivals, i fly in. usually we drive. we've done one tour with a tour bus, but i can't afford a tour bus. i can't even afford to be on a tour bus. fish: if you needed to get rich, what would you do? kathleen: go do something for money. i'd write a big, cheesy hit. fish: i don't know, you have to be pretty dumb to connect with everyone ... kathleen: you gotta be really stupid! but i don't want that. i just wouldn't want to be that person. fish: are you going to play at the folk fest after parties? kathleen: i have a bit of an issue with after-party jams. they're too flaky for me. i like to go to a pub. fish: i know a couple good ones...  fish griwkowsky edmontonsun.com				Album reviews Feature articles Interviews Show reviews