I wanna do it all, see Niagara Falls
Fight City Hall, feel good in my skin
Beating the odds with my back to the wall
Tryin' to rob Peter without payin' Paul
I wanna do it all…
-- "I Wanna Do It All"

In a world of Barbie dolls, schoolgirls, Stepford wives, sirens and sanitized-for-your-protection sex symbols, Terri Clark is a flesh-n-blood woman. She’s the kind of real life gal who'll buy you a beer, let you cry on her shoulder and be the first one to give you a whoop and a high 5 when your ship comes in, your ex moves on, or that last obstacle is cleared. Terri Clark knows it's how you do it that defines one's place in the world - and for the three-time, and reigning, Canadian Country Music Association Fans' Choice Entertainer of the Year, doing it with everything you've got is where the rubber meets the road.

"Look, I'm not everybody's cup of tea," says the strong voiced power singer, "but I don't worry about that. My energy goes into living and the people who dig my music, because that's where the power and the joy are. You want to connect hard - and that's the only way.”

"Music is a vehicle to make an impact, to connect with people. Music is so powerful; you must respect it, because of what it can do. It moved me to leave Medicine Hat at 18, knowing no one and little else, for Nashville…it moves people to fall in love… it can be therapeutic or an escape from the reality of their lives. Done and listened to properly, it can be whatever people need it to be-"

"Music and sex, really, are the most powerful things. There are no words to really describe how they feel. You can never really get enough of either - and how would you live without them? You can't."

Terri Clark, a full-grown woman who's seen it, done it, played it, lost it, and loved it, gives fans of unrelenting country music, Pain To Kill, an album that explores the phases and realities of grown-up lives. When so many Music City mavens are content with bromides and two-dimensional Hallmark examinations, the deep-throated singer/songwriter/guitar slinger coaxes the nuances from the revelations of each song that change the way people thrive rather than survive.

"I'm a strong yet vulnerable woman," she allows. "I'm very sure of what I do well - and I want to be the best at what I do. And the thing I do best is pretty simple: flat-out, hardcore, pumped-up country music. That's what I was put here to do - and to maybe bring some kind of deeper meaning, but not at the cost of the shoot-out-lights-aspect that we all need."


Promotion bumped me
Boyfriend dumped me
I gotta do something
So until the sun comes up on Sunday
I've got some pain to kill
Hurt to heal
Anything I have to do I will…
-- “Pain To Kill”

"I'm grown up now," Clark picks up. "I've always been female empowering… But now I've been married, divorced, a successful career, a couple falters, great family, great great friends - and cumulatively, it's all on this record. At this stage of the game, I'm not guessing and I'm not feeling too bad about very much… which is a pretty cool feeling."

Take the arching melody of "Three Mississippi," the moment of moving on so each can find their destiny in "I Just Called To Say Good-Bye" and the philosophical acceptance of being alone rather than being with someone who's not the one in "Not A Bad Thing," and you have three very grown-up songs about facing the real bottom line of where people are - and really should be - in their lives. These are songs to set you free.

"Doing things that are hard and accepting where you are in the moment for the right reasons is the best thing," says Clark with a laugh. "We're told what we're supposed to be, then we stay in places we shouldn't be to 'look like we're leading this life…' and that's a lie. A LIE! And lying isn't living. It's a little brave to just strike out not knowing, but how're you gonna get there if you don't?”

"Hey, I'm not afraid to be a human being," she continues, shoulders back, eyes twinkling, "even if it means laughing at myself - because life is pretty funny! If you take yourself too seriously, you're not gonna see the humor in it - and seeing the humor in it, now that's the secret of life."

For all the temerity and depth of Pain To Kill, Clark is right; there's no shortage of songs that reach for the sky and just flat have fun. Whether it's the title track's refusal to buckle under unfairness and its commitment to getting rowdy, the “go girl” siren scream that's "Working Girl" or the checklist of what this girl's gonna get out of life "I Wanna Do It All," Clark is hell-bent on bending the margins to her and skating fast and hard to where she wants to be.

"Why limit yourself?" asks the woman who tore up country radio with her breakthrough "Better Things To Do" and a mocking take on Warren Zevon's "Poor Poor Pitiful Me," considering the big picture. "Like the old saying goes: you have one life to live… different stages maybe, but you should get out there and live them all. That's what this record is trying to tell people… get out there and fly!

"My audience has to work for a living, but they also wanna live - and they'll do what it takes to get there. They may make some mistakes, but they'll dust themselves off and keep going. They wanna experience everything that's out there for 'em. That's what marks the people who come to my shows: they have a lust to get everything out of life they can. And I'd like to think they do."

With Pain To Kill, Clark turned inward and began disassembling her inner emotional workings and recognizing her tremendous strength. From that more ruminative vantage point, the hard-kicking guitar slinger realized that her place in the world was to merge probing songs that inspired people to dig deeper into their own wants and needs, while maintaining the joy in living that makes life a thrill ride.

"Every night, I play to people wearing hard hats with beers cans attached and straws running into their mouths," Clark beams. "You know they're there to party and to forget about what happened… But you also know those people are the ones who're probably most looking for a light to help 'em figure it out. I know that, because you can't believe the stories people will tell you after the shows."

Take Clark's triple-phase relationship suite: "The First To Fall" - about being the person willing to let go and recognize the love that's blooming, "Almost Gone" - recognizing that the love may not be where one's supposed to be, and "Better Than You" - a wiser woman recognizes being played, gently deflects and owns the strength of knowledge from hard-won experience. In these three songs, Clark manages to balance vulnerability with doing the right thing - and seeking higher ground and dignity.

"This album starts out with a domestic situation, a fight between two people who just need to get through it and get back to being in love - which ultimately prevails, and it evolves to 'God and Me,' which is the highest execution of what love is supposed to be. Along the way, well, we try to acknowledge how it is, not how the magazines tell us it's supposed to be, have some fun, kick some ass and maybe give you something to hum while you're stuck in traffic."

Coming from anyone but Terri Clark, it'd be hard to imagine so much life on one small disc. Terri Clark has a big imagination and a bigger hunger for life. Jump up… with Pain To Kill; she'll give you the ride of your life.

Noteable Entertainment & Events is a Vancouver based booking agency, party rental, entertainment services and event production company. If you are interested in booking Terri Clark please contact us.