Does Faith Healer Believe In Anything Anymore?

Photos by Randee Armstrong

Edmonton’s Jessica Jalbert—otherwise known as Faith Healer is no different from the rest of us. She’s candid about her uncertainty on the meaning of life, death, and what comes after it. It’s this almost compulsive attention to these stressors that give her lyrics shape, underneath a psychedelic pop palette. That and a significant name change. According to Jalbert, using the Faith Healer moniker was a way to avoid being pigeonholed by the music community. "I was tired of the kind of shows that are offered to solo, singer-songwriter ladies,” explains Jalbert. “I didn't want the female folk performer label that I feel kind of allows listeners to form an opinion of me before actually listening to my music."

Raised in a heavily religious household in Edmonton, Jalbert distanced herself from her faith after realizing it no longer aligned with her own ideals. She decided to move out for a year and come to her own conclusions on what life meant. Upon her return, she would become an important part of what she describes as “Edmonton’s creatively messy music scene,” playing for numerous bands around the city including garage rock band the Tee-Tahs with her friend and frequent collaborator, Renny Wilson. “When I met Renny he was this really enthusiastic guy who was just getting into recording and suggested we do an album together,” Jalbert explains. “I had such a great time working with him then that when it came to making this album it was a no brainer. It had to be Renny.” For her debut, Cosmic Troubles, Jalbert and Wilson create layered and expansive pop songs that delve into themes of faith and mythology. In tracks like “Canonized,” Jalbert dismisses being saintlike (“I was canonized too early”) and later echoes similar themes in “Angel Eyes”—“What’s the point of angel’s eyes / If angels really aren’t alive?” Navigating her way through the noise, Jalbert’s creative and restorative process as Faith Healer sidesteps being worn down by existential crises. Instead, allowing her to lift up and let go of her mental burdens.

Noisey: With an album name like Cosmic Troubles it kind of invokes the idea that you’re weighed down by a lot of problems or worries. Do you feel that you are?
Jessica Jalbert: I think everyone does and that of course includes myself. But the way I look at it these issues or troubles have moments of weightlessness and heaviness at the same time. I think that everybody has moments where you’re totally stuck in this space where you have no control and you have no knowledge. You literally have nothing. I think that’s something that everyone faces because everybody is mortal. But at the same time we’re no more than a blip. As heavy as that shit is, it’s the truth. I don’t have to worry about that and neither do you, it’s nothing. Nothing really matters.

The lyric “I don’t know why I get so hideously angry / but believe me I could keep it to myself / if it were not for your embrace,” from the title track, amongst other lyrics from the record, make it seem that you are finding some relief from these troubles. Would that be accurate?
Sometimes I feel like I get so scared about this crazy life and what the hell am I doing here. At the same time and what I mean in regards to that particular line through is that even if friends or relationships mean nothing to somebody we can still be there for one another. Truly, the only sure thing in life is when you’re having a great time with someone who cares for you. Loving people in general is the only constant I believe in.

What does faith mean to you now?
Faith just means to me belief outside of logic, I guess. Or acts outside of logic. I don’t know, that’s a hard question.

I ask because you have a line in your song “Universe” that’s pretty bleak. You write, “oh the universe takes you by the nape of your neck / and keeps you hanging on by a thread / and then whatever until you’re dead.” Is that how you view life?
Yeah, totally. I mean you have no control, you’re just flung into this place and whether you have faith or not there’s no choice but to exist until you choose not to exist or you happen not to exist. It’s nihilistic in a way but it’s also just…that’s life, man! That’s all we have, that’s all we’ve got and there’s no control. You just hang on until you are dropped.

How do you heal?
I heal by playing music. I heal by sleeping and by straight up looking things in the face and addressing them, which are all things I’ve done for this album. Well, not sleeping [Laughs]. This album is as much my healing as it is putting myself out to the world. That seems really egotistical as to say that, but hopefully someone else hears the album and it makes them feel better about their life. The best way I know how to heal is to do the things I care about like playing music sometimes with my friends or having a good nap [laughs].

Laura Stanley is a writer living in Toronto - @LStanley24