By Jim Barber
A well-known and well-respected member of the Ottawa, Canada music community is using her extensive experience in the business, her passion for creating opportunity and her desire to enhance the presence of women within the broader music industry to make a positive difference.
Erin Maiden, frontwoman for the hard rock enterprise Feral Union and formerly of the popular party rock band, Beyond Driven, has created a special festival that brings together some amazingly talented, undeniably badass and gloriously diverse female fronted/all-female rock, metal and punk bands for a special celebration of music and community entitled Feral FemmeFest.
It takes place over two nights at the legendary Rainbow Bistro in the ByWard Market in the heart of Canada’s capital – Friday, March 6 and Saturday, March 7. Acts on the bill include Rising Flame, Wet For Days, Sugar Bomb and Harley Olivia (all on March 6), as well as Scraam, Sovereign Council, her own band Feral Union and Sumo Cyco to wrap things up Saturday evening. Tickets for the shows are available here: https://tinyurl.com/59h5phtx.
“I’d say it’s an empowerment festival. We had applicants from well-established acts from across the country that applied to play, even non-band acts like aerial performers, fire breathers, all kinds of burlesque artists – you name it. We’re in talks with the City of Ottawa about making it an outdoor festival next year, which is exciting. And it wasn’t intended to just be sort of hard rock and metal acts, but because of the loss of the original venue [the legendary Brass Monkey, which closed suddenly at the start of 2026] we had to scale it back. But we still have some of the area’s best punk and hard rock female fronted bands, and two acts from the Toronto area that are headlining [Harley Olivia and Sumo Cyco],” Maiden explained, adding that doors to The Rainbow Bistro open at 7 p.m. with the show starting shortly thereafter. There are four acts per night with the show wrapping up around midnight.
“When I opened up applications, I had no idea it would blow up like it did. I thought I would only get interest from local bands, but it turns out applications came from everywhere in Canada. In the application I had a comment section and it was from those comments that kind of told me that this was something bigger than I thought. I got so many comments saying how much this was needed, how many women were thankful to have the opportunity to apply and that such an event even existed, and how it was needed in their area and that I should think about extending it to other places. Based on those comments, I am actually in talks with several partners in different cities that are interested in having these sorts of events as well. So, what I thought was just a local thing now has kind of spiraled into something that I see is needed, and wanted everywhere, and that it’s appreciated.
“The original plan, before the Brass Monkey closed, was to have two stages. One band would finish off on the main stage and then we would have duos and acoustic acts on the side stage. We also had spaces carved out for women-led business kiosks all around the room. So, the move to the Rainbow, although super exciting because it’s such an iconic venue here in Ottawa, and it’s also female owned, there’s not enough space for everything that I envisioned. For the next editions, we want to make sure we have space maybe for different genres, different types of performers and those kiosks.”
Maiden, a veteran of the Ottawa music scene, and the music industry in general, admits that there are still pervasive systemic and societal challenges for women in the music industry. Lack of visibility on festival lineups, lack of presence at the top of a lot of the corporate decision-making chains, and troglodytic, sexist and misogynistic attitudes add to the inherent challenges of trying to make a living in such a competitive and fickle industry even harder.
For her, yes, it’s important to keep calling out these discrepancies and the disrespect and to have dialogue over trying to improve the situation. But in Maiden’s view, the most effective way to counter these outdated philosophies is to do something tangible, constructive, and inspirational. Hence her hard work in bringing Feral FemmeFest together.
“I think if women stay steadfast, and just keep their eyes on the prize and don’t allow themselves to get caught up too much in the drama of things we can really make some headway. Often the problem is that we talk about how bad it is, and we get stuck there. I’m more of the belief that yes, I see the issue, so I’m going to do this, I am going to do something, instead of drawing more attention to the issue, because I don’t think that helps either. So, I did previous iterations if you’d like to call it that, of events like this. They were previously called Divas of Distortion. I’ve always wanted to champion women in music. I know the world has evolved a lot over the years and the challenges in the music industry aren’t as frequent for women as they used to be, but there are still issues – quite serious issues. I mean, you just have to look at the bills for major festivals and they’re almost exclusively male-fronted acts. The statistics are there to show that there’s still a pretty big disparity between men and women in the music business on so many levels. So, I wanted to stop talking about what’s missing, and create something. And what really came to light for me during this whole process was because I do predominantly hard rock and metal-ish type music, I thought these issues were something that was predominant in those genres. But I had rappers apply to the festival. I had pop artists, folk, metal, punk, reggae, you name it. I think almost every genre was represented and they all kind of highlighted the same issues. And I have to admit I guess I was kind of ignorant to the fact that everyone is having these issues. And I was like, wow!” she said.
“I like to think that something like the Lilith Fair [the hugely successful and influential all-female travelling music festival spearheaded by Canadian singer/songwriter Sarah McLachlan in the late 1990s] helped somewhat. It raised awareness and I do think leaps and bounds have been made since then, in terms of women’s role and place in the music business. We are taking our place a little more, I just think there’s still a lot of work to be done. Has there been evolution? Absolutely. Is there still a lot of room to grow? Absolutely. I’ve seen myself and overheard or know in the background that when a bill is being completed and the headliner is male, they’ll often look at the bill and say, ‘oh, we need to have a female act to complete it to say we did.’ I know that that’s still a thing, that concept of tokenism. I also know there’s some places that don’t even think about it at all and don’t care. And to be honest, I really don’t know why. I just know for me, I’m a very confident woman and men are intimidated by me, some of them anyways. I think a woman with confidence is scary for other people and think the reason why we’re still struggling to get to where we should be is certain people’s fear of losing their place. But, I think everybody has their place. There’s room for us all. So, yes, I think that maybe there’s still people in charge that are of the old mentality. They see that women are taking up more space, they’re being ‘noisy’ and it’s seen as threatening. I don’t know about other women, but that type of stuff just drives me more. It’s just going to motivate more of us. We’re still in the phase of having to water ourselves down a little bit. I can attest to what I’ve experienced firsthand. I’ve had people say, ‘oh, I wonder who she flirted with to get that gig.’ Then when I got a gig, I got flirted with by the person who booked me and I told them I didn’t like that and they said, ‘well, if you want to keep playing here, you’re going to have to put up with it.’ So those things still happen, where people think and say, ‘who did you bat your eyes at to get that opportunity.’
“There’s always been this old-school way of thinking that ‘female fronted’ doesn’t draw. It’s been a recurring thing for years. I once spoke to someone, and I’m not going to get into too many details so people won’t be able to figure out who it is, but this gentleman books acts for a lot of big events. He’s a booker who brings in acts for various big events across the country. And he actually doesn’t believe that women don’t draw, but he has spent a great deal of time and energy trying to convince his clients that they should book a female headliner. But they say, ‘no, we don’t believe it will work.’ It’s still a thing. And these are people who are putting on cultural events, big community events that are recurring every year, and music is one part of it. These event planners and organizers are not music experts, so they hire someone to book the entertainment. And this man that I am talking about always tries to encourage more female fronted headliners, but he always gets this pushback. And so he has to do his job and make the client happy. I remember being kind of shocked that this attitude still exists. And I hated going online and seeing when festival lineups are rolled out, everybody running to the internet to complain there’s not enough this or, enough representation of something else. But I’m the type of person who, when there’s not enough of something and there needs to be – I’m going to make it.”
Maiden is also steadfast in the belief that another way to overcome some of the traditional backwards thinking and how it’s become almost calcified within the music industry infrastructure is to encourage women of all ages and backgrounds to pick up an instrument, regardless of if they have dreams of topping the Billboard charts or simply want a pleasurable hobby. More women playing leads to more women onstage, and more women seeing those women living their dreams and being inspired – inspired to become artists, label executives, label owners, talent reps or booking agents.
“I’ve performed in a lot of places, in front of a lot of different audiences. One of the most gratifying things musically, for me, was realizing that when it comes to music, age is not a number. I have two women in my life, one is a really good friend of mine, another is someone I know from the community. My friend wanted to play guitar forever. She’s always wanted to, but everybody always told her that she’s too old to start now. Now, I taught myself how to play during the pandemic. So it’s not that long ago, and I’m not that great. But we had a girls weekend and I shoved a guitar in her hand and I made her play. And I think she plays better now than I do. And that experience was so gratifying. She now plays praise music at church and I went to watch her perform and it’s beautiful and she’s wonderful at it,” she said.
“And then this other woman I know, she has a beautiful voice. I think she’s a bit older than me, and last year I organized a St. Patty’s Day party and I convinced her to perform on the bill. And now she’s amazing. I just told her to get up there, that she belongs there. And all the credit goes to her because she took it and ran with it, and is very good – she’s gigging almost every weekend. She plays more than I do. So, that is also super gratifying. I think there are a lot of people, not just women, but I am kind of focused on encouraging women, who have this yearning to get involved in music, but just don’t have the courage or the support or the opportunity to take that nudge.”
Turning to Maiden herself, like the women she’s trying to encourage, music and singing have always been part of her life. At an early age, she got involved in the church choir, often a great place to get some training and experience without having to expose yourself to audiences alone. But sounding more like Lee Aaron or Darby Mills than Julie Andrews, Maiden was ‘encouraged’ to find other musical avenues.
“When I was really young the problem was I sang really loud – really loud. And also when I was young I sang with a rasp, which was not fashionable for choirs back then. It was not trendy to have a big raspy voice. In fact, they would say it was bad. I did sing in church, but eventually the church choir leader said, no, you can’t sing here. And I wasn’t allowed to sing there anymore. At the time I also started listening to heavier music because of my stepdad. He was into Quiet Riot and George Thorogood, the heavier, rockier stuff, which wasn’t trendy when I was in school. Everybody was listening to Britney Spears, and I actually love Britney Spears. So at one point I switched over and got into the pop music because I just wanted to perform at the school talent show, and back then the stuff that I wanted to perform, they were not allowing. So in order to be able to participate in such events, I really had to cross over into the pop world and start performing, happier, more bubblegummy, mainstream music. And to be honest, it made me a better singer in terms of control, but it was so much against my identity,” she said.
“That said, I made it my own, because I’m big into costumes and stage wear and stuff like that, so I made my own way into it and it kind of evolved to the point where when I was around 18 I was getting recruited to be part of this big pop band project. But they told me I had to lose weight to be part of this band, so that was definitely an early experience on how the music business treated women. I mean, they probably didn’t tell the male guys in the group to lose weight right? Nope, only the girls. So, it was at that point where I was like, ‘you know, I’m done with this.’ And from there, I started doing solo performances of the music I really wanted to do, with backing tracks. I didn’t have a band, because I come from a small town in Quebec [Fort-Coulonge, about 120 kilometres northwest of Ottawa in the western part of the province, near the Ottawa River] and I didn’t really have anybody that I knew to play music with. A couple of years down the line, when I was around 24, I got approached by someone to show up at some band practice. This guy was putting together a band and that’s where met my husband [Jeremy Williams] who was the bass player in that band. And it kind of just took off after that.”
Another early influence on the impressionable but driven young Maiden was pop/punk/rock icon Pink, who also had a big, powerful voice to go with her love of stagecraft.
“Pink was a big influence on me. She was my idol when I was 13, and I finally got to see her in concert when I was 30. I have a sister who’s 20 years older than me. I asked her to take me to a Pink concert when I was 13 – but we didn’t get around to it until I was in my 30s. Heart has been one of my top bands for most of my life, I love both sisters, Ann and Nancy [Wilson] equally. I think they’re both so powerful and talented in their own ways. I’ve had a lot of influences since then, but most recently, and I’ve got to bring it up because it’s very recent, I ended up at a Yungblud concert just by a fluke. Someone asked me if I wanted to go and he blew me away. He completely blew me away. I go to a lot of shows and by far he’s the most energetic, most emotional front person I’ve ever experienced – ever. And I’ve seen a lot of the greats. It was a very intimate show in a way. There was no pyro, no fancy stuff going on. It was just him and his band. And it’s just good rock and roll music,” she said as the conversation transitioned to her new original project with her hubby, Feral Union.
“We went for a kind of rebrand. Beyond Driven was a party band, and it was a lot of fun. But I just started writing more and the songs were becoming a lot more personal. The lyrics that were going out were very emotional, and some of them quite vulnerable, but some are also very empowering. They’re speaking of real experiences that I’ve had. To give an example that is relevant to everything that we’ve been talking about, we wrote a song called ‘Kill the Quiet,’ which is basically an anthem about being told to quiet down and water yourself down and refusing to do so. So the music we’re doing is a bit more personal now, a bit more serious in a way. And we decided to choose the name Feral Union because it’s my husband and I – we are quite feral. When the idea came to us, it just clicked. We wanted to do something that signified our union and our personalities, and also the kind of music we’re doing now. Jeremy is just a riff machine too. I can’t keep up to all the riffs that he writes. And he’s got such a unique way of playing that he makes everything so distinct. You know it’s him when you hear it. So as we keep writing we’re defining our sound and our brand, and we’re lucky to have Jeff Nystrom [bass player and co-founder of classic Canadian metal band Fist, who’s worked in the studio with the likes of Aldo Nova, April Wine and even Celine Dion] in our corner as our producer. He’s not writing any of the music for us, but he’s great at listening to what we have and making these little suggestions that really make a positive difference.
“We’ve been working at this for almost a year. We started writing songs for our first album last April. The goal is to write 25 songs and choose 12. I think we have 20 songs already. We took a little break this month so we could focus on the festival, but we’re almost there. After we record it, Jeff is going to present it to his contacts in the industry and see what happens from there. I gave myself a year to write all the songs and I’m at the tail end of it. We’re kind of looking at what we’ve written and seeing if there’s any type of song or vibe that we’re missing. Right now we’re working on a ballad because we don’t really have one yet. I think we need one to really make an album feel complete. And in terms of the music, I find it hard to say what genre it is. One day I’ll say it’s modern hard rock. Another day I’ll use a term I call gateway metal. It’s one of those things where sometimes we’re too heavy for regular festivals, but we’re not heavy enough for the heavier festivals. When we were Beyond Driven we played some of the biggest fairs in Canada because we were mostly a cover band. And they would love to have us come back again and again. So this past New Year’s we decided to do the covers thing again, and we did some country rock and pop covers and at the end of the night I was just like, ‘no. My heart’s not in this anymore.’”
With her immediate focus and energy on this weekend’s festival, as well as the ongoing work of creating the first Feral Union album, Maiden is indeed doing what she set out to do as a young musician – facing down any and all obstacles, outdated ideas, and the vicissitudes of a challenging creative industry to make not only a difference in her own life, but help create space for others to share their voices, the art and their authentic selves.
For more information on Feral FemmeFest or get tickets, visit https://theferalunion.com/feralfemmefest.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, who has been writing about music and musicians for more than 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavors, he works as a communications and marketing specialist and is an avid volunteer in his community. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
