Exclusive Interview: Rocker Fefe Dobson on her fears, her music and her dad

How do your personal experiences influence your music?

They influence everything really. If you look at “Unforgiven,” which is on the first album, that was about my father not being around and in my mind at 17 or 18, him being unforgiven. Now I’m writing more and I’ve just made a new album and now I’m in a different place in my life. Now I’m going to write about maybe my father in a different light or a relationship in a different light.

I write a lot about love because to me, love really is the core of everything. I really am moved by relationships and the intensity that relationships create, the beauty and the pain. Love is so many colors really.

We’ve heard that you’re trying to rekindle the relationship with your father, how’s that going?

It’s been the last two years now. It’s pretty wild. It’s kind of different calling him dad, daddy or whatever. It’s different. The thing that’s hardest, I couldn’t say to you that ‘oh he’s back in my life and everything is peachy keen’ because it’s not easy for a man to come back in a woman’s life and try to be a father and say ‘don’t do drugs.’ Dad I know this, I learned this. But it’s very sweet and I have a lot of compassion for him. He’s a good man. He’s teaching me a lot about my roots and a lot of things I didn’t know which I believe is a major part of growing. Putting those puzzle pieces in the puzzle and putting it all together, it’s very cool.