Chantal Kreviazuk and Raine Maida coming to Hamilton for book tour event
Canadian music power couple release I’m Going to Break Your Heart: A Rock ‘n’ Roll Love Story, a joint memoir about working on love over nearly 30 years together. See them at the Playhouse Cinema for a discussion, book signing, and meet and greet on Aug. 6.
Power music couple Chantal Kreviazuk and Raine Maida have never shied away from sharing the difficulties of their 26-year marriage.
The raw and revealing 2019 documentary I’m Going to Break Your Heart followed the couple as they struggled to communicate while working on their first album together. That film struck a chord with their fans, the couple says during an interview with HAMILTON CITY Magazine.
So they are back with a book, I’m Going to Break Your Heart: A Rock N Roll Love Story, billed as “a powerful, behind-the-scenes look at fame, creativity, and staying connected through it all.”
Kreviazuk and Maida will come to Hamilton Aug. 6 for a book tour event hosted by gritLIT at the Playhouse Cinema. Tickets include a book signing and meet-and-greet with the purchase of the book. Epic Books will be onsite.
“I think the book is the product of the people that have seen the doc and know us … and just wanting more, needing more,” says Maida, the frontman of Canadian alt-rock band Our Lady Peace, and producer of albums for superstars Avril Lavigne and Kelly Clarkson.
It’s not a clinical book about relationships, he says, but rather a memoir that explores their story, how their relationship got to a breaking point, and how they sought help to address unhealthy patterns.
“So we talk about our history together, but also some of the fun things that happen,” says Maida, who was born in Toronto. “I truly wanted, especially for guys, a book that you could kind of open up on any page and start reading.”
Telling their story in honest and authentic ways in different mediums – film, music, and on the page – was appealing, says Kreviazuk, a classically trained pianist, who has released 11 albums and written songs for global superstars.
Kreviazuk says she and Maida have spent a lot of time and money getting coaching and working on their relationship.
“But to me, I feel like it's our greatest work as a couple to share that.”
It’s a side of marriage that many of us don’t talk about, let alone lay bare for the world to see.
“And it's so funny this day and age that we think we talk about everything and we don't,” says Kreviazuk, who will also be in Hamilton this weekend as part of the 50th anniversary all-star concert celebrating the Festival of Friends.
“I think that this is just one example of like bullshit. We're still not there yet. We're just still weird addicts talking about comfortable things as far as I'm concerned, that just are entertaining, because we haven't gotten down to the nitty gritty at all yet, you know, which is that people are hurting, people are lonely. Raine and I are so fortunate we have our music together to always anchor us.”
The husband and wife, who met at a Pearl Jam concert at Maple Leaf Gardens on Sept. 21, 1996, each wrote their own chapters, an approach Maida calls the “evolution of codependence and interdependence.”
After almost 30 years together, raising three boys while building their independent careers and taking on various charitable causes, Kreviazuk she’s learned to refuse to project her version of perfection upon her husband.
“That’s just weird old shit that needs to go away,” says the Winnipeg native.
“I think at some point, if you're going to continue to choose your partner … you have to accept that, like, you're not going to like everything about your partner all the time, and you're not going to agree with your partner all the time, and they're their own person, and that's amazing if you can get to that place of, like it's acceptance, but it's also true love and empathy. And I, for one, really want to pitch that to everybody and challenge everybody about that.”
Life is about change, growth and evolution – in ourselves and in our partners.
It’s a standing joke for Kreviazuk that she will be Maida’s first, second and third wife, but it speaks to the idea that they are not the same people they were in their early 20s when they fell in love.
It took their couples coach Dr. John Grey to put that in perspective early on in their counselling sessions. He pointed out their journey together – kids, music, charity work they share.
“He said, ‘Wow, you have a beautiful history together,’” says Kreviazuk. “And I remember that just hitting me so hard. You can't make that up. You can't pay for that. And it is so amazing.”
But with that deep knowing comes a choice to reinvent your relationship, she says. That may need to happen four times in a marriage or a dozen.
“Sometimes for Raine and I, it feels like it’s on the weekly, but, I think that you come to this place of choosing your partner and knowing this is my person and just come with me: we're, we're going to keep rediscovering and recommitting and reinvesting and we get to be together to the end. And that's just the greatest gift of all.”
When it comes to I’m Going to Break Your Heart, the title of the film, the album (released as the couple’s duo MOON VS SUN), and now the book, Kreviazuk and Maida have different interpretations.
“I think it's a clinical way,” she says, “which is every single day, your partner absolutely annoys the shit out of you or hurts you. And you have to make decisions constantly as to what you're going to, you know, invest your energy into as a couple, what's important to repair, what's important to dissect. And what's important to let go of.”
For Maida, “it’s the idea that when you choose someone to be like your life partner, the inevitability is that someone's going to die first. And that’s the heart that broke. Or you can take that version of Chantal’s where I break her heart five times a day … ”
The gritLIT discussion will be hosted by Hamilton writer Libby Ward, author of Honest Motherhood: On Losing My Mind and Finding Myself.
It’s an honour to host music royalty for a book event, says gritLIT artistic director Jessica Rose.
“We're so excited about Chantal and Raine's new book and that they've chosen to share their story with us at one of our favourite spaces in Hamilton, The Playhouse Cinema. We know it will be an intimate evening of stories, and a rare opportunity to hear two beloved Canadian artists speak candidly about love, music, and seeking help when it's needed. For me, personally, it doesn't hurt that Clumsy by Our Lady Peace was one of the first CDs I ever bought. I know I'm not alone in feeling that Chantal and Raine's music has been present in our lives for decades.”
Fans of the couple’s music together will be happy to know that they are back in the studio and expect an album of four to six songs before a tour starts in the fall. Kreviazuk says she wasn’t convinced when Maida suggested they make more music together.
“I remember thinking I really feel good about I'm Going to Break Your Heart, the soundtrack. It feels to me like lightning striking, you know what I mean? And, obviously, I've made a lot of music with a lot of different people in my career, but for me, that's some of the most beautiful music I've ever been a part of, songs like ‘I'm Going to Break Your Heart’ or ‘I Love It When You Make Me Beg.’”
When Kreviazuk went away, Maida starting working on a follow-up album.
“It's so beautiful,” she says. “It's even more beautiful than the first album, which I can't even believe I'm saying.”
I ask them if rock ’n’ roll love stories are unique. Maida says just the chaotic nature of touring and recording are challenging to navigate. But being in music requires creativity, just like marriage.
“I see a lot of people, I see a lot of friends get stuck where it's just kind of what they were taught or what they've seen, and, you know, the ability to really try different things and not be scared of them is something that I think we do.”
But complicating all of it, are the forces of a fracturing patriarchal society, when roles and expectations are being challenged, and it seems men and women are increasingly alienated from one another, says Kreviazuk. It’s hard to not let those influences creep into a personal relationship, she says.
And when social media is weaponized for division and conflict, it’s even harder to have peace and love at home and beyond it, she says.
“We need to like lift each other up, love each other. Challenge each other, yes, but I think love each other despite our imperfections because for God's sake, we're just freaking humans on a rock floating in space.”
NEED TO KNOW
Chantal Kreviazuk & Raine Maida in Conversation
Thursday, Aug. 6, 7 p.m.
Playhouse Cinema
177 Sherman Ave. N., Hamilton
Tickets here
In partnership with gritLIT and Epic Books
