Jann Arden helps her hometown
Calgary’s Jann Arden steps up with two musical flood benefits
Charity begins at home.
For Jann Arden that cliché can now be put into practice — finally, regrettably but happily, too.
“How awesome,” the Calgary singer-songwriter says while sitting and sipping a coffee on a sunny Calgary street.
“Usually I’m flying to Toronto or I’m flying somewhere to the Yukon — usually I’m going somewhere. But we’re actually, for the first time in many, many years, having to raise money and awareness and get people back in their houses (here).”
Arden is, of course, referring to her current efforts to help her hometown and area neighbours who were affected by the June flooding in southern Alberta. Personally spared — her home on the river west of the city sits high enough to avoid the rising waters — she saw first-hand how close friends and acquaintances were hit hard in nearby Bragg Creek and still are struggling with the disaster.
It’s why she’s thrown her artistic talents behind a couple of efforts to help in the rebuilding.
Her first flood-relief project is a jingle titled 2 By 2 Rebuild the Zoo, which will be used in a fundraising campaign by the city’s animal attraction that suffered an estimated $50 million worth of damage and left many of the enclosures uninhabitable. That’s not to mention the toll it also took on employees, many of whom, Arden says, put their lives on the line to save the beasties at the height of the flooding. Some were subsequently laid off as the zoo cut costs to deal with the flood’s impact.
She describes the tune, which has been cut into 30and 60-second spots for use in commercials, as a “fun ... little worm” she hopes will get stuck in your head, and one that came about quickly and in a rather “serendipitous” manner.
It was co-written with her friend Kristyn Osborn from country act SHeDAISY.
“She helped me with all the zoo animal names and made it kid friendly,” Arden says of the uncharacteristically peppy little number that features some children singers on it. “I think I would have probably written a very depressing dirge if I’d been left on my own.”
The Calgary Zoo is hoping to put the tune to good use in the coming days, but as for her making use of it, well, don’t expect Arden to haul it out during her other high-profile fundraising appearance. That, of course, is her three-song spot on the benefit event for her own species, the Alberta Flood Aid concert at McMahon Stadium on Thursday night.
Arden will be the only Prairie rose on a bill that is otherwise all-male and includes acts such as Randy Bachman, The Sheepdogs, The Sadies, Matthew Good, Johnny Reid and other fellow, locally grown acts Loverboy and Nickelback.
“Both of which I’ve never heard of before,” she deadpans.
She goes out of her way to speak glowingly of every other act on the bill who stepped up to be added to the event, which hopes to raise millions for the Calgary Foundation Flood Rebuilding Fund.
“Everyone is just so proud to do it,” she says of the starfuelled night of music.
“And I love it when the egos get left out in the parking lot and you actually see the best of people. Because if you’re at an award show, I have to be honest, sometimes people are very prickish. You just want to take a fork and stab them in the temple. ...
“But you do something like this and the spirit is so genuinely lovely.”
As one of the evening’s headliners, she’s also looking forward to leading her city, her home, in what she considers a much-needed “celebration.”
“Music is a great way to get people unified, it’s celebratory because everyone did such a good job here,” she says proudly.
“Even I was surprised by the charity of this town. Sometimes I get a little jaded — it’s a very wealthy city in a lot of ways. I was surprised, let me just put it that way. When it came down to it, the thousands and thousands and thousands of volunteers with their boots on, their rakes in hand, it brought a lump to my chest, it really did.”