victoria’s diary (IF YOUR BROWSER CAN’T VIEW THE BLOG ENTRIES ON THIS PAGE, Click here to view THEM on facebook)

Cinderella At The Fallsview

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:49:34 -0500

I’ve spent the past week feeling like Cinderella with the perfectly-fitting glass slipper on my foot! I was invited to be one of six songwriters participating in the ASCAP/SOCAN International Songwriting Retreat at the Fallsview Resort in Niagara Falls…and what an amazing experience it turned out to be.

When I first arrived and opened up the door to my complimentary suite on the 32nd floor of the Fallsview Hotel, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Dining room, chandelier, two marble bathrooms, whirlpool tub, and a full wall of windows across the entire suite (including the shower and tub) looking straight down on Niagara Falls, complete with misty rainbows hanging in the air. It was absolutely breathtaking. And not only that, but I was also given a special pass allowing me to order room service or eat at any restaurant in the complex for free!

Ok – I have to admit – I felt kind of guilty. I mean, here’s boring old, sweatpants-wearing me, owner of a 6 year old compact car and a 900 square foot house I struggle to pay the mortgage on, being treated like some kind of royalty. So what did I do? Well, first I jumped on the bed for a while like the kid from “Home Alone” (you probably think I’m kidding but I’m not)…then I ordered room service (of course!), took a giant bubble bath in the jet tub and headed downstairs to meet the rest of the writers - I’ll tell you more about them in a minute.

And the fairy tale just kept going after that…the next night I had planned to pick up my sweetie (who was flying up from Nashville for the weekend) at the Buffalo airport in my little car, but the Fallsview folks insisted on sending me in a fully loaded long black stretch limo! His flight was delayed by an hour, so the limo driver and I parked in the VIP lot to wait. I guess it’s not supposed to be kosher limo etiquette to invite the limo driver to watch a movie with you in the back of the limo, but I figured why not? I could use the company. So we sat back there and watched a Jim Carrey movie until the plane landed.

Photo: Dave and I with the view of Niagara Falls
(rainbow included) from the 32nd floor suite
at the Fallsview Hotel.

The entire week was amazing - I have never eaten so much gourmet food in my life - but I have to say that Saturday night’s show was definitely the highlight of the trip (and probably one of the highlights of my LIFE). Fallsview had booked an invitation-only acoustic show especially for the high rollers, movers and shakers of the casino, and the six of us songwriters were performing. So here’s who I shared the stage with:

-JD Souther (wrote the Eagles’ “Heartache Tonight”, “Best of My Love”, “New Kid in Town”, Don Henley’s “Heart of the Matter”)
-Darrell Brown (Grammy winner who wrote Keith Urban’s “Raining On Sunday” & “You’ll Think of Me”)
-Brett Jones (wrote Leanne Womack’s “Little Past Little Rock”, Bobby Pinson’s “Don’t Ask Me How I Know”, Montgomery Gentry’s “Whatdaya Think About That”)
-Dave Berg (Grammy nominated for Keith Urban’s “Stupid Boy”, Emerson Drive’s “Moments”, Rodney Atkins’ “If You’re Going Through Hell” & “These Are My People”)
-Deric Ruttan (multiple CCMA winner, wrote “A Lot of Leavin’ Left to Do” & “What Was I Thinkin’” for Dierks Bentley)

It was absolutely incredible to share the stage with these writers and hear so many of my favourite songs being performed. And it was an especially full-circle moment to sit on stage with Deric - who I played in a band with during our days at high school in Bracebridge Ontario – and to hear the Eagles songs we’d sung in the old days coming from JD, who was sitting right next to us! Who would have ever thought that would happen? Not me!!!

So I’d like to send out a big THANK YOU!!!!!!! to ASCAP’s Ralph Murphy, Kelly Kelly & the Fallsview folks, and the SOCAN folks for including me in such an amazing lineup of writers and extending such amazing hospitality.

I’m spending a few days in Toronto, hanging backstage at the Jessica Simpson concert in Niagara Falls later this week, and then I’m off to perform at the Canadian Country Music Awards, so I’m sure I’ll have lots more to fill you in on soon….

Jessica Simpson's "Remember That" Controversy

Sun, 3 Aug 2008 00:24:10 -0500

The tabloids are bursting this week with controversy over Jessica Simpson’s comments in a recent Elle Magazine cover story in which she discusses the song “Remember That”, written by myself and Rachel Proctor. The song reaches out to women who are experiencing abuse from the perspective of someone who has lived through it, and in the interview Jessica admits that she herself has experienced abuse in the past. (Click here to read the Elle article.)

Online message boards are overflowing with discussion about who may have abused Jessica, and why she has chosen not to come out and identify the culprit. Knowing the level of sensationalist media around her private life, I completely understand and respect her decision not to name names. If she wanted to, Jessica would have every right to identify the person, but that is beside the point. The truth is, it doesn’t matter who is responsible for abusing her. What does matter is that it can happen to anyone…and that it isn’t usually obvious to the outside world when it’s happening.

I have to say that this is something I have strong feelings about. Having lived through an abusive relationship myself, I was faced with the decision about whether to speak up about the experience or not. Rachel and I chose to write a song about it, and in doing so to share our experience with the public. The down side is that somebody might get hurt by it - suspicions and aspersions cast towards anyone, regardless of whether they’re right or wrong, are a sad side effect. But the upside is that when you think about the sheer number of women who could be HELPED by hearing that song, I believe the good outweighs the bad a thousand times over.

When Jessica talked to Rachel and I about how deeply she identified with this song, we knew it had found the right home, but we were actually quite amazed that she was going to record it. We always knew that it would have to be recorded by an artist who could identify with the lyrics of the song – lyrics that say “I’ve stood there in your shoes” – but we didn’t know if anyone would ever have the guts to publicly stand up and take ownership of having personally experienced abuse. It would be a whole lot easier for an artist to sing a song about abuse written story-style, in the third person. That could climb up the chart just as fast as this song could, but it could never change someone’s life as effectively as a song sung directly TO an abused woman BY an abused woman could. So the fact that Jessica was willing to record this song and to face the controversy it brings is both a testament to her strength and a measure of her dedication to helping other women through what she’s experienced.

Living through something like that…it’s the darkest, most painful territory of the human spirit. It leaves you with a deep compassion for others who are going through it, and a burning desire to somehow help them find their way to the light again. For Jessica’s sake, for Rachel’s and for mine, I hope that this song is a ray of light for someone when they need it most.

“Come On Over” Is A Record-Breaker!

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:06:12 -0500

I can’t believe the response that Jessica Simpson has been getting with “Come On Over”! Rachel Proctor and I wrote the song with Jessica, and it was released by Columbia Nashville as Jessica’s first country radio single at the end of May. I was performing up in Canada when the song arrived at radio stations and my phone started ringing off the hook with calls from friends all over the USA who were hearing it over the airwaves. Within minutes it was posted on YouTube, Perez Hilton’s gossip site, Entertainment Tonight online, MSNBC etc, and by the end of the day I was watching a story about it on TV’s E! News Daily. At the end of the week Billboard reported that the song had made history, breaking all previous records for the highest charting debut of a new country artist by entering at #41!

I’ve been getting a kick out of watching the progress of the song on the charts every day. You can visit www.allaccess.com, register for free, and check the “published” country Mediabase chart which updates the song’s position daily. (By the way, LW means last week, TW means this week, “Aud” means audience in millions, a red arrow signifies a “bullet” of upward momentum, “Spins” means the number of plays on major country radio stations in the USA, and you can also click on the song title to see the list of radio stations who are playing it the most).

Now, two weeks after its release, the song is at #28 in the USA (#27 in Canada) and rising fast. Since its release on iTunes a couple of days ago it is reportedly the #3 most downloaded country song and the #22 most downloaded song across all genres in the USA. (And #1 in Canada – thanks, eh!!) In the past week it has been played 1200 times on the major U.S. country radio stations alone for an audience of almost 9 million. That just about blows the top of my head off when I try to think about it.

Not only that, but the song has also been given great reviews in Billboard, R&R and Rolling Stone Magazines, and lots of great front-page press by newspapers like The Tennessean and The Chicago Sun-Times. (You can read those on my PRESS PAGE.)

Speaking of press, I have to put in my two cents in support of Jessica, who despite the great professional press on this song, seems to be a magnet for particularly nasty public criticism by online bloggers. They love to hate her. She can’t sing, she’s an airhead, her music is stupid and trite…I’ve been shocked at the cruelty and ignorance of some of the things people write. First, anyone who makes the claim that Jessica can’t sing is not a singer, because a singer would recognize that this song has a huge range (an 11th, to be specific, and anything beyond a 10th is right up there with Martina McBride and Carrie Underwood - a wider range than most of us can belt without shifting to head voice). Jessica delivers it with both personality and good intonation, and that’s a tough balance to strike. Second, anyone claiming that she is an airhead has never spent any one-on-one time with her, because it was instantly obvious to us as her songwriting collaborators that she is in fact a smart woman with substance, emotion, the great strength to overcome personal obstacles and the even greater strength not to share them with the public. Third, if you think her music is not meaningful, then just wait…wait until you hear some of the songs she’s recorded for the rest of the record. That’s all I’m gonna say about that.

I gathered with some friends to watch TV yesterday morning when Jessica performed “Come On Over” for the first time, live on ABC’s The View and backed up by Rachel Proctor on harmonies. (Click here to watch it online.) Rachel was text-messaging me with updates and photos from backstage, so it was almost like being there in person. This whole experience is such an amazing one for the two of us. She’s become my close friend and main collaborator, and from the first moment we sat down to write we realized how much we have in common. We both experienced some success early on in our careers, but since then we’ve both come through parallel times of pain and abuse, we’ve struggled to pay the bills, we’ve experienced a lot of frustration and had to learn some hard lessons about patience, and we’ve worked really, really hard to get to where we are right now. Rachel said that when the cameras came on and the band started playing the song, she stood on that stage and pictured me sitting in front of the TV in Nashville, and it was all she could do not to cry. I felt the same way. Success is a thousand times sweeter the second time around, and we are savoring every moment of this.

I heard “Come On Over” on the radio here in Nashville for the first time last night. I had worked yet another 18-hour day and I was heading home from the studio in my car. When I heard that familiar acoustic intro – the one that had come from my own guitar - my heart just about leaped out of my chest! I spent the next 3 minutes driving up and down Music Row, past the late-night deserted record labels and publishing offices and recording studios, with the volume cranked up to 10 and a big goofy smile on my face, thinking “yeah – this is my town”. What can I say? That was a great 3 minutes.

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Jessica Single, Dog Days, Shedaisy and the New CD

Thu, 15 May 2008 23:53:50 -0500

My phone rang last night, and when I picked it up, I heard the voice of my good friend and co-writer Rachel Proctor on the other end.
“Have you heard?” she said.
“Heard what?” I said, bewildered.
“We got the first Jessica Simpson single!!!!!!”
I screamed. I mean SCREAMED. So loud that the dog ran and hid under the bed.

Rachel and I have had three songs recorded by Jessica for her new country record, set for release on RCA’s Columbia Nashville label - two of which we wrote with Jessica - but we had no idea one of our songs would be her first radio single. As many of you probably know, only a couple of songs per record are selected to be played on the radio as singles. That’s where we make most of our income as songwriters, but the competition for those slots are tough and many writers never get that opportunity. This song is scheduled for release in mid-June, and after hearing some of the record in advance, I really believe that Jessica is going to be HUGE in the country market. Her voice suits the genre perfectly, so hopefully country radio will welcome her with open arms. She deserves to be treated with some respect for a change. After meeting her, I have to admit I feel a bit defensive on her behalf, especially when I’m standing in line at the grocery store counter and looking at some of the ridiculous tabloid headlines about her. I don’t know how she stands it. It’s gotta be tough.

Rachel and I are also currently in the process of writing a book to go with our song “Remember That”, which Jessica has also recorded for her project. The book, like the song, will encourage women to leave abusive relationships by sharing the stories of those of us who have experienced physical or emotional abuse in the past and have found the strength to walk away from it. It hasn’t been easy to write - it has brought up some very tough memories for both of us - but we really believe that it will be an important opportunity to share strength with those who might need it most.

On top of that, Rachel and I have been performing full band sets along with our co-writer Bruce Wallace in a monthly benefit show for Nashville’s Camp Chaos Dog Rescue, a local grassroots organization which is a passion of ours. We’re calling the series “Dog Days of Summer”, and we just had our second show which also featured a set by Mercury artist Julie Roberts. It was a lot of fun to see and hear Julie perform her hits, along with one of the songs she and Rachel and I wrote together (“Mama Said Don’t”, which has been posted on her MySpace page: www.myspace.com/julieroberts). I had a great time closing out the night with some new songs in my set. You can watch a video clip of me performing by clicking here. Also, you can check out the new songs from my latest demo session on my myspace page: www.myspace.com/victoriabanks.

In other news, I had ANOTHER great phone call earlier this week! It was from Canadian pop icon Jann Arden - someone I’ve admired for a long time. She is producing a record for the girl group Shedaisy on Nashville’s Lyric Street Records, and was calling to let me know that they were recording one of my songs (co-written with Mary Sue Englund) and had requested that I make a small change in the lyrics. It’s not uncommon for artists to ask for small lyric changes in order to help make the songs fit them, so I did the re-write and then they were off to record the vocals. I can’t wait to hear the record!

As for my own CD, it looks like I’ll be working with a major Canadian manager for the release of my new project later this year. Work is still underway on it, and I just had a fantastic photo shoot for the cover with Nashville’s Juan Pont Lezica. Juan has done most of the famous promotional photos for Keith Urban and Jennifer Hanson, and he and his wife (a stylist) did a beautiful job making me look like a rock star. Stay tuned - I’m keeping most of them under my belt for now, but I’ll be putting a few up on my site soon.

Putting together your own CD without the funding of a major record label is not a cheap undertaking. There are a LOT of upfront costs, and I’ve spent more than a few sleepless nights trying to figure out how to fund this new project and get it out there to the public. There are musicians to pay, studios to rent, hours and hours of bills for mixing and mastering, photo sessions, graphic design, and replication fees - and that’s before the videos, radio promotion and touring bills start coming in. But the universe has a funny way of providing things for you when you need them most. A few weeks ago, I replaced my friend Tia Sillers (who was down for the count with bronchitis) in a performance at Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe...and after the show, a man came up from the audience out of the blue and offered to sponsor my project! So thank you Donny Lassetter and the Thornton Steel Co. Inc. for your kind and selfless help! I can’t wait to share the final product with you!

Well, I’ve got a big weekend ahead...my good friends Lisa Brokop and Paul Jefferson are getting married on Sunday, and Mary Sue Englund and I wrote a song for them, so we’ll be singing it during the ceremony along with our buddy Tania Hancheroff. And then Rachel Proctor and I are heading up to Toronto next week to perform together in the gala headliners’ show for the Tin Pan North Festival, so I guess I’d better get packing!

Back To The River

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 23:27:40 -0500

I went through a pretty rough divorce a few years ago. You can probably tell that from my music. Writing has been a big part of the healing for me in processing all that heartache…it became a place to put the pain so I didn’t have to carry it around with me anymore.

A while ago, on a cold February day, I went through a very cathartic exercise in forgiveness. It was completely spontaneous – I just woke up in the morning and knew exactly what I needed to do. I’ve wanted to write a song about what happened that day for a long time, but I was afraid to even try because the experience was so intense that I knew it would be very difficult to do it justice in a song.

Well, the other day I finally wrote the song. I wrote it with two of the songwriters I admire most: Tom Douglas and Jamie O’Hara. Tom’s songs are works of art…”Grown Men Don’t Cry” by Tim McGraw and “Little Rock” by Collin Raye, to name a couple, and Jamie is a Grammy-winning songwriter who has had a string of solo-written hits including “Grandpa, Tell Me Bout the Good Old Days” by the Judds and “The Cold Hard Truth” by George Jones. As you can imagine, being in the room to write with two such amazingly talented writers is an unbelievably creative experience.

We started off writing a completely different song, and for some reason the conversation took a turn and I felt compelled to tell them about this experience I had…I closed my eyes and re-lived it…and the words just tumbled out. When I opened my eyes, Tom said, “That’s the song we need to write”. An hour or so later, we had it finished, and there was my story almost verbatim, painted around the edges with poetry. It’s called “Back to the River”, and you can listen to it on my MySpace site at www.myspace.com/victoriabanks. I hope you like it.