Asking for More than Flowers Kathleen Edwards isn't a lesbian, but they're fond of her. Maybe too fond. Kathleen Edwards, sweeping through the streets of her hometown, is heading to a "hot yoga" class. "It's pretty intense," she says from Ottawa, Canada. Same could be said for what Rolling Stone - and we - have called her career opus. Released early last year, "Asking for Flowers" reflects the chill of winter with its heart-piercing parables, meditations on love, death and war. Songs that, if they could physically hit you, would leave a bruise. For her second stop in a year at Ferndale's Magic Bag, Edwards is flying sans band, leaving Colin Cripps, her hot hubby and occasional electric guitarist, at home. Sorry, boys. Now, we're a gay and lesbian paper. I don't know if your publicist told you that or... You're what?! A gay and lesbian newspaper. Oh, my God. I have to go. Just kidding! Jesus. (Laughs) Well, I have a couple of pretty gay questions - so I wanted to let you know before you were wondering why (laughs). (Laughs) Are they about Colin, 'cause maybe I should refer you to him? Do you have trouble keeping the gay guys off of Colin? Ah, well, yeah, from time to time. I see people checking him out sometimes, and I'm like, 'Babe, you just got checked out.' That's funny! Now I know you toured with the Indigo Girls recently, speaking of gay. What was that like? It was awesome. They are really great girls, and I grew up listening to them. They're totally influential on me, and getting up and singing 'Closer to Fine,' a song that was basically one of the first songs that I learned how to play, was a thrill. And, yeah, they're just great girls. They work all the time, they love what they do, they get along great. They're such different people; they've really figured out how to have a home life and also continue touring, and they have hundreds of people coming to see them every night. Mostly lesbians, I'm sure. Yeah. Lots of lesbians. But you bring in the lesbians, too. Well, ironically, one of my best friends is a lesbian, and 'Asking for Flowers' is written for her about a relationship for her that went down. And it's funny, 'cause people ask me about that song: 'Do you find it hard putting your marriage so publicly into a song?' And I always laugh, because I think, 'It's actually about a lesbian relationship.' Ya know, the best part about music is that I can write it (a song) about my heterosexual life but it totally crosses the border of all that stuff. What exactly about your friend inspired "Asking for Flowers"? My friend had really hit rock bottom. She was struggling with lots of other things besides the demise of a relationship. And her relationship was like asking for flowers. She elaborated in saying that she never got them, and you can't buy them for yourself. Someone has to wanna buy them for you. There are some really fearless tracks on the album, like the ones about Canada and the war. What kinds of reactions did you get? I think in the media, people are expecting me to tell them a story about somebody objecting to my songs, and the only people who objected to those songs were the record company before the record came out, fearing that people would be all up in arms. And before I decided that I was gonna put them out, I thought, 'Who the fuck would be pissed off about me singing a song that sorta voices the struggles of people whose voices are less heard? People who are out on the street and people who are ostracized for their political or religious or whatever views?' And I'm not endorsing anything except that people are entitled to be happy, be healthy and live a life without being ostracized. Right. Really quick, back to the Indigo Girls, during downtime, did they take you to any lesbian bars? Oh yeah, it was just (from) one hot members-only dyke bar to the next, (in) every town (laughs). One of my first gigs ever was (at) this members-only lesbian bar, like a private club, and I was so hung over that day. And when I went to that club, I did my sound check, and it ended up being (a) really full room, lots of people. And I was nobody, like I don't know how all these people ended up coming. But all these people came. And at one point I said, 'Look, I'm really hung over, and I'm gonna do my best given the circumstances,' and at one point, for some reason, it crossed my mind to say, 'The best cure for a hangover is oral sex.' I said that into the mic and for the rest of the night I had people yelling at me, 'Sit on my face! Sit on my face!' Chris Azzopardi PrideSource				Album reviews Feature articles Interviews Show reviews