She’s known as the "lesbian Johnny Cash" and now audiences can catch a glimpse into the Canadian folk musician’s life through a documentary getting to know the icon that is Ferron.

Ferron Thunder and Lighten-ing was produced and directed by Bitch, who has cherished the collaboration with the renowned performer. Bitch is an indie rocker/performance artist who is from another generation of musicians but felt the urge to collaborate on this beautiful project with Ferron. And much like thunder and lightning go together in a storm, so did the creative collaboration between the two performers.

While younger generations may not be familiar with the semi-retired 61-year-old Ferron, they may recognize her creative influence on other popular musicians including Ani DiFranco and Indigo Girls. Bitch set out to create a raw documentary about the elusive folk singer and audiences won’t be disappointed with the result.

While Thunder focuses on Ferron’s life, Lighten-ing is a collection of songs spanning her 30 year career. One of the standout tracks includes a song written by Bitch and Ferron together, dubbed "Army of You".  Audiences are invited to take a peek into the window of Ferron’s life through Bitch’s eyes. We spoke to Bitch about her lovechild documentary and album and this is what she had to say about the project.

GC: What can you tell our readers about the documentary?

B: Since hearing Ferron’s poetry and music for the first time and getting to know her, I have always wanted to help tell some of her story.  When I finished Boulder,  I still wanted to tell more.  Then I met Billie Jo

Cavallaro, whose interest is in surrealism and we started connecting on the idea that we could paint a ‘visual poem’ of Ferron, and that’s what we set out to do!

GC: How do the music component and the documentary connect?

B: We made Thunder first.  At first I had no intention of making an entirely new audio recording.  The music we were using was mostly from "Boulder" but by the time we were nearing completion of the film, so many of us had come together around it and one of our executive producers, Leslie Gearhart, started mentioning making a sound track.  I thought Boulder is the soundtrack, really. But then I still had my internal ‘list’ of all the Ferron songs I still wanted to try, that hadn’t gotten onto Boulder.  Ferron and I were booked to play a festival in Iowa and I knew a great little studio there and since I am one to take a small idea and run with it, the next thing you know, Ferron and I were in Iowa, making "Lighten-ing"!

Like many of us, Ferron’s poetry speaks to me on such a deep level. For Thunder, we had used quotes from her most recent poetry book, "Catching Holy".  So when we set out to record "Lighten-ing," I

brought in a copy of an older book of her poems, "The (H)unger Poems," and we used those to craft some new material. "The Pledge" was born this way.

GC: What makes this project so unique?

B: One of the first things we hear Ferron say in the film is "I think all documentaries deal with that sort of timeline life story, and I just don’t think like that."

We like to say that this is not your average documentary.  It’s doesn’t aim to give you a time-line of her life, or anything like that.  Thunder - like Ferron, myself and Billie Jo - is very non-linear!

GC: What was your favourite part about the collaboration?

B: Working with Ferron has always been thrilling for me because of the fact that we are different ages and come from very different eras, ideas and culture.

GC: You produced both the doc and the album, describe the challenges of each?

B: Every album I have ever made, I get to the end and I think, "if anyone had told me how much energy/time/focus that took, I may never have started!"  They are all sweet challenges and I will definitely be taking a break for a minute! *laughs*

GC: What’s up next?

B: We are working on a video for "The Pledge" to be released soon!