Whistler songbird Ali Milner is at it again.
Not content with taking some downtime from her music career following her performance at Jazz on the Mountain at Whistler, Milner is now in Toronto as a competitor on the new CBC show Cover Me Canada.
Selected as one of eight finalists who will spend the next few weeks performing re-imaginings of well-known Canadian songs, Milner said she's hoping the contest will give her the kind of exposure needed to take her career to the next level. If she happens to win the contest, that would be cool too.
"It's just an awesome experience," said Milner by phone on Monday (Sept. 19) following a practice session with her band. "This is the first time I've done a proper music competition. I've never been in a battle of the bands; I've never really done anything like this at all."
For Milner, it all happened so quickly — one moment she was performing in Whistler and the next she was on a plane to Toronto.
"My guitar player was like 'Hey, there's this thing that CBC's doing and you should go for it,'" recalled Milner. "And so after I auditioned they decided to fly out a producer to see a showcase of me. We played three songs for him and bing, bang, boom, off we were to Toronto."
And despite not having performed in a competitive environment before, Milner said she isn't feeling any of the pressures one would expect in such an environment.
"I really don't feel under pressure — I feel like I'm thriving," she said. "I'm loving this. It's just such a blast."
With that attitude, Milner said she hopes to take top spot, which includes a $100,000 cash prize and a recording contract for an original single to be released by Universal Music Canada.
When asked what she would do with the money, Milner didn't hesitate to say it would all go to her music career.
"I'll definitely put it back into my career — record a new album, tour, put it towards videos and merch, that sort of thing," she said. "It's really the only option in my head."
To land that prize, Milner has to take some of Canada's best known songs and reinvent them as a way to showcase her versatility as a musician. For example, she sang Avril Lavigne's "Complicated " during the show's debut episode on Sunday (Sept. 18).
"We were just handed a song and had to do with it what we could," said Milner. "I'm super pleased with how it turned out. We had a such a blast recording it and it's actually available on iTunes — the full length version as opposed to the 90-second TV version."
As for that shortened on-air version, Milner said one of the biggest challenges of the competition is to take these well-known songs and condense them for the show.
"The 90-second version for television was super tough. The other version was a three-minute version and even that was also hard to chop it down," recalled Milner.
For the next episode this Sunday (Sept. 25) at 9 p.m., Milner will be reworking Jann Arden's "Insensitive."
"We had our first rehearsal today and we loved it. The way things are going, I think people are going to love it as well," said Milner of her rendition of the popular 1990s song.
As for the other seven finalists, three who also hail from B.C., Milner said while the competition is tough, the people are as easy-going as can be.
"We're all becoming good friends — I love everybody else on the show," she said. "We all have think-tank sessions. It's been rad, I really like everybody and I think we're all hitting it off."
To support Ali Milner, head to www.cbc.ca/covermecanada/ and check out all of the different ways to vote. Fans can also follow her on Twitter @CMC_Ali.
"The No. 1 thing people can do is vote on a Facebook app that lets you vote every day. You can vote multiple times a day depending on how many times you log in," said Milner. "Another way you can help is we have a social network score, so the more tweets and posts and views we get, the higher our social media score is and it's possible we can gain immunity.
"Hopefully they'll give me some sweet necklace."
