Nearly two weeks ago, Jann Arden received word her grandmother passed away.
In the flurry of the Calgary singer-songwriter's promos, interviews, rehearsals and other tour preparations, it's easy to forget the star-making machinery rarely factors in human emotion when confronted with such tragic news.
Pressing the pause button on the star treadmill, Arden flew home to be by her mother's side.
"We do not deal well with death at all," Arden says over the phone in the midst of her tour supporting her latest album, Blood Red Cherry. "It's the end, it's a really bad thing to deal with. But as humans, we can be ignorant and choose not to know about these things. We're very material-bound."
OVERWROUGHT
Arden recalls being overcome with emotion when her mother brought home her grandmother's belongings.
"I picked up one of her shoes and I thought, 'This is the saddest, weirdest thing I've ever picked up,' " Arden explains. "Her physical presence isn't there anymore, but there is definitely some aura around permeating from her stuff."
Four albums into her career, Arden says she's no longer adjusting to being a performer -- the 37-year-old's confident enough she can hold her own in that department. (So confident Arden has scheduled a rare set of back-to-back shows Sunday night at 5 and 8:30 at the National Arts Centre.)
Her celebrity has allowed her to succeed as a sardonic stand-up comic for Just For Laughs, serve as host of a TV documentary series for WTN, even attract the likes of Jim Cuddy to sing a duet on Mend, a highlight of the 14 tracks on Blood Red Cherry.
Selling more than 2 million records worldwide since her 1993 debut Time For Mercy, Arden has charted successfully with such singles as I Would Die for You, Insensitive, Could I Be Your Girl and The Sound Of.
"I don't buy into it," Arden says of the celebrity pedestal on which people sometimes place her. "I pretty much keep to myself.
"I defy everything that we should be in the industry. And people are baffled by it, they really don't know how to keep me down. They're like, 'Oh God, she just keeps plowing away.'
"But I'm not a fashion thing or nothing. I'm not this sexual entity, like a Britney Spears or even a Sarah McLachlan. I don't know what the hell I am."
Arden lately has been coming to terms with what the hell she is. During the recording of Blood Red Cherry late last year, she reportedly was dumped by her fiance, which sent her spiralling into a deep depression. Conversely, a trip to Africa for the charity organization World Vision made her realize there's more to life than just album sales and fame (she's returning there in October to visit her foster child).
She's even gone public with an on-line journal on her website jannarden.com.
"If I'm going to be an icon or role model of any sort, I'd like to be one that helps people see a part of themselves that's capable of doing anything and being anything, and not being suppressed by what society thinks they should be," Arden says.
