S1 EP1: Shania Twain on her challenging upbringing, epic career and her divorce

Hello! Sorry, don't mean to shout. Hello, this is Louis Theroux and welcome to the very first episode of my new Spotify podcast, the Louis Theroux podcast, the clue is in the name. In this episode we are talking to the country music legend and pop icon. Ilyne Edwards, wait for it, better known as Chenaya Twain. You all know who she is, of course you do, but if this helps, I will sing. Let's go girls. That don't impress me much. Man, I feel like a woman. Okay, sorry about that. She really needs no introduction. She's sold over 100 million records making her the best-selling female artist in country music history and one of the best-selling music artists of all time. Notwithstanding all of that, she's had her fair share of setbacks, including a very painful divorce from her husband and longtime musical collaborator, Mutlang, and a potentially career-ending medical event when she lost her voice. She spoke to me from her ranch in southern Nevada and as we join the conversation, there are people at both ends trying to sort things out, including my producer Paul at my end, and her Swiss husband Frederic Tier-Bouh at her end. Also just to say there will be strong language and themes that some might find upsetting, including sexual abuse and thoughts of suicide. So here goes. Um, they're on my studio desk, Frederic. I say "l'autre côté". Did you just speak some French? Do you speak French? We, we, I'm sure. Okay, speak to me now so I can see whether you're on headphones or not. In the 3, 1986? Oh, dommage. Yep, dommage. Now Louis, we're not doing this whole thing in French, are we? Well, it would be a pretty short conversation. I'm on a 50-day streak on Duolingo though, so. Ah! Got it. How do you say I feel very stressed in French? I'm stressed. I'm stressed. The problem, technology. Should I call you Schneider or Eileen, by the way? Call me Eileen, because I feel like I know you. Yeah, I watch you so much. Wait, you've watched me stop it. You know, really? And I'm sure you've watched me at times, so you know, I'm sure you feel like you know me too. Oh my god, do I ever? I was thinking about this coming onto this call just now. Like, I never dreamed I might be speaking to you, and I don't want to gush or anything. But that craziness of when you had total domination of the charts and it just felt like you were everywhere, I was going to save this till the end, but here we are. Kind of that feeling of, wow, this woman's extraordinary. It wasn't that I thought you were speaking to me. Like, man, I feel like a woman. Clearly, she's not written from the perspective of a 25-year-old struggling journalist in New York, right? And yet there I was just really loving it. That was a universal kind of music. Were you singing along? Definitely. Especially the bit where I don't know if it goes through a sequence of key changes, but from the verse to the chorus, feel the way I feel. Oh, oh, oh. That's the bit where you're like, wow, it takes off like a ski jumper. Am I making any sense? I know I'm not speaking musically, but it's a very unexpected moment for the melody to do that. Yeah, I think it's an important part of songwriting. For the story to rise and fall and go through different phases of moods, you know, like a story does, but a musical story. And also, observing enough of a kind of melodic format that listeners aren't totally confused, but also surprising them. Just little inflections or chord changes, chord progressions that are slightly unexpected, that sort of swerve the listener a little bit into somewhere they didn't think it was going to go. But thank you for saying, I'm not, I haven't forgotten what you said about seeing my programs. I'm going to put that in my pocket, in my back pocket, and carry that with me for the next few years. We have a couple of other things in common, which I'm just going to bond with you over, other than enjoying each other's output. There we have, you said you'd seen it, you didn't say you'd enjoyed it, but I'm going to assume that you did. But one is I have French Canadian heritage, the clue is in the name Louis Theroux, and at one time thought I might have Native American heritage. My dad used to play that card quite a lot and turned out I didn't. Do you know if you'd actually have biologically Native American heritage? Are you asking me because you know I was raised by Native family? I know that your stepfather was from the Ojibwe tribe. Yes, exactly. And so you have a connection through that and work for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but also I'd read mixed reports on whether actually biologically your birth father was or wasn't. Partially, much less than my adopted father. The other thing we have in common is your producer on the new album, which I love, by the way, it's called Queen of Me. One of them is Mart Ralph, who's an old friend of mine. We used to be neighbors in Halston, North West London, and I was catching up with him just a few weeks ago and he mentioned that you were working together and he said say hi. It's so wonderful. I enjoyed working with him so much. I was expecting the sessions to be more technologically driven, but I was pleasantly surprised how organic everything was. We just pulled out our acoustic guitars and sat around and jammed out the music. I wasn't expecting that from Mark Ralph, because he makes all these great dance records and great dance mixes and everything like that. And he's a lovely person as well. He's very down to earth. His studio is not fancy at all. I mean, he's got all the gadgets, but it's quite funky. It's in a scruffy area of Kilburn and you go up some windy stairs. You could be going, I don't know, to get your back cracked by a chiropractor. What I'm saying is it doesn't feel corporate in the least. It feels like a guy's bedroom where he's doing studio wizardry and he's producing these extraordinary noises. extraordinary noises, yes. Maybe we can call them sounds for the sake of music, but no. Yeah, he's just got it all and whatever kind of record you want to make, he can make it. This is, as you know, better than anyone. This is your sixth album, which is not that many, I guess. I'm just wondering, do you enjoy the process? Is it emotionally demanding and how do you feel when you're doing it? If I could only make records, and that was my career just making records, I would do that. I love making records. I love the whole process from the songwriting all the way through to the mixing and finalizing things. It's really where I love to live creatively. You know, having dug into your story a bit, there's a few things that come up and one is, well, in the past, there was stage fright. There's also been an anxiety over your voice that when you get stressed, sometimes your voice I don't know if this is still a case, but in the past, wouldn't do what you needed it to do. It doesn't sound like that happens in the studio. In the studio, you feel pretty relaxed. There is no pressure in the studio. There's also a zone that you can get into when you're in the studio just in getting your monitor mix a certain way. And I think that that helps. It makes a very big difference because you feel more like you're in your own little sonic world. Also the fact that it's such a creative environment, I'm a little more preoccupied with creating thinking about the melody, the lyrics, the phrasing, the delivery, and less about just a vocal performance. When you go on stage, you're just the performer. Everything's already being created. The stage anxiety is, I guess, when everything zeros in on stage performance, your vocal, will you hit the right note? Will you be flat? Will you croak? Will you forget the words with all these sorts of things start coming into your mind and swirling around and before you know it, you're freaking out? I'm much less that way now. I've learned to enjoy, to allow myself to let the audience in, and they're more my focus now than my perfection as a singer. And that's made a huge difference. But it did take a long time to really get to that place. Anyways, a long story how I got there, but lots of just lots of experience and life to get to that point. Well, we've got a little time if you want to share something about, I mean, I think people could learn maybe a little bit. Did it involve some kind of therapy? Well, my best therapy is songwriting. You know, from, let's start from childhood. You have a little bit of time. We'll start from there from the beginning. Because I've been a singer since I was, you know, eight years old. I mean, I think I've been a singer forever before I even knew how to speak. I was humming and playing with my voice and playing with resonance. I remember very clearly before I even knew the words to twinkle, twinkle little star. I was humming and placing the sound so that it would resonate and tickle my nose and my tongue. I would learn that later in speech therapy that that is a tool in order to find the resonance and to work on your placement and where your placement was resonating best. So that was something I discovered just on my own, just out of a natural pleasure in finding resonance and playing with resonance. And as soon as my mother discovered that I had a talent in voice, she was putting me up on restaurant countertops and getting me to sing to the duke box and perform. for people in the diner. I didn't mind this. This I thought was quite fun. I loved the music and I was just caught up in the pleasure of singing along. My mother started taking it more seriously and started bringing me to public appearances and then I just felt really intimidated by being in the spotlight. It was like, (laughs) - Maybe this was late, but as I read it, you would go into bars some of the time, like places that would be quite intimidating for a girl, right? - I should also mention this was in Northern Ontario in Canada, like in an area that was not especially financially affluent by the sounds of it. So it was a fairly hard scrap all existence. - Yeah, I mean, the bars in Northern Ontario when I was a kid, I mean, I don't know if I would consider them rough, I mean, people would start drinking at noon. You know, it's kind of normal when I was a kid for my relatives to go to the corner bar at noon and start having a few beer and then by dinner time the whiskey bottle comes out and I want to say that that was our norm. So in the bar it was very typical for people to already be intoxicated by dinner time. And at eight years old, I was only allowed in the bar from midnight on and I was able to go on the stage after midnight because the liquor law is that after the last call, the bars technically closed. They weren't legally serving anymore. But the tables were still loaded with everybody's last call and then they're there till two, three in the morning. So we're talking about fights breaking out now at this point and people are stumbling all over the place. It's hard to keep their attention. That was intimidating for an eight year old. - She was doing it to advance your career or for a little money that you were getting or a bit of both. - Well, the money was never a guarantee at this point. I didn't start making money in bars till I was 11 officially. So when I was 11, I was a taxpayer. I was earning money under contract in the bars. But up until 11, if people wanted to give me 50 bucks or 25 bucks, then they would. And sometimes that would happen and we would hope that that would happen so we could put gas back in the car. We were the kind of family that was living, you know, $5 at a time and the gas tank to get around. - And to mouth, it sounded like. Yeah, if we had a few bucks that would go toward gas or it would go toward groceries. So I started, I was a little bar singer from the age of eight years old. And I was doing, you know, local contests. I was singing at local community centers and any station my mother could find me. So I was singing at the senior citizen homes. I'd go perform for them. My mother was quite creative in finding places for me to sing. The Native Community Center was a typical one. We would go there. - We started talking about this because it was a question of later on you grow anxiety around singing and then for a while, I think lost your voice. One person diagnosed it is like you were emotionally bottled up in some way. And of course, there was a lot of grief in the background. You were going through an extremely painful breakup. You also had other things going on in the background. A diagnosis of Lyme disease at one point. If you sort of figured out, was it all of these things that were playing into the vocal concerns? - I think it's fun being really fair to my history and the history of the anxiety. I would say that it really wasn't asshated from childhood and being in those bars where it was a very intimidating environment because I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to go up on that stage. I'm like, oh, but I did it for my mother. I did it because she believed in me so much. I didn't want to let her down. She sought this as a way out for me, maybe a way out for all of us that she really believed that I would make it. This was my only access to education. We could never afford a performing arts school, for example. So from when I was 11, my mother was able to obtain what's called a liquor license. And this allows a minor to be in a bar as if they're working. I could go in for my set and then leave between my sets. I wasn't able to stay in the bar if I wasn't on stage. But between my set, then the strippers would go on. The way people act in that environment. We've got a lot of junk men, mostly naked women. And you just know that that is not maybe an environment for a minor to be in, right? And I had to pull it together. I had to become a little professional. So I did squash down the fact that I didn't want to be there, that this was not for me. This is uncomfortable. And I had to learn to get up and perform while being uncomfortable. I just hated it. It was a squirmy, awful feeling. So as much as I loved to sing and I loved music, it was this contradiction that began that early and never left me, really. I still don't love being in the spotlight. I really have to exercise mind over matter and learn to appreciate the audience. I've learned to appreciate the audience in a very different way in the last, probably the last 10 years. But that gradual process was also due to the Lyme's disease and even prior to that, losing my music partner of 14 years through my divorce. I had this new anxiety that, oh no, now I'm actually solo again in this. - That would be mutt-lang, who was your husband for 14 years. - Yes. - Legendary producer, co-songwriter, who before he was with you was with bands like AC/DC. I read that he also produced rat trap by the boom town rats. - That's right. - Anyway, your collaboration was something really special. You were partners, is it fair to say, in every sense? - Oh, absolutely, yeah. I mean, my albums were the biggest successes of his career. Even though I had done a lot of other legendary albums. - I look to see what he's been up to lately, just as a little preparation. And he has not been selling 40 million copies of the albums he's making at the moment. Unlike the ones that he did with you, which went diamond, as they say. Just to go back, you touched on this, but I think came across really powerfully was, how difficult it was for you being in those bars as a girl. And it's a theme that comes through with what you've written about your upbringing, this sense of unwelcome male attention from all quarters. And sometimes you're expecting kindness and they're like, oh, come over and sit on my lap or whatever. And it turns out he's a creepy guy wants to grab a handful, right? - Yeah, exactly. You've said it perfectly. And this happens all through my career until I go to Nashville. And then this is when I'm feeling, because now I've lost my parents. I've lost-- - I died in a car crash when you were 22, which is what a horrendous, I mean, oh my god. - Yeah, and that's a whole other story too, you know, because-- - Because then you had to raise your-- was it three or two younger brothers? - Yeah, there were three kids still left at home. I moved in with them back into the family home. It was a very, very difficult time. It was a lot of choices that I was too young to make or to be expected to make, but there was just no choice at that time. Well, there was a choice I could have just walked away, of course. - Who would have looked after your siblings if you'd walked away? - Well, my sister would have been forced to live on her own before she was ready. My brothers would have been separated and living with relatives, but they wouldn't have been able to stay together, which I thought would have been devastating. So I decided that four of us would stay together. And then I would do my best to create a nest for us. And I found the best paying job that I could, that did happen to be a singing job, so that was lucky. - It was at a resort, was it a gambling resort, was it a golf resort? - It was a golf resort, and more of a production show was nothing like the bar shows that I had. - Show business spectacular, all singing, all dancing, big hair, sequins. - Exactly, you know, makeup, which I knew how to wear mascara, that was it. But the rest was all new. Now I'm into really sexy gowns and high heel shoes that I didn't know how to walk in. All kinds of new things. I was just doing everything by ear and I was used to doing everything freestyle. And now I've got cues and I've got to start on three and I've got, you know, it was an education and it was under the gun. Because now I've got a paycheck that I have to get. I need the kids to live in a house. I didn't want them to live in an apartment. We had a family dog. I was trying to give them a life that would jar them the least. But by the time I get to Nashville, I've been through so much already. You were 28, right? Well, maybe slightly younger. 28 when the first album came out. - Yeah, when I first went to Nashville, when I first got my deal, I think it was more like 24, 25 maybe. And I had this new defense mechanism and I was also really fearless. - Well, you'd been through a lot, hadn't you? I mean, I don't want to overdo it, but it sounds like an extraordinarily tough upbringing in many respects. Your parents, your mum and your stepfather, Jerry, were at each other's throats. He was physically abusive to her. In addition, you've spoken about how he sexually and physically abused you. You also have spoken appreciatively, affectionately and gratefully about both your parents, Jerry included. And when I've heard you speak and write on the subject, you do it without any sense of reproach. There's no sense of kind of vengefulness. Mainly what I hear is kind of gratitude. And then sometimes, you're not going to be able to do it. As I see that you've maybe come to appreciate more that you have a reason to feel angry or trespassed upon by your stepfather, I'm just wondering, in so far as you're able to talk about it, have you been on a journey of how you feel about all of that or did you just seem as extremely like all the different sides of him and you just choose not to endorse one in particular? How do you think of him now? I still think of him now the same way I always did, only I recognize more how unhealthy that relationship was. Now I see it more objectively. It doesn't make me angry. The best way I can explain it is, I think once you already love someone, you appreciate them for protecting you and saving you because we were three kids alone with a single mother who couldn't manage. You suffered with depression, right? I didn't notice her depression until they were married though, so I don't know what came first, but the violence was very early on in their relationship, so I was four when you first started beating her. So there were these just cycles of violence and then depression, then we'd be up for a little while. A big up for us was when the most, for some reason, money to go to the grocery store. We're going to get groceries. This wasn't an event in my family, okay? It wasn't just like a weekly thing. This was maybe once a month or something like that. We were going to the grocery store and it was very festive, very celebratory time and everyone was happy for a little bit. It was very much a roller coaster ride of these things and there would be other lows. We would run out of gas for the furnace. We would be cold for days and sometimes in the winter. My dad would always try to make sure that if the gas ran out, that we still had electricity, so we could at least huddle around the stove, the electric stove, for heat in the morning, things like that. You know, we'd have in wash our clothes a lot and then we would dry them in front of the stove, the electric stove, stuff like that. I burned so many socks this way you have no idea. I'm laughing, but I'm laughing sincerely because there was always a sense of humor that came with my dad. You know, there was so much confusion that I think now I don't spend time in therapy trying to unravel at all. I just see it. I believe for what it really was, which was an individual who really did sincerely try his best to provide and protect and take genuine parenthood responsibility of kids that were not his, but he had this other side that was dangerous and unstable. So whatever was bad about him didn't make me and still doesn't make me hate him. It makes me feel sorry for him because he was so lost and so confused. I mean, I feel like I understand just by watching the dynamics in his own relationships of his immediate family that he was just part of a cycle already, you know, a very abusive cycle. And I became part of that abusive cycle and we were all in it together in this very, you know, violent, very dysfunctional, very deprived situation off and on throughout our lives together. I knew enough that it was wrong in the moment, in the time, and I could compare to other families. And we knew not to invite friends over. We knew that if things were exposed about our family that we would be reported. So you learned to mask very well. I acted like I was fine all the time. I always had great excuses as to why we were dirty or why we didn't have anything to eat or why my mother never left the house, you know, a lot of time. Half her hair was ripped out of her head or she was black and blue or she was just in bed for days, you know, stuff like that. So I guess around the age of 13, well, at the age of 13, I declared that that was the worst year of my life to myself, like literally out loud. This is the worst year of my life and I am not going to get any worse. I'm going to make sure that this is the last horrible year of my life. So I waited till my dad was at work and I brought my mother a coffee in a cigarette in bed. I got all the kids in the car and then when everyone was ready, I got her out of bed and I said, get dressed, we're leaving. She was quite confused but I was able to convince her. I said, like everybody's already in the car, everything's in the car. All you got to do is get behind that wheel and drive. That's all you got to do. And she did. And we drove to Toronto, which was a 10 hour drive. And we find something to do with battered wives. So I say, "Mom, you're going to have to talk because they're going to know I'm a kid and they're not going to take me seriously." So we went to the shelter that was like a general homeless shelter and then we were placed into a battered woman's home. Were you conscious of wanting to protect, you know, in pushing your mum or orchestrating this escape? Was it in your mind that you were protecting your mum or protecting yourself? I was protecting all of us. Both my mother and my father threatened to kill each other many times over the years. They would confess it to me. My dad and I would go on long hunting drives that night. I was his, like, right hand man. I was the tomboy in the family. So I learned how to shoot a gun very early. Well, I bring to another question which is, because you mentioned that you felt it was an unhealthy relationship and I wonder if that was specifically about the abuse, the sexual abuse, or did you mean in a more general sense as well? Oh no, like violence. Physical violence as well. Oh, yeah, more than second. I really thought he was capable of killing us. I knew that. I mean, of course, you know, my mother was. Why didn't you hate him for that? There were three elements, I think. And I always held on to feeling saved by him, that where would be be without him. He still would go out and do his best to keep work, to keep jobs. He was an Indian Canadian and he was. There was a lot of prejudice, so he would face that and had a harder time getting work. He was always very generous to everyone. He was so generous. He always took care of his siblings, his cousins, his relatives would come over. He would take people off the streets. He was just such a gent, he was a kind person. You clearly said gentle. It seems extraordinary, but I think I understand what you mean. His default setting was maybe, and most of the time he was kind and humorous and thoughtful, but he would go into this other mode. Exactly. And you could see it coming on. Can I ask something which is, you know, in your book which came out a few years ago, there is a fleeting, like very glancing reference to him being inappropriate, like you're snoozing, you're dozing and he comes up and he touches you inappropriately. And then there's another mode where you whispers foul things. Like horrible, calling you a slut and disgusting. While you're asleep or he thinks you're asleep. Other than that, though, you don't go into much in the way of sexual abuse. Because in other ways, the book is extremely frank, right, and very revealing about all other aspects of your life so far as I can tell. And I wondered whether you just weren't ready or you didn't feel. Why are you held back on that? Well, I think it doesn't really matter. I think what matters is that abuse is. There are so many levels of it. You know, in my mind, I'm thinking, I don't really even know what was worse, one or the other. What is most important, I think, in order to help people understand, like why it's. Or maybe it's not normal. Maybe you're supposed to hate the person that you love. You see what I'm saying? I think it's more important for me to just say, I don't hate this person. No matter what it takes me or anyone else around me, even though I put myself on the line to protect my family and my mother, I put myself on the line of fire. I still just believe that he was sick. And I do think there's a difference. That's why some people go to mental institutions and some people go to jail. I've done a few documentaries in this area. It's a big question. It's actually violent behaviour or it's actually intrusive behaviour is a symptom of a mental condition, but not necessarily a mental illness, if that makes sense. So you can't get off by reason of insanity for being, say, a pedophile or a psychopath. You know what I mean? They would say, well, that's got nothing to do with anything. You're just describing a set of personality characteristics, but it's no excuse. By the way, I'm not making the case that you should feel more resentment towards Jerry. You should feel however you feel. Well, you know, I watch documentaries. I do watch a lot of crime documentaries and how victims and victims families, some of them get to a place of forgiveness. So there's something in them that has come to understand that there is a reason behind this. So I think that when you can see a reason, you've already detangled a lot of confusion. So If I've suffered from anything, through all of it, regardless of what the abuse was, was the confusion. That was the most treacherous. I can see that he's not well. I can see his face change. I can see something coming over him that he can't control. - You're talking about the physical violence, specifically, not the sexual. Is that right? - Yeah, that's a difficult one. That's a difficult one. I can't answer that. I do feel that, I don't know, I still think something came over him that was just so abnormal. And maybe I'm just saying it was so abnormal for me to grasp that it was mental illness, you know? I would say though that at this point now, I haven't developed with more perspective instead of developing anger or resentment, I feel less confused. So there was a lot of anxiety in that house from all of us. And I learned to cope with a lot of things that I guess when I go back to the stage fright and where I'm at right now, I'm like, that should not scare me. You know what I'm saying? Getting up on stage and hitting the wrong note or not reaching the note one night, forgetting the words or maybe the note doesn't even come out should not scare me. - I should reflect the fact that having made the escape to Toronto, you then live there for the best part of a couple of years I think. And then in the end, your mum kind of caves and goes back to Jerry. Do I have that more of this right? - Yes, you have it right. (gentle music) You're listening to the Louis Thurough podcast. Hi, I'm Louis Thurough and you're listening to the Louis Thurough podcast and now back to my conversation with Shania Twain. - Sonny, I'm reading your book now you talk about more pain and loneliness when you're successful than when you are still struggling which seems really paradoxical, you know, especially because so much insecurity and grief is associated with poverty but there's a moment you've described over the years when you were doing a promotional tour of come on over, you're wildly successful or actually might have been the woman in me where you're on the road, you're in Las Vegas and you feel so lonely and overwhelmed. You're working these 18 hour days and you're on the phone to someone and I wouldn't call it an urge but a fleeting thought goes through your head of like I could just fling myself through that window. And actually this page is a pages of you feeling like this is misery and at a time when some people might be thinking I've finally made it, this is amazing. I've got everything, all my dreams have come true. Your thinking is I've built a prison for myself and it is absolutely horrendous. - I never wanted to be on stage. I never wanted to be in the spotlight. I never wanted to be famous. That was not my goal. I didn't have a choice to be the little performer. I didn't feel like I could say no to my mother. My mother lived for my music. She was already, you know, so weak in every way it seemed. So I couldn't not be the singer and when they died, it didn't dawn on me right away. Of course I was like shocked and overwhelmed with grief for actually a very long time. But in those first few weeks, I was just dealing with, you know, their bills, the lawyers, the insurance, the rather people in the car, they were suing our insurance. It was just so over my head. So I'm thinking I don't have to sing anymore. I can quit music because my mother is gone now. I can write music till I'm blue in the face. I can stay in my bedroom with my guitar and just indulge in my own joy of music and never have to get up there and do it in front of anybody else ever again. So I call a good friend and I say, I think I'm going to just take off and go somewhere, find myself. Well, my friend says, no, don't do that, please don't. And of course, I couldn't let go of the kids. That just became more and more clear that that was gonna be really impossible, that there was no other way than for us to stay together. So she says, there's this job, this resort, this golf resort, where they hire entertainers and I've heard the pay is pretty good. Let's go together and you can check it out in audition. So she was right, the pay was really good. I was able to afford a mortgage, but I realized that all my other friends have been to college. They've all got skills. What am I gonna do? Music is actually all I know how to do to make money. So I decide, well, if I'm gonna do it, I'm not staying here to do it. I'm gonna get some demos together. I'm gonna set a goal to only record my own music so that I can get up on stage and do my own songs. It was the only way that I could see myself carrying on on this path. I do an audition tape, got me a deal right away. So that part happened pretty much overnight. I can see myself being a singer, songwriter, artist. As long as I don't have to be a cover singer, I can just determine more of where I'm going as an artist and who I can be. So you know, I had a slight step back. I didn't get to write all the songs on my first album, but I did understand very quickly that if I persevered, I could probably get there. And besides, there was no going back. Like the further I got into that decision, the less of an option it wants to go back. I had no parents, the kids are dispersed. I have no excuse to pursue my only possibility right now of something I've spent years crafting. Even if it's not what I wanted to do, I still spent all that time getting good at this. So what Lang here is my first record, loves my voice. He's seriously interested in if I'm a songwriter. He only likes to work with songwriters. So I sing in some songs over the phone. I've never met the guy yet. I don't know what he looks like. He was living in England, I think, at that time. So he was from South Africa originally. So you were having a kind of professional phone relationship, right? Absolutely. We talk for hours. I share all my song ideas. He loves them. He loves my voice organically over the phone. Flies me over to England. We write for two weeks together there. We basically write the whole of the woman in me. We fall in love. Was it the second time I went over? The love part happened pretty fast. But I think it was a different thing. You said you fell in love with him at first sight. No, it was an interesting connection. It was a very, very strong first connection. But I wasn't in love with him. But that grew really fast. And especially musically, we were just so aligned. I had so much experience singing and writing and performing pop and rock music already. All of my teams, because the bars stopped hiring country acts and they started hiring top 40. So now my repertoire goes to top 40 from about the age of 15 and 16. And I'm singing Journey and-- Forna, Pat Benessar. Forna, exactly. And some folk stuff. Now my roots remain in country as my first music. And my songwriting skills started there. But my chops and all of my style, they evolved. Everything evolved. I become this hybrid kind of artist of all my influences. And so I related very well to that who was, obviously, huge rock background. Awesome and R&B as well. He had made that huge album for Billy Ocean. Right, and amazing ballad. He co-wrote everything I do. I do it for you. Exactly. So this is great, Beladier. Which kind of predicts and certain respects. Look at us holding on. You're the one. You're still the one. Here we go. No, that was me. Was that all you? That was me. I wrote that song. Still the one. Even the little backing trills. He wrote the backing trills. There you go. I wrote the melody and the lyrics. And he wrote the song. I can hear him on that, can't you? He can actually hear his, he's a man of mystery. I don't really want to talk about much. But we could say what we like. Because we know he's not going to say anything. He never gives any interviews. He pops up for about five seconds in one documentary. You just see the back of his head. And he says something about, you know, imagine those lighters out there and you're singing to an audience full of lighters out. People waving their lighters. That's all we've heard. I don't know. I wonder if he really ever said that. But honestly, it was just a very collaborative relationship. We both had our strengths. And I think one of his greatest strengths to my benefit was that he was a fan of what I did. And he shared that often. He was openly thrilled when I came up with the right lyric. He knew and I got it right. He loved my sense of melody. He was always very, he was genuinely respectful of my talent. And that's really a design of a brilliant producer, anyway, isn't it, to really understand the strengths of an artist. And you know, if I wasn't getting it, he'd send me a win till I came back with something that was really impressive. But I was able to impress him. This was my talent. And thankfully, I was able to impress a very brilliant producer. You know, impressing him meant I was going to impress millions of other people. And those three albums that you did together, the woman and me come on over and up will live forever. So you have that. The break up, which you referred to, basically, you had a sort of personal assistant. called Marianne, who you confided in, and you were extremely close, and you felt that something was up with Mart, you felt he was drifting away somehow, and you talked to her about it, and she said, "What's going on?" And she said, "No, you're imagining it." Meanwhile, it turns out the two of them were having an affair, which is about as horrendous a scenario, you know, on the personal front, as you can imagine. If of any scenario that doesn't involve physical violence, right? - Yeah. - It's a double betrayal. But as it turns out, you find love with Marianne's husband or ex-husband to be, Frederick Teebo. So it does have a happy ending. But I just wonder whether, having been through all of that, valuing the work you did with Mart, valuing him, having so much affection for him, but at the same time, having been betrayed in this way, have you ever, like, I guess my question is, have you ever sat down with him and said, "How could you do this to me?" - Am I out of touch with my angry side? It's like what you're getting at. - I think you might be, but that may be a good thing, and I can relate to that. By the way, a lot of the experiences you've had, I can completely relate to without drawing a direct, and I've been in situations where I've been betrayed, and if you're with someone who's unfaithful, it's incredibly weakening. You would think it puts you on some moral high ground, but instead you feel less, you feel lessened. You almost want the other person more, and they want you less, 'cause they're happy with whoever they're with. - It's terrible. - I understand exactly where you're coming from, but I just also wonder whether, you're thinking about, like, I think you're a good person, you're the father of my child. We had so many great years together. Like, how could you do this to me? Like, how did you make yourself okay? What was going through your mind? It's, you know, those questions. - I think whenever these things happen, I always look at them as a death. That's not a death, but I mean, there's different kinds of deaths. I think as a child, I think my innocence died early. I wasn't ready for my innocence to be gone. My parents died. I wasn't ready for them to die. My husband betrayed me and left me. I wasn't ready for it to be over. My voice was in my own mind and understanding of it, gone forever. I wasn't ready to never sing again. I think in all of those deaths of whatever, it was I was losing the permanency of it that there was seemingly a finality to it and then not being ready for it. It's like, whoa, wait a minute. I'm not ready. You're at the starting line. They fire the gun and you're not fucking ready. It's that feeling. It's like it's too fucking late. Everyone else is gone. You weren't ready. And it's a horrible helplessness that you can't change it. You can't do anything about it. You can't go back. And you missed whatever it is that it might have been. Now the outcome is changed forever. I just think you have to go through the process until there's a light. That's my optimism. I'm always looking for the lights. It's devastated as I am with any kind of grief. And I can stay there for a while. I don't want to give anyone the impression that I just bounce right back up. I can definitely turn in my emotions. My therapy of songwriting is a meditative thing for me. So if I can isolate myself and I usually rely on my guitar, it's kind of my companion in this process, then I go off into a different place. And mind over matter starts to kick in. And I start to imagine and experience that there's somewhere to go. You're not stuck. There's still somewhere to go. It's kind of like being in prison. I felt like when I was a child, I was in prison. And sometimes emotionally, I feel imprisoned. And when I lost my voice, I believed the doctors that maybe I am emotionally imprisoned. And that's why I can't sing anymore. I actually believed that for a little while. You don't believe that now? Or do you think there was anything-- No, that was cobbler's question. No, that wasn't the case. It was a biological thing. But I mean, I could understand the logic of that explanation. And because there was no other explanation for a while, that was the only one that I had. But going to the songwriting gives me somewhere to explore positivity. And if I jump forward to this album, this music, the Queen of Me, and that frame of mind, I tend to write myself out of the past. It's like that's kind of where that meditation takes me. It takes me out of the past into anywhere I want to go. Skies and limit. I can write any kind of song I want to write. Even if I never recorded, it doesn't matter. It's for me. This is my self-help. You had a 15-year break after "Up Came Out" and you were raising your son, Asia. And then 2017, your album "Up Came Out," which I think seemed to reflect the experience of betrayal and of anger and it and heartbreak. And I think I could, in listening to it, hear some of that, some of that tragedy that you'd been through. I'm just wondering, now here we are, six years on 2023. Is there a story in "Queen of Me?" It sounds like a cheesy question. No. Other than your breathtaking talent, your songwriting, your performing, and singing, what people relate to and you is also a kind of quality of a touch singer, Sean Turd, someone whose experiences reflect the tragedies that they've been through a survivor, which I think is true of country, you know, you think about Loretta Lynn or Tammy Weinett. And you know, we project a lot of our struggles onto the performer. And just wondering in terms of the narrative of where you're at, what does "Queen of Me" represent and how you're feeling in general? "Queen of Me" is my frame of mind. My frame of mind in writing the album, taking charge of my mood, my frame of mind, choosing to stay positive in my thinking in a dark time. You know, the whole album was written during COVID. I shared, you know, a lot of similar concerns and anxiety and uncertainty and fear as everyone around the world. You know, we all shared it together. This weighs on me as a mother, as a wife, and going into my self-help mode of singing and writing with my guitar, I could write myself into a better mood and taking charge of your perspective, what you represent to yourself and then what you hope to reflect on others is being your own boss in charge of yourself, "Queen of Me." "Queen of Me" is just a creative way of saying all of that. There's a track called "Pretty Lier," which is the first song of yours I've heard where you use some rather salty language. You say, "Your pants are on fire, you're such a fucking liar." - I love salty. - What a great word. I want to use that one in a song. Salty, that's a great word. - So that was a little different. - Yeah. - Did you have anyone in mind? - You know, I did not have a month in mind when I wrote that song. - I thought it'd be Marianne, if it was going to be anyone. - And since his more anger towards her than to him. - I will never forget how I felt to all of that, you know, shock and then the recovery period, but I'm just really over those negative feelings because I just worked through them. You know, I'm just, it took a lot of time and I wrote a lot of it out in the now album. I really got a lot out there. Oh, this feels so good. I'm writing all this stuff that I would never write normally as "Shinaya" maybe. I mean, musically, you know, there's a lot of minors and I was really indulging in these, like, a more melancholy darker place with some angst. I loved it. I loved the process and I love writing music like that, but it was more autobiographical in the sense that I was venting. Now, I'm singing my truth that doesn't include that same angst. So, no, I wasn't thinking about either of them. I was thinking about more about my youth and in a lot of the album, I was thinking a lot about my youth and reflecting more on "Gropie Men" and with a sense of humor, not with angst, which is the contrast I love in this song. I love the way it all came together because I do swear a lot in real life. Prove it. Well, fuck, fuck. Yeah, the biggest swear for me, my most satisfying one. Go on. If you really want to know. I know what it's going to be. I think I know. Tell me. Jesus fucking Christ. That's a good one. Was it that? That's a very Canadian one. I grew up hearing that from my dad. Yes. He was born in Raiden Boston, but actually, as I mentioned, French Canadian extraction and when I, I think I read somewhere that that was one that you heard a lot and I thought maybe that's a thing like in New England in French Canada. In France. Wearing is a very big thing. Both in French and English, by the way. That's symmetry. Like there's something neat about inserting an obscenity inside a sacred name. I know. It's got a really special. One of the most satisfying ones, and then we'll move on from square bit to most. One of the most satisfying ones is for fucksakes. Right. And then the other one, this one I really mean. This is when I get angry. Like for fucksakes is not necessarily angry. And it's just like for fucksakes, what do you mean by that? But if I'm really mad, if you get me mad, it's don't fuck with me. I don't have to say that very often. But when I say that, - Who would you have to say that to? - Well, mentally, I say a lot. I say it a lot in this song, "Pretty Liar." - But not to your beloved husband. - Oh, no, never. No, no, I would--no. He never makes me feel that way. No, no, no. - Although I often think it's like our nearest adheres that we save our worst behavior. - No, no, this one is a different level. If you touch me in the wrong place, now I'm going there. You know, so if you lie to me, this is where "Pretty Liar" comes in, because it's that kind of scenario. I've come across so many guys like that, because I was in a man's world so much in music. I've just had so many men just get out of line. And for no, I'm not even saying that there's ever a reason for a man to get out of line, but I could never even work out what did I do to deserve that. - I know we're going to wrap things up. - Before we go, I wanted to revisit one thing that you asked me that we didn't include. You were saying that in my most successful peak period or when I'd broken in-- - When you first emerged to a stratospheric level, I think you were doing a promotional tour of "The Woman in Me" and it was a grueling schedule. I was talking about when you were in Las Vegas on the phone to someone. - Yes. - It wasn't the success that made me feel caged. I was able to adapt to that, because I don't really mind being isolated and I've always had elements of that for various reasons since my childhood, but it was the workload and not being able to take care of yourself the way any human being should. Eventually, I started saying, like my sort of safe term was, this is not even civilized. Because you don't want to complain when you're making it, you're doing great, everybody knows it's hard work, but with stage fright, the things that I had to do in order to live up to my end of my contractual obligations, which I felt very committed to. I'm a professional. It was crippling me. I couldn't escape it. So this was really more of a desperate mental state that I was in and not so much about the success. I'd always worked to be successful, because first of all, success at the beginning was just feeding myself without getting the food that was passed this cell by date, which I had to do a lot of my life. That was already success. I'm like, holy, I can shop with oak coupons, I can shop and not worry about having to put things back when I have to pay at the cashmage for stuff like that. That's already success when you come from where I'm from, that success. The takeaway I got was that things ran more smoothly for you when you began taking your horse on tour with you. Yes, so mental well-being. In its own trailer? Yes. Fame needs balance. And I took my horse along with me. And I would ride before soundcheck every day that I could. Self-care is important. I had totally neglected myself and my mental state while I was in those years of intense scheduling and commitments. So yeah, my horse was a great savior. And don't forget, I mean, not that you would have known, but when I'm touring in on a very heavy promo schedule, I'm not writing. And without my songwriting, I'm not getting my therapy. Like, that is my actual therapy. It's my medicine. You're listening to the Louis Theroux podcast only on Spotify. Hi, me again. Louis Theroux just to remind you, you're listening to the Louis Theroux podcast. And now back to my conversation with Chennai Attwein. So we would say, "Luis" in French. We would call you "Luis". Really? Yeah. We would pronounce it as "Louis". Not "Louis". "Louis" I mean, it's. It's French till then. I know. Rad. He's listening. "Elecoute". Who's the true Fred? So it's Louis or Louis. Louis, or Louis. Louis. But why is that? Louis is in Spanish. Oh! Louis. The pre-norm Louis. Okay, you're right. Louis, Louis. Louis. Louis. Oh, okay, Louis. Oh, c'est faxé! Darn it! Ask Fred, he'll tell you. He's done duo-lingo. But we all say "Louis" with a French accent. So anyway, I'm an anglophone trying to tell you how to pronounce your name. How much of a jib were can you speak? I can only remember thank you, which is me Gwetch. I used to understand a lot of Ojibwe because it was always spoken in my house. For real, that's amazing. Yeah, yeah. I think that's what go to Ojibwe when they didn't really want us to be able to follow along. And they mumbled a lot in Ojibwe. They definitely didn't always want us to hear what was being said. Should we invite the team back? Here they come. Eileen, you're quite the storyteller. I have to say, that's my favorite kind of interviewer. I'm just like, "Wow, that is amazing." Well, you're awesome. And I'm such a fan. Let's talk more about that. You don't have your beard right now. Yeah, the beard comes and goes. I'm seeing you more often without the beard. And then in lockdown, my beard fell out. No way. Yeah, I got some kind of stress-related alopecia. It's the best interpretation I have of it. And caused most of the beard just to kind of whither away. She said. But anyway, it's nothing to worry about. No, I don't have to shave as much. Look at Paul. Look at the undergrowth he has to wrangle. You know, Eileen worked as a forester. She could probably hack through some of that. I did. We never even talked about my forestry years. I know. I loved all those stories. Yeah. So many sides do I, Eileen? Well, I hope you enjoyed that. I did. It was a real privilege talking to Shania. And as is often the way I had a slight case of "S.We. To Scalier" afterwards, a kind of things I should have said moment. One of them was her horse going on tour with her, reminded me of something I'd heard about. The guitarist, the radio head apparently. When he's on tour, he brings a folding bike. He likes to explore whatever city he's in. Go on a little cycle ride and just to get out of this sort of the tour bus mindset. A horse is maybe even better but less convenient. You know, I haven't spoken to that many legends. What I got from Shania was a sense of approachability. She seems utterly without pretension, without any grandness, whereas she'd be well within her rights to be a little bit grand. She feels like someone you could pop over and have a cup of tea with. The album, by the way, I wasn't just saying it for a fact like it is really good and I think it went to number one. So that's nice. She's still doing the do. Oh, Jesus, I hope I was recording. That was, was I? This podcast was produced by Paul Cobrag and Maan Al-Yazari. The production manager was Francesca Bassett, and the executive producer is Aaron Fellows. The music in this series is by Miguel Diolivera. Extra technical assistance from Vredirique-Tierbo, also known as Mr. Shania Twain. I just thought I'd give him a credit. This is a Mind House production exclusively for Spotify. But that's the third role. I said it.