TORONTO -- Anastasia is a Canadian pop artist, but her life isn't the subject of a TV series, she doesn't spike her hair and dress the same as her bandmates, and her main goal isn't to conquer the U.S. charts.

The 25-year-old singer is one-half of the Quebec-based pop act Sky, whose hit single "Superhero" prominently features her high-pitched, spunky sound.



Last year she joined the band after one of the act's musicians, James, left. She and the remaining member, Antoine, have known each other since she was 14 and he was 17 and they were recording songs in the basement of a youth centre after finishing their homework upstairs.

Anastasia's current life as a Canadian pop star is going pretty much exactly the way you'd expect. She and Antoine are doing live performances, writing material for a new album, and releasing a DVD in April that will feature two videos and behind-the-scenes footage, along with other "treats".

But it's the way the young singer's life up to now has unfolded and her outlook on her music career that sets her career apart from the crowd of other Canadian pop singers.

Like most female pop singers these days, Anastasia is striking to look at. Tiny in casually hip clothes, the singer sports a Quebecois flare that draws stares as she walks through a room.

But her style and opinions have a broader base than Quebec.

At 17, she and her mother travelled to Chile, her mother's home, to live on a farm.

"I love the country, but I'm not a farm girl," she says. "I need the cultural side of the city, so every day I would take the bus to the city to the school [Pro-Jazz], where I took singing and guitar lessons three times a week."

An adventurous streak led Anastasia far beyond the borders of Chile, and she boasts a passport with stamps from all of Central America, southeast Asia, Australia, and the U.S.

"For me, I have two great passions in my life: music and travelling, because I'm a very curious person and I need change," she says. "I think Canada is the perfect place for people like me who need change, because you have four seasons, temperature, it's always changing, but just seeing the world is the greatest learning school I've been to."

The daughter of a stage actress who constantly told her daughter to "live your dreams, don't just daydream it," Anastasia faced her hopes head-on.

"I've gone travelling for over a year away from Canada, and for a mother that's hard, seeing their only child go off into the world, but she's never stopped me - even at 17," she says. "She couldn't stop me. She was like, 'If that's what you want then go. I trust you'."

But she also battled a lack of trust and support within her family.

After the death of Anastasia's father, her grandfather stepped into his son's role as father figure.

Although he considered her one of his own children and enveloped her into his "nesting area", he frowned upon her desire to sing for a living.

"For him, it's always been, 'You should marry a lawyer or a doctor. You should do more with your life, you can't just live on bread and butter all your life'," she says about her grandfather.

"But the funny thing is that it stopped two years ago when he saw I was working in night-clubs, I was waitressing and I was singing, he really saw that, 'Oh, she's actually serious about this, she really wants this'."

What Anastasia's grandfather saw was his young charge working hard with a five-piece group, recording demos, and trying to get a deal when Antoine tapped her to join him in the studio.

"When he found out about Sky, he was in ecstasy," she says. "He came to the launch in Montreal, he was almost crying. Now there is support. But it's taken a while."

Success may have spelled paternal approval, but on the flip side it's also created some minor road blocks in her romantic relationships.

Travelling across Canada to promote Sky's album means less time for the boyfriend (who shall remain nameless) with a travelling spirit, whom she's known since high school.

"I'm the one who's leaving, he's not," Anastasia says about the difficulties of being in a travelling act. "He stays home and he goes to work every day. I miss him, but I'm so busy that I don't have time to every few minutes go 'sigh'. But I love him to death, he's something else, and he's a great traveller like myself. That's why we connect so well."

As an attractive lead singer, Anastasia also faces the issue of besotted fans, which doesn't exactly thrill her boyfriend.

"Sometimes, after shows, men come over and talk to me," she says. "I'm not flirting with them, but I'm being polite and it gets to him. 'Cause he thinks, 'What's she doing when she's in Toronto or Halifax?' But that's just his insecurity. I'm not like that, I'm very monogamous when I'm in relationships."

The occasional romantic spat hasn't dampened Anastasia's sunny outlook on her career. She and Antoine plan to take Canada province by province, and then think about hitting Asia and Europe, where they plan to release singles.

The thought of invading the prominent country south of the Canadian border doesn't really interest her though.

"To tell the truth, I'm a little bit scared of the States. There's too much hype," she says. "I think it would be a lot of pressure."

"I'm not interested in that Hollywood, superstar thing -- look at me I'm very important -- no, no, no, no. I'm just an artist. I do my music, that's it."

Once Anastasia and Antoine have pushed their "Travelling Infinity" album as far as they can, they plan to take a year off to write material for a follow-up. Antoine plans to move his entire studio to Paris, and the two of them will exchange song ideas via e-mail.

Anastasia says to look for a new Sky album in 2003.