BY MICHAEL DAKS PHOTO CREDIT JAIDENE VEDA
Finding My Voice Jaidene Veda
J
aidene Veda is a Canadian recording artist with five albums under her belt as well as close to 200 collaborations as a feature vocalist over her 20-year career. She is currently working on her sixth album as well as a documentary due to be released in 2021. We sat down virtually to talk about her life and work and the importance of early breast cancer screening.
Daks: Tell me a little about your childhood; where you were born and what music you were listening to growing up. Veda: I was born in Calgary, a fairly small city in Canada compared to the West and East Coast where I also lived later in life. I grew up in the “Sub-Pop era,” a Seattle-based grunge music record label that really blossomed in the 1990s. I was obsessed with Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine... but in contrast with most of the music I create now, I was really listening to anything but electronica in my youth. Mostly male singers as well. I still hear their influence on me with their raspy, lower voices and a really deep or even abstract sense of prose and story-telling. Daks: When did you first decide that you wanted a career in music? What were your inspirations and influences? Veda: When I eventually discovered Artists like Björk & Me’shell Ndegeocello who were incredibly unique artists, or female lead singers in bands like Everything But The Girl, Mazzy Star, Portishead; the music and their voices really stirred something in me. I can recall it was like the feeling I still find when I watch a good movie. For the duration of the song, similar to the duration of the film, I am in ‘their’ world. That organic sense of escapism was life-changing. I began trying to find my own voice. As well as my parents, I was also very lucky to have an older brother who introduced me to incredible music all my life, all the way until my first experience with club culture. Now, I’ve spent half of my life producing house music. I pretty much have him to credit for all of it.
146 Rare Magazine
