Jakalope's Katie Biever Went From Agricultural To Industrial

Katie Biever doesn't look like a farm girl — at least not when she's fronting the pop-rock-industrial collective Jakalope or appearing in their videos. When she's sporting pink hair and sashaying around in some kind of goth-burlesque get-up, this comely young lass seems to be a long way away rural Alberta.

And yet grow up in rural Alberta she did, specifically on a farm near Airdrie. While its now rapidly becoming a suburb of Calgary, Airdrie was much more of a small prairie town when Biever was growing up there.

"I was a complete farm girl," she says. "I really grew up feeding cows, riding horses and going and getting eggs. I was a small town, farm, 4-H girl."

Although Biever's work with Jakalope doesn't seem to have much connection to these rural roots, she feels that she owes much of her work ethic and determination to her upbringing.

"I really learned the value of hard work growing up on a farm," she explains.

"I think that probably played a role in the way I am and the way I appreciate what I've got, because I did grow up in a small town, where this isn't the normal thing to do. But I knew I wanted it and my parents were always very supportive. 'Anything you want, you go out and get it.' That's what I was taught."

Biever regularly returns home to visit family and friends, and notes how much the community has changed over the years.

"Airdrie is growing so fast," she says."I don't even know my way around half the time when I go there. I remember when we had one set of lights. Now there's two McDonald's."

Now based in Vancouver, Biever has been doing promotion for Jakalope's upcoming sophomore record, Born 4. The album features crunching guitars and aggressive drumming and shifts the focus a bit away from the programming of their debut. Dave "Rave" Ogilvie, Phil Carivano (Monster Magnet) and co-producer Trent Reznor were again at the helm.

Biever contributed lyrics and melodies to the album, like she did to the first one, and she's come a long way. She recalls her first efforts at songwriting, prior to joining Jakalope, with a mixture of pride and embarrassment.

"It was pretty 19-year-old. It was whatever chords I could play on guitar and the melodies I could come up with and play at the same time. I was just dying to do it. It was just whatever I could get to come out of that guitar and out of my voice.

"You gotta start somewhere. I remember that was my goal. Somebody told me, 'You've got to write 10 songs to get one good one.' So I just wrote. Some of them I'm quite proud of. Some of them will stay in my head as a step up to learning how to be a songwriter."

Jakalope plays Toronto's Opera House on Saturday night.