Raine Maida and Chantal Kreviazuk
YYOU MIGHT NOT KNOW MOON VS. SUN, BUT YOU DEFINITELY KNOW THE PEOPLE BEHIND IT. Since finding initial fame in the ’90s, Raine Maida and Chantal Kreviazuk have proven themselves both prolific and enduring, whether with their own creative projects or writing for artists like Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson and Jay Rock. They recently isolated themselves on the French archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, off the coast of Newfoundland; along for the ride were a film crew who not only documented writing sessions, but the couples therapy they underwent to help repair cracks in their marriage. The resulting album and film, I’m Going to Break Your Heart, chronicles their personal and professional struggles. “This is the holistic process — it’s how we are as partners, as married people, parents and artists as well,” says Maida. “You couldn’t edit out the relationship stuff because that’s what leads to the songs.”
Name something you consider a mind-altering work of art:
Maida: Buffalo ’66, the Vincent Gallo film.
Kreviazuk: I have been totally obsessed with Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, the Mr. Rogers story.
What has been your most memorable or inspirational gig and why?
Maida: I had to do an interview last week on Woodstock — someone’s putting together a retrospective. And to have to relive it and go through it, like how crazy that festival was, Woodstock ’99 — incredible music, but incredibly short-sighted. They were charging people for water, the fact that it was on a big concrete slab in 100 degree heat, and then the fires. It was pretty wild. I’d sort of forgotten about it. [Our Lady Peace] played on Sunday afternoon and left before all that stuff happened.
What have been your career highs and lows?
Kreviazuk: I loved doing that performance with Kendrick Lamar for a song we wrote together on Saturday Night Live. Lows, I just recently had a terrible show. There’s such a disparity between those high and those low moments.
What’s the meanest thing ever said to you before, during or after a gig?
Kreviazuk: That was what just happened to me in Toronto! That was my worst gig of my life. This cranky old man was just mad. He did not like my selections. He was literally talking to me, telling me how much he hated my performance right there in front of me. I’m not sure exactly what he was saying, but he was literally shaking his head, like “No, this is really bad.”
What traits do you most like and most dislike about yourself?
Kreviazuk: Well I love and hate that I’m a storyteller, because it means that I can tell a great story, but I also talk too much.
Maida: [laughs] I like that. That was very honest.
What advice should you have taken, but did not?
Kreviazuk: If I could give one piece of advice to young me, or anyone that is talented, you have to remember that when you achieve something, it’s great, but you literally just have to keep going. There’s no pause after that. You have to keep on keepin’ on.
What was your most memorable day job?
Maida: I worked construction every summer. Pretty brutal mornings and long days. The thing about it was that I got to write lyrics and write songs. It was labour, so you’ve got a lot of time in your own head.
What was the first LP/cassette/ CD/ eight track you ever bought with your own money?
Maida: Back in Black. I had it on cassette.
Kreviazuk: Mine was Rumours, Fleetwood Mac, and it was vinyl.
What makes you want to take it off and get it on?
Kreviazuk: Well intimacy, right? If I feel really noticed in the nuances by my partner, there’s a connectivity to that. Maybe it’s a female thing, but feeling noticed, appreciated, watched, witnessed. That’s my turn on. Maida: A couple glasses of wine [both laugh].
What has been your strangest celebrity encounter?
Kreviazuk: I have this weird thing with Lionel Richie. We were in Iraq with War Child making this documentary and they just loved Lionel Richie there. It was during the time of sanctions, and so people didn’t really go out that much, per se, and weren’t drinking alcoholic beverages very openly. So we would go places and there would be a piano and two people sitting in the room and they’d say, “Do you know any Lionel Richie?” and I’d say, “Hell yeah I know Lionel Richie.” And I can play anything Lionel Richie, so I’d play “Hello” or whatever. It became this running joke that Lionel Richie was a national hero in Iraq. Then we landed, I was back in Toronto and I was on The Mike Bullard Show the first night we landed and when you get to these panel-style shows, you find out who is on the show with you that night. I look up on the wall and it was Lionel Richie. So I tell him that, he thought it was hilarious and then I tell the story on the show. I’ll just bump into him in L. A.: “It’s me, Chantal, the Iraq girl,” and he remembers. He is also truly the most consummate professional and celebrity. He is so charismatic and kind to everyone he meets. He’s really got the showman thing down.
What song would you like to have played at your funeral?
Kreviazuk: Oh, I always talk about this. “Both Sides, Now” by Joni Mitchell. On repeat.
Maida: I would have “Last Goodbye” by Jeff Buckley.
“I can tell a great story, but also I talk too much.” Chantal Kreviazuk