Kathleen Edwards in Menlo Park

About the artist

Kathleen Margaret Edwards was born on July 11th 1978 in Ottawa, Ontario. Her father Leonard Edwards was a diplomate, which led to that Kathleen grew up in such countries as South Korea and Switzerland. At the age of five, she started taking classical violin lessons that continued for the next twelve years. This came in handy when she recorded Failer; Kathleen played and arranged all the string parts on the album. In 1997 her family moved back to Canada, and Kathleen's music taste changed. Before this time she was mainly interested in mainstream pop music, but now she started to listen to her brother's record collection. Her brother's music taste included artists Bob Dylan and Neil Young. During her last two years of high school she started to play more guitar than studying. "I played in (a school) band, but I never played in a band that wasn't part of my musical upbringing, until I started playing guitar at summer-camp. I started playing more and more and wouldn't study for exams, and just play down in my room. It started to take priority over doing well in school." [JAM!] In 1999 she started to play open mike nights, and at the same time she started writing her own songs. She recorded the six-song ep Building 55, pressing 500 copies. This was the start of a tour of Canada in her Suburban truck, pictured on the cover of Failer. She booked her own showns, making just enough gas money to take her from place to place. "It's pretty much the first six songs I ever wrote. There were a few hits and misses but a lot of them stuck with me, and I'm really happy with my record. A lot of people have regrets about first releases, and I don't at all. I'm really confident about it.