December 21, 1996

Montreal singer Roch Voisine says in no way is he trying to follow in fellow Canadian Alanis Morissette's well-heeled footsteps.

Even though for his second English language album, the recently released Kissing Rain, Voisine decided to relocate to Los Angeles last year, where he rented a house in Beverly Hills and worked with different songwriters.

"It was extremely fruitful -- we ended up writing 52 songs in six months," says the model-like Voisine, relaxing his 6-foot-plus frame in a couch at the Four Seasons Hotel recently. "That's a lot of songs. I just went down there -- I had no expectactions, I had absolutely no idea of what was going to happen. So I was pretty open about it and pretty loose, and I sat down and it just (he snaps his fingers) clicked so fast with everybody."

The same thing, more or less, happened to Morissette -- and look what happened to her. She now has no plans to move back to Canada after her fortuitous meeting with Jagged Little Pill producer-songwriting partner Glen Ballard.

"I don't pretend I will sell 12 million records (now over 15 million) in America like Alanis did," says Voisine, who plans to tour Canada before the summer.

"That's sort of a one-in-a-lifetime-in-a-generation sort of thing. But I would certainly -- if I had any amount of success down there -- spend more time down there. But we'll see.

"I'm not pretentious. I don't go down there (thinking) if Celine and Alanis can do it, I will. Sorry, that's not the way it works. I would love to succeed in the States, but if this album doesn't make it, it's not over. I'm going to make more albums. I'm a singer-songwriter; I'll do that for the rest of my life."

Voisine, after all, is a proven commodity. He's sold over five million albums worldwide since 1989, after French Canada and Europe wholeheartedly embraced him. Which is why he bristles at the suggestion that he may still have anything left to prove in English Canada.

"I didn't put out any serious English albums before (1993's independently-made) I'll Always Be There. But we sold half a million records in Canada. English Canadian press is somehow reluctant to admit that."

Voisine also raised his profile with a stint hosting the 1994 Junos in Toronto, although he now says it wasn't an experience he entirely enjoyed.

"I was terrified. I lost 15 pounds. It's not really my cup of tea. I probably don't have much of an opinon of myself as somebody standing in front of millions of people and talking. It was an awkward feeling.

"I mean, you're hosting the Juno Awards but nobody knows you. They did, but I felt awkward. What are they going to say? They're probably all saying, `What the hell is he doing there?' "

Hopefully, their opinions will have changed by now. Kissing Rain is currently in the Top 20 on the Canadian album charts, even if the title track isn't exactly racing up the singles charts. It sits at No. 68.

Meanwhile, the Kissing Rain video got airplay on the country music video channel, CMT, instead of MuchMusic.

"I've always had that folky-sometimes-country undertone to my music," says Voisine. "This album, I would say, is not as country as some of the tracks on the previous album. If there's anything organic about it, I'm using acoustic guitars a lot, but more in a folk-rock way than country.

"I'm still walking the line though. This whole album could have been produced in country just because of the melodies in the songs. But no, I went down to L.A. to get a little more pop than usual."