The mere suggestion that someone is living on, or near a fault line, usually conjures up images of earthquakes, chaos and uncertainty, and while it is true that some of Adrienne Pierce’s songs from her CD Faultline may evoke those same images, for the most part this is a collection of songs that says, ‘Hey while everything may seem a bit crazy at the moment, everything is going to work out just fine.’
The immensely talented Los Angeles based recording artist’s name may not be as familiar to you as the sound of her music. Prior to signing a recording contract with Nettwerk Records, the singer/songwriter, had three of her songs, “Fools Gold,” “Lost & Found,” (co-written with Tim Bright), and “One Perfect Day,” placed with television programs such as Gray’s Anatomy and Veronica Mars. More recently, her tune “Falling Asleep,” found its way onto the prime time show The L Word.
Pierce, who possesses a knack for creating vivid word pictures, which are painted on the canvass of her life, recently delighted her audience at the Red Elephant in Honolulu Hawaii. The performance came on the heels of her lengthy fall tour with Avant-garde musical icon ISSA (Jane Siberry). Pierce, a native of Horseshoe Bay, British Columbia, Canada, has received high marks for her performances at the prestigious SXSW in Austin Texas, both in 2004 and 2007. She has toured England, and won the critics’ approval during her tours with Ray LaMontagne and Damien Rice, as well as an appearance at NXNE.
Although Adrienne Pierce’s songs will often tackle serious issues such as depression, broken relationships, or the war in Iraq, she possesses the ability to produce a more ethereal ambient melody, versus continually dragging the listener into darker moods that focus on morbid consequences.
Pierce talks about her melodic rock song, “Beautiful,” the opening track from Faultline, “I wrote that song, at a time, when in Vancouver (Canada) there were a lot of protests and peace marches against the war in Iraq. The first march that I knew of went through my neighborhood, and a friend phoned me to complain that it had awakened her. I thought that maybe we should be in the peace parade, or should have done something (instead of) living in Vancouver safely, and being worried about being awakened. I started writing the song that day, and the first line is literally the first thought that I had. I co-wrote the song with Niko Friesen, and it was a song that producer Jeff Trott liked right away. It could sound a lot darker, but we have made it more of an uplifting song, than focusing on the negative side of it,” says Pierce.
The singer/songwriter has an easygoing lilt to her voice, and when combined with her lighter melodies, they often belie the more serious issues that her lyrics tackle. “It is deliberate (the lighter elements), and it is not masking what is being said, but I feel very joyful when I make music. I want people to connect through the lyrics, and find different things as they listen repeatedly, but I also (hope) that they find some joyful aspect to the music, as they listen to it. It is not calculated, but it is very natural for me to go in that way. It is intentional. You make many decisions during production, and you have to consider which way you are going to with everything, what to keep in, and how bright you want it to sound when you master it. Every decision that you make affects the end result. It’s not an accident that it ends up that way, but it is not a calculated decision before I start to write.”
Her song “The Downside Of Love,” examines the aftermath of emotional upheaval, when relationships go south. The song takes a direct shot at a medical profession that often times simply prescribes another pill, and a pharmaceutical industry all too willing to supply them in an effort to alleviate symptoms, but never addressing the underlying issues.
“I am not suggesting what people should do, but I have been alarmed by commercials on television for drugs (to help people cope), and the side effects that these so called solutions can cause. I wrote this song as a reaction to those commercials, and (to address) how these pharmaceutical drugs are often prescribed to people without a lot of consultation. I don’t want people reaching for Prozac, if they can avoid it,” says Pierce.
