Kathleen Edwards is all about St. Pete these days

Kathleen Edwards is in love.

The Canadian singer/songwriter and her band play Skipper’s Smokehouse Thursday. Edwards is absolutely gaga over St. Petersburg, where she and her husband, property developer Sean McAdam, bought a home in 2022.

It was a permanent move. Renowned musicians, just like actors, can live anywhere they like and still get to work on time.

Reviews of Billionaire, her sixth album, were positively glowing when the record appeared in August.

The general consensus was that the Edwards’ sharply lyrical and melodically robust music – if you must stick on a genre label, call it Americana – has never been framed so well. “Edwards’ voice elevates the storytelling, revealing characters, colors, and context with the slightest inflection,” raved Paste.

The too-cool sonic palette and languid pace of Billionaire is due, in no small part, to the participation of Jason Isbell, who co-produced the record (with Gena Johnson), plays most of the electric guitars and brought in members of his own band, the 400 Unit, to power and shape the songs.

Edwards discusses all this and more in this Catalyst interview.

St. Pete Catalyst: Tell me why you like St. Petersburg, and why it works for you in so many ways?

Kathleen Edwards: Well … how much time do we have? Look, Ontario is very charming, and I always loved the winter, and I sure do love the fall. All the picturesque stereotypes about Canada are very true. It’s beautiful. But I really love the weather here. What I noticed as a new resident, and being from somewhere else, is that everyone is in a good mood here. That is undeniable. I feel like people have taken a few more deep breaths than anyone anywhere else. And that’s really appreciated.

And people are active, and outdoors, and the climate plays a huge role in people being in a good mood, I think. The sun really is a healing factor.

We love the city. We think the waterfront and the seawall of downtown St. Pete is world-class. The access to bike trails! It’s 20 minutes across town to go from the beach to Tampa. There’s just so much to do and see here. And I think the shopping is great. Elliott Aster (in the Vinoy) is now my favorite restaurant anywhere. I mean, it’s a fancy, special-occasion place …

Our neighbors are friendly. Everyone has a dog on our street! And everyone goes out and walks together, depending on what time of day works for them. My neighbors have offered us the use of their dock. My husband and I just cannot say enough about just how great this place is.

I’m sure people who’ve been here a long time probably feel like it’s changing very quickly. And it’s a little daunting, I’m sure, with the amount of people moving here, and these bigger buildings going up downtown. It probably feels like the cityscape is changing, but it also feels like it’s a place where there’s a lot of opportunity and all these things feel really positive. It’s nice to see a beautiful place full of great people be prosperous, and growing and changing. It just feels exciting.

You’re a professional musician with a considerable reputation. Do people here know who you are? Do you get stopped on the street?

It doesn’t happen a lot, no. Which actually is a really great thing. I’m very lucky that I’ve built up a fan base over the years, and some places I go it feels a little bit more like people might recognize me in certain parts of town, but there’s something nice, too, about the anonymity.

But if I’m being honest, I’m pretty dedicated to the vision that I want to take Jimmy Buffett’s baton. I would love to be his successor in Florida’s really magical songwriting history, and part of building cool songwriter tours here in the state. There’s just so many cool little spots throughout the state that I would love to play, and build an audience. So that not only could I make a living but I could help maybe facilitate maybe bringing in other people in the same way that 30A has sort of been a great cultural thing for the Destin area. I would love to do that here.

My booking agent is from California, and Florida’s always been kind of a no-man’s land for a lot of the artists he represents. He’s like, “Well, the only festival that’s in St. Pete is a reggae festival …” And I said “You know, I think it’s changing, and I think paying attention to being part of building something that’s a reflection of how the city has changed, and how the state is changing, would be really worthwhile.” And I’d like to be part of that.

You took several years off, discouraged by the music business and you part in it, and successfully owned and operated a coffee shop near your hometown. Was it the recharge in your confidence level that you needed to “come back”?

Big time. You know what, it was less confidence and more perspective. I think I had really lost perspective about the work that I had done, and the course that I was on. Touring is hard, and trying to make your balance sheet work in music is really hard. Putting your heart and soul into something, and facing rejection, is hard. That is true in all walks of life.

And I think what I just needed was to take a break from it, and do something that was rewarding in a completely different field. I’m an entrepreneur, and obviously I was an entrepreneur when I started playing music, too. I was the product, and nobody was going to give me a gig if I didn’t go knocking on doors and ask for one

I had really lost perspective of confidence, as you did touch on, but really appreciating how special it was that I had even gotten as far as I did.

What did hooking up professionally with Jason Isbell do for you?

He breathed a whole lot of hope into my trajectory, for one. Trying to come back from the beginning again, and trying to build the foundation of a music career, takes a lot of time … and sometimes you get lucky and you get someone who’s got a huge audience championing you. For him to say “Hey, I’ll produce your record” was an incredible gesture on his part to say “I’ve built an incredible audience, and me working with you will hopefully be helpful to you.”

Jason’s got his own life, and his own business to run. He’s not responsible for me. And you can’t assume that his fans are just automatically going to latch on to my music because they like Jason.

But what he did was, he’s untouchable and thought so highly of, that it makes people go “Oh! I should go check her out.” And that’s a hugely helpful thing.

Because he is so busy, and has such a limited schedule, it really forced us to just make the record and not fuss and sort of overthink anything, which is I think what makes my record probably better than the other ones. They probably dilly-dallied too much when things didn’t need to be overthought.

The guitars are great on the album.

If you’re a Jason fan, you’ll love this: Most of the guitars are him, live off the floor, single pass. We set up in the studio, we ran the song two or three times, and the one that we kept is most drums, bass and his guitar just live off the floor, with no fixes, no overdubs. He really is truly an extraordinary guitar player. His approach, and his ability to jump into a song and make it completely different from the part he played previously, is really impressive.

Find tickets for Thursday’s 8 p.m. performance at the Skipper’s Smokehouse website.