I listened to Hurt People Hurt People and I found it so raw and serious. Has your music always been like that?
AV: I guess I realized that, you know, sometimes you kind of have to disguise the point of your music, because if it gets too dark or too sad, people will avoid it. Hurt People Hurt People was actually my most successful song to-date in my career, not in Canada but in Germany. They have a really large music market so maybe because it was in Germany, they didn’t fully understand, you know, the seriousness of it. What I’m trying to say is we’ve all gone through this hard year and it almost seems a little bit inappropriate or tone deaf to sing about bubblegum pop and bling bling.
You’ve also been doing concerts at home this past year.
AV: So on a whim, I went out on my balcony and played a few songs with a little sound system. A bunch of people actually showed up! I really needed that and I was like, “OK, I guess I’ll do it again.” I was persuaded to do it on the porch instead of the balcony. And, then, by the summer we had a sound man, and other bands and like a mini-festival with five or six acts. A couple times we had food vendors, too.
Who have been your biggest inspiration in music?
AV: I’ve sort of focused musically on old school soul and R&B a lot lately, and blues. It just seemed to be very applicable kind of struggles to this neighbourhood. I think civil-rights movements and soul music is all very intertwined with people like Aretha Franklin and Curtis Mayfield and Stevie Wonder.
I heard you will be performing at Glow this weekend, too.
AV: Yes. I think it’s going to be an outdoor festival because they have a courtyard in the back, and it’s kind of a venue that has an ability to sort open on to the street. But as far as I understand, there’s only a few performers inside but no audience allowed inside. So it will also be live-streamed.
Ann Vriend will be performing her single Everybody Matters at CO*LAB’s Glow Festival on March 20. The outdoor show will be live-streamed from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.
*This article was edited for length and clarity.