Singer and slide-guitarist Rachelle van Zanten loves the planet with a passion that fires her life and her music.
Originally from Burns Lake, van Zanten expresses her vehement opposition to a government that sees only the money in the rich resources in northern B.C., while seemingly dismissing the value of people who live there.
“Harper (Prime Minister Stephen) uses Canada, he forgets about the people,” she says. “There could be possible cultural genocide if those projects go through.”
The singer-songwriter, who will perform at Shuswap Theatre Friday, Sept. 20, shared her deep concerns for the land she loves by speaking at the recent Enbridge Hearings. It was an experience she describes as speaking to puppets and one she thinks was fruitless from the start.
“They were showboating. I felt fear and I told them ‘you guys made my pregnancy hell,’ but they just kind of laughed,” says the new mom. “What am I to Harper? I am a pain in the ass, I’m too expensive to protect, like the salmon.”
But while she felt her message may have fallen on deaf ears at the hearings, van Zanten has used her abilities to turn her speech into I Fight For Life, a song that is getting airplay across Canada and in Europe.
“Once I had my daughter, I was fuelled with the firepower of a grizzly and decided to go to the next level to make sure she has the same, or better, quality of life,” she says, noting the thought of her not being able to grow her own food, drink the water or eat the fish was abhorrent.
“I do feel lucky I can spread my genuine message through music and I get to talk to people. It’s getting out there.”
As a youngster, van Zanten played the piano and various other instruments. When she was about 14, she adopted her mom’s guitar and taught herself how to play chords.
Recruited to the University of Alberta to play basketball, van Zanten continued her affair with music, becoming enamoured of several guitars – including the slide guitar she riffs on now.
A lover of the great outdoors, van Zanten studied agriculture and forestry. Along with playing for the U of A Pandas, the talented artist was also playing night clubs and writing music, to the detriment of her studies.
“I had a big decision to make – go on the road or stay and study,” she says, noting she chose a music career and has never looked back.
Adapting to urban life and relying on a grocery store for her food was hard for van Zanten, who grew up in a family that fished, shot their own meat and grew their food.
Happy to be out of the big city, van Zanten manages to get out in the forest with her partner who owns a tree-planting company.
As well as renewing her soul, the wilderness feeds her muse.
“A lick will come that sticks in my head for days, and the words seem to come from the music,” she says. “I find my lyrical content is what I am; I write from my gut.”
Earlier in her career, van Zanten says she was too immersed in her music to care much about what was happening in the world.
But when she began returning to her beloved home community, the “chains of existence,” became increasingly important. These are chains that connect people to their sources of food, water and culture, chains that make the people who they are.
“It seems like it’s never-ending. He’s relentless, he doesn’t care. He strongly believes his way is the way,” she says of Harper’s actions and the scandal that continues to plague his government. “It’s an interesting time to be alive – we’re either gonna witness a revolution or we will witness the demise of Canada.”
Fortunately, van Zanten thinks Canadians, particularly the country’s youth, will say ‘enough is enough’ in time.
Meanwhile, van Zanten is excited to be returning to Salmon Arm, not just to perform a new show but for the rich harvest available here. She’s bringing her band with her and will perform songs from her third full-length album, Oh Mother, that showcases van Zanten’s skills as a guitarist and songwriter in equal measure.
The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. Tickets at $20 are available at Acorn Music and Blue Canoe.
