Lucie Idlout: All of May, of course, was completely beautiful. And that’s considered to be springtime. Even when the ocean is still frozen, it’s still considered to be springtime.

FF: Neat.

Lucie Idlout: Today it was about 10° C (50° F), probably.

FF: Wow. Gosh. So what’s your warmest weather? How high does it go?

Lucie Idlout: Well I’m not really sure. You know like every single summer I manage to miss being here because I’m either down south at theater school or touring or whatever. But I seem to remember once it got up to about I think 24° C (76° F).

FF: And then how cold does it get in the deepest winter?

Lucie Idlout: It depends. But it can get pretty cold. Like I don’t know, minus 40° C (also -40° F).

FF: Wow. And ...

Lucie Idlout: And colder with the wind factor.

FF: And then you must also have the same sort of situation as they do in Scandinavia, where you have the sun up all summer?

Lucie Idlout: We’re in the middle of that right now, or just starting that now.

FF: And then is it dark all day in the wintertime?

Lucie Idlout: It’s very dark in the winter. We get a few hours of sunlight, or light anyway.

FF: How do you think that affects your head? Or do you get used to it?

Lucie Idlout: I know like I’m pretty used to it, but when I first came back I know it had a huge effect on me. And then one day I discovered fake baking? And it made the world of difference.

FF: You mean like light sourcing. I mean giving yourself like natural daylight through light, incandescent light?

Lucie Idlout: Tanning beds.

FF: Tanning beds. Essentially fake baking.

Lucie Idlout: Because I was vitamin D deficient, I guess. And I went for a twenty minute fake bake, and came out feeling like a million bucks.

FF: And in the town of five thousand there’s a tanning salon?

Lucie Idlout: Actually there’s two. If you believe it.

FF: That’s amazing.

Lucie Idlout: And you can also probably imagine how southerners feel coming up here and being pure white all the time.

FF: Yeah it must be absolutely ...

Lucie Idlout: Except like in the springtime, out skidooing, you can burn with the reflection of the snow and whatnot.

FF: And tell me how much of a factor in your music and in the writing of it do you feel that you write about women’s issues, or do you just write about being a person? Do the themes of your songwriting have to do with what it’s like to be a woman, and the things that women go through?

Lucie Idlout: I’d say almost never. Yeah. I wouldn’t take it quite that far, but I would love to be like asexual, and I try to you know sort of conduct myself that way.

Unless I’m writing specifically about you know my man or something like that. I mean I suppose a man could sing all my songs, but for the most part it’s not woman music. It’s not chick music.

FF: And it’s not angry woman music either.

Lucie Idlout: It can be crusty woman music. I wouldn’t say angry woman music.

FF: And what are your goals over, say, the next four years?

Lucie Idlout: Well you know like I’m hoping that by the end of four years I still love to sing and still love to write and still love to perform. Like I hope it never actually becomes a job.

FF: Right.

Lucie Idlout: And yet at the same time I’d like to be able to get it out to as many people as I can. I think that’s probably a pretty obvious answer, you know, for anybody who’s writing and performing for the love of it.

FF: Right. And you want a audience that is everybody, right?

Lucie Idlout: Yeah, I’m not targeting anyone in particular.

FF: Right. And is making money important to you, or do you feel that’s second to loving what you do?

Lucie Idlout: For the longest time it was second to loving what I do. And I was lucky enough for the longest time, like about a year or so, to have someone who believed in my art, and believed in my music and really wanted to see me succeed. So I was completely taken care of, like I was put up in a house and my meals were provided and I was just you know -- your basic human necessities were taken care of.

I was really, really lucky to have that. And at that time, making money wasn’t an issue, because I was trying to develop this thing and put it in a form where I could bring it outside of the community. So it’s not necessarily about making a horde of cash, but I’d like to be able to you know pay my rent and stuff like that.

FF: And who was it that was sort of your patron in the sense that provided those things so you could just create? Was this a friend or just somebody who ...

Lucie Idlout: Yeah, it was this friend of mine who also lived in town, who is also an artist. He was working all day long and then painting all night long.

And he understood the sort of struggle that an artist has to go through to be able to get themselves to a point so that they can get it out. You know for him it was a question of putting enough pieces together to be able to do a showing at a gallery. To be able to exhibit. And you know music isn’t much different from that in the sense that you’ve got to put together enough of a repertoire to be able to exhibit.

FF: Exactly, exactly.

Lucie Idlout: So that’s what that was all about.

FF: And was he able to get his paintings together?

Lucie Idlout: Actually that’s why now making money is an issue for me, because that’s what he’s doing; is he’s working strictly on art and not for anybody else. And he’s putting his repertoire together, and his paintings are incredible.

FF: And tell me a little bit about your band.

Lucie Idlout: My band’s out of Ottawa. And I have a bass player and a guitarist and a drummer. Brand new drummer actually.

FF: And they’re all men?

Lucie Idlout: Yeah, they’re all men.

My bassist I went to high school with, but we weren’t actually friends back then. But my bassist and my guitarist I’ve been friends with for years now. And it wasn’t until we got our very first gig in Ottawa, our first professional gig, I should say, that I called on them to ask them if they’d be willing to play on my project.

And at the time I had another friend who was playing drums for me. I was just lucky to know a bunch of musicians in Ottawa.

FF: Right.

Lucie Idlout: And my drummer had to leave us because he was with another band. And so we got another friend, or someone that we’d recorded with before, to be our new drummer.

FF: And does the band have a name, or you’re the front name for the band?

Lucie Idlout: Yeah. That’s how it is: the Lucie Idlout band.

FF: And so I have the demo CD. Have you recorded anything else since then?

Lucie Idlout: We’re actually recording, or getting ready to record.

FF: Oh very good. And when will that CD come out?

Lucie Idlout: We should hopefully have something ready by the Fall.

FF: And are you going to do any live tracks, or these are going to be all in the studio?

Lucie Idlout: At this point, I think it’s going to all be in the studio, but I really have been thinking about putting some live tracks on there because the feeling is so much different, it’s so different.

FF: And do you have a man in your life at the moment?

Lucie Idlout: I did until about half an hour ago.

FF: Wow. I’m really interrupting an important part of your life.

Lucie Idlout: No you’re not.

FF: Is it someone you’ve known already as a friend or whatever?

Lucie Idlout: What do you mean?

FF: I mean did you just suddenly meet somebody that you never saw before half an hour ago, or is it someone you sort of know either by sight or by acquaintance?

Lucie Idlout: Oh no no. I mean I was attached until about half an hour ago.

FF: Oh, I misunderstood! And are you okay?