With the glossy glamour that sometimes accompanies the stigma of being a female musician, northern B.C. native Rachelle Van Zanten has done everything within her power to make sure the spotlight is on her songs, and not her makeup.
Her latest record Oh Mother is her third album, and the tracks blend socially conscious concepts with gritty guitar licks and a soulful, crooning voice.
Having travelled Canada and beyond for many years, the adventurous Van Zanten will roll into town and perform at Communitea Cafe on Friday (Sept. 13).
“Every time I write a new album, it’s always completely where I am at that time,” Van Zanten said.
“All of the lyrical content is a description of my life at that time and when I had my first child, my daughter Charlie, back in 2011, everything changed for me; my outlook on life, what I was living for, my joy – it all changed.
“And I found that the centre of my writing focused on her, but at the same time, I was also losing my own mother who was diagnosed with cancer when Charlie was three months old.”
Oh Mother depicts the rollercoaster of emotions that Van Zanten went through with the joyous birth of her own child, coupled with the loss of her best friend and biggest fan.
The burgeoning singer-songwriter has always been vocal in her musical activism and she has never hesitated to speak out when natural resources around her are at risk.
“I was on the road for 15 years and I moved back home to get sane again, and I realized just how much I’d missed being tied to the seasons and tied to the land,” she said.
“A lot of the content of this record is also about the bounty that sustains me and my child and my whole entire family and how lucky I am to have that.”
Never shying away from a fight, the multi-talented musician has devoted much of her time to causes that are important to her.
Having joined forces with the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition (SWCC), Van Zanten has even written speeches for joint review panels, participated in protests and fought tooth and nail against the Northern Gateway Pipeline.
“I’ve found that in the last five years, I’ve spent so much of my energy and life fighting these giant megaprojects and corporations just to protect things in life like our water, our air, and our plants and our animals.”
When recently venturing the Klappan area of B.C., towards Alaska, to research the coalbed methane project of Shell Canada, Van Zanten was inspired by the strength of that community.
“They inspired me,” she said. “I just saw pictures on the Internet of these elders linked in arms, fighting off Royal Dutch Shell and Fortune Minerals and all of these other giant corporations just so that their grandchildren could be guaranteed a future.”
Bringing all of her political and social interests under the umbrella of music, the active songstress tries to find ways to blend many musical influences together.
Having been inspired by old country and psychedelic rock music, Van Zanten never wants to settle on one sound and keeps her groove moving.
“I was raised on bluegrass, country and my favourite singer growing up was Patsy Cline,” Van Zanten said.
“My mom had Emmylou Harris, too, so I definitely learned to croon at an early age. But as I went through a crazy ’90s rock phase with Def Leppard and all that good stuff, those were good times, but that stuff never resonated with me until I went to university and got really into Led Zeppelin and Hendrix and The Who and all of these great ’70s bands where these amazing guitar tones and drum sounds just clicked for me.”
Learning her musical chops in church and at family jams as a child, Van Zanten learned a lot of her soul from the knee of her grandmother, who helped her learn to sing harmony on a wooden pew.
In her recent video My Country, the energetic musician intentionally avoided any straight-on shots of her face and body, as she wanted the message of the song and the landscape in the video to be in the forefront.
“All through my 20s, there was so much pressure to be pretty and to fit the whole MuchMusic vibe and I was so against it,” she added.
“Nobody cared how good I could play or how great of a guitar player I could be – it was all about the image. I totally wanted that video and my music to be about the message. I wanted the song to be about the heroes, which were the people on the frontlines who were defending their land.”
A lover of nature, Van Zanten adores the Canmore area and can’t wait to perform at Communitea Cafe.
