BY JENNIFER HOEGG

NovaNewsNow.com

Brooke Miller is hanging laundry at her old Victorian house in a tiny Ontario town while we chat about playing guitar in New York, Boston and Nashville.

Cheerful and articulate, the young singer/songwriter is a delight. She’s excited to secure a Canadian distribution deal for her new CD, You Can See Everything, and is gearing up for a live recording session at Toronto CBC’s Glenn Gould studio that kicks off a lengthy fall tour.

“I’m getting ready to get back into chaos!” Brooke says.

The PEI native is also looking forward to coming home to the Maritimes in October. “I love coming home,” she said, “as long as I can smell the ocean!”

With tour dates through the U.S. and Europe, along with Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Moncton and Halifax, I have to ask: why Windsor and Truro?

“It has been a while since I played in Windsor. It’s such a great energy playing for an audience in a small theatre - to get reconnected with people.The sense of community is really strong. It’s really great to be part of that, even just for a while.”

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the 25-year-old guitarist appreciates a small town. Many of her song lyrics evoke a love of small-town life.

With husband, acclaimed Canadian guitarist Don Ross, Miller has settled in Cannington, with a population of only 2,000 and she has enjoyed building a live music career based on the ability to play a variety of venues.

“If you stick to the big cities you miss out,” she said. “If you get to go to the small art centres, then it’s a joy.”



Good learning experience

With her smalltown grounding, is there a contradiction with the polish of her big name U.S. label, Sony/ATV? Miller doesn’t think so.

She says of her New York-based team: “New York is that huge city, but it is also a series of communities and people just making it work. Working with people there has been wonderful and a good learning experience for me. The people at Sony/ATV and Plan A Media have been great: personable, down to earth and helpful. I was actually signed by Danny Strick, the head of Sony/ATV, and he’s always available to talk to me.”

Miller grew up attending kitchen parties with her parents throughout Charlottetown and the South Shore of PEI. “I was raised in the Celtic music roots of the place.” After a stint in her elementary school band, she took on songwriting at the advanced age of 10. Brooke is grateful for her Island roots, especially the sense instilled in her that “music, arts and culture feed the soul and are valuable things to pursue. I have been more or less immersed in that environment my whole life.”

As a young teen, Miller was part of the grunge scene of the Maritimes in the 1990s, touring with a three-person punk band and opening for acts such as Sloan, Eric’s Trip, Thrush Hermit and Rebecca West.

“It was a great way to exert energy and put some focus to my teen angst,” she says. “I was able to get into songwriting, playing an instrument and getting over my stage fright! One of the guys was 16 and had a van. We played somewhere just about every weekend.”

Later, Brooke spent a few years in the Halifax music scene, where CBC Maritimes was very supportive as she developed her career.



Eclectic tastes

Brooke cites the Police (the recent Police reunion concert was “a fantasy come true”), Steely Dan and Bruce Cockburn as lifelong influences, but admits to eclectic tastes. Recent playlists on her iPod include “trippy, weird electronic music” and A.C. Newman of The New Pornographers.

Of East Coast musicians, fellow Islander singer/songwriter Rose Cousins is a current favourite: “She has such a beautiful voice and we have a great camaraderie. I’m a big fan of hers.”

Brooke’s own songs fit somewhere between Cousins’ and another Islander, Jenn Grant, and, like the other two young women, has lyrics that speak to the heart.

Perhaps the fact she has been rocking out on stage since the age of 12 is why she sounds so mature at 25. Not that her music has stopped developing.

Listening to Miller’s songs via her mySpace page, one can hear that her voice and songwriting has grown since her 2003 release, Lending an Hourglass.

In true folk music tradition, You Can See Everything contains Miller’s first political song. Two Soldiers is a poignant snapshot of a young soldier in the Middle East. The song was inspired by the stories of U.S. soldiers who came to Canada in the early days of the Iraq war, seeking refuge from overseas deployment.

The compassionate lyrics have earned Miller the Ontario Arts Council's Colleen Peterson Songwriting Award. The award honours an emerging artist in the genres of roots, traditional folk and country music. Miller sounds sincerely proud and honoured by the award.

It’s difficult to pick one track to recommend, as there is a both variety and continuity to the offerings on Brooke’s CD. Every song, from the beautiful title track You Can See Everything, to the achingly sweet chords of Everywhere, to the toe-tapping Dome Car flow together like songs at a good kitchen party.

Windsor is in for a treat when Brooke Miller plays the Mermaid Imperial Theatre, with Don Ross and Andy McKee, Oct. 5. Go to www.mermaidtheatre.ns.ca for more on the show.