We reach Ann Vriend in a beautiful, airy home in Bad Münstereiffel, Germany.
The Edmonton soul singer is touring her solo show through Europe but today we’re talking about AV & the Inner City, her all-female, six-voices-and-keys soul ensemble.
It was a group she never saw coming.
“If you would have told me in 2019 that this would be in the crystal ball I would have said, ‘really? Are you sure you got the right person?’” she says.
Its origin story involves a pandemic and a porch.
It was April 2020. Touring had come to an abrupt halt.
“I live in the inner city of Edmonton so there’s a lot of foot traffic on my street,” says Vriend. “I thought I’d just put out my keyboard and a little microphone system on my porch and play a few songs.”
People loved it, and wanted more. Johwanna Alleyne, who had sung back-up for Vriend before, asked if she could sing too.
Soon Vriend started inviting other bands to play. People would come off the street to sing and Vriend and her musician friends would back them up. More singers came. More bands came. More listeners.
“By July of that first pandemic year I had pretty much a mini festival every Sunday,” she says.
The next summer, the social gathering rules had changed. Vriend started getting booked for small gigs.
“I didn’t want to do them solo,” she says, after a year of singing with so many other voices on the porch. “It was so nice to have a chorus of vocals with me and singing the harmonies.”
She asked her porch singers to join her. They decided to get serious about it and started rehearsing.
The group – Vriend, Alleyne, Debbie Houle, Crystal Eyo, Alenka Lundell and Jenn Dahlen – also came up with their name.
Their inspiration is very much tied to Vriend’s neighbourhood, McCauley, where they spent their first year singing together. It’s well known for crime and people experiencing homelessness and addiction. The opioid crisis has hit it hard, says Vriend.
“I’ve been living there for over 16 years now so I’m ‘used to it,'” she says, using air quotes, “as used to it as a person could really get to something that disturbing and sad. But for some of the people coming [to the porch concerts] it was their first real in-your-face confrontation with that problem and I think it was pretty eye opening for people.”
“That backdrop to our formation as a group and what the topics of the songs are, are not just fluffy light little things.”
In June 2022, the group was accepted for a showcase at the Toronto Blues Festival and immediately started getting booked for festivals.
They’ve released two singles already. The ultimate goal is to have their “rootsy soul” album out by the winter of 2026.
“I wanted to keep it very close to what our live show is,” says Vriend. “I’m the only one playing an instrument, it’s me and five singers so very vocal and harmony-driven. It’s like having a horn section but of voices. It’s really powerful.”
AV & the Inner City are performing in Edmonton on July 27 and at the Bear Creek Folk Music Festival, August 16-18. Details and tickets here.
Learn more about this group with this music video/documentary: