Tenille Townes on Songwriting, Grit & Country Fame

with celebrities, artists, music business insiders, and more. Teniel Towns, how you doing today? Hey, I'm so well, how are you today?

“I'm good, so where are you coming to us from?”

Okay, well, I'm in Nashville, I'm in my little spare room that I've turned into my studio, but I am originally a crazy Canadian from Northern Alberta. Oh, okay, yeah, it's, uh, I love Alberta actually, it's such a pretty place. It's a little chilly in, in January, February, but it's just a chill. I love that you've been there though, it is.

It's, it breeds a certain kind of resilience to us who have had the cold up there, but, um, but I loved getting to grow up there. It's a really beautiful place and lots of great people. Yeah, and can, and country music is very strong in Alberta. I actually played at the ranchmans club many years ago.

Club, that's in the cool running the movie. Hi, that's right. So two, two June all awards, which is basically the Canadian Grammy, two Academy Country Music Awards, which is the CMAs, 17 Canadian Country Music Awards.

So you have quite a pedigree and, um, you're an amazing songwriter.

“I love the new single Annabeling, which I believe that's actually Jordi came out, right?”

Yes, that's officially out there. Thanks for saying that, and loving that song. It, that was kind of the song I wanted to introduce this new season of music with it. Comes from the story of sort of like the heart of the turmoil, um, of a situation that really kind of woke me up to wanting to like get better at having some boundaries and

standing up for myself and like writing this helped me process, um, the fact that like love isn't love, if it means losing yourself. And so that's sort of the jumping off place that I, I went through to create the rest of this music and these song pulling these songs together for this whole record. So it felt like a good place to start.

Yeah, and checking out your, your catalog, um, you have the very organic, I would say almost intimate style because the production is not overblown. A lot of it's, uh, you and you and a guitar, acoustic guitar, which I love that sound. How did you, who are some your early influences, how did you come up with that, that vibe, that obviously you love that, that style?

I do, I'm, I'm a fan of that music for sure, like I'm a huge patty, Griffin fan and living with ghosts is one of those records that just like sets the bar for me, um, and I love her music, Laura McKenna is another big hero and, and songwriting, just legend to me, and influence songically too, her guitar playing and all those open tunings have very much been a part of my, um, sphere of influence.

But I grew up listening to a bunch of different things. It kind of depended on who was driving the car, like I was the kid in the back seat. Yeah, right, exactly who was controlling the stereo in the front. But with, with mom is like, a lot of female powerhouse voices, a lot of shenaya terrain, and dad was like a lot more rock and roll, like Fleetwood Mac and YouTube vibes, and my grandparents,

I got to hear a lot of the classics. So we listened to a ton of dolly part and then I feel like a lot of her storytelling was kind of like an anchor for me as far as songwriting goes and going, if this is, this is like, like, a lot of many colors to me, that song is just so gorgeous,

and it's like that arc of humanity that she has in her songs has always been something that

has been inspiring to me. Yeah, do you think, um, songwriting, obviously, it's very cathartic, and you kind of talked about that with enabling, um, the reason why you wrote it, uh, do you feel like that songwriting really helps you get that stuff out and kind of finding,

“finding a way to a path to deal with those problems of those issues we all deal with?”

Oh, absolutely. I'd be lost without that. It's, uh, it's my way of, I don't know. I actually struggle sometimes to have a conversation about things that I'm going through in that what feels hard or I can't even quite understand it in myself. But somehow being able to like sing about it or write about it in a song is like a much easier dialogue in my brain. I think it's kind of like moving, um, thought out of the way and letting like the subconscious kind of kick in and

take you where it needs to take you and songwriting feels like it just kind of opens up those channels to me. It's a very healing thing. And what's really interesting is like there's the part one level of it to me is the creation and like actually sitting down and writing and like almost harvesting the emotion or the truth out of yourself and like that's one part. But the second part comes from like the live exchange and like what happens when you share that truth with other people and like

just feeling that someone else has felt the same way I felt and like and my whole goal is writing

music is always to make or to help somebody feel a little less alone and that's what music has

felt the same thing or wow they've walked that out too and like to me that's like quintessentially the best part of music. So I love getting to participate in that with writing and also with sharing the songs that I've created from that those kind of deeper places. Yeah and those are all kind of universal things that we all deal with right love, loss, keeping yourself in a relationship that's

always a challenge. Now who's like yourself? I know women especially often have to deal with that

and it's changing but that's something that we've always dealt with. Tell me about how you that to Nashville from Alberta. What was that journey like and what made what motivated you to go to

“Nashville? Yeah I actually made a few trips. I think I was in eighth grade the first time I”

I convinced my parents to let us take a trip there and I had been writing a lot locally and around my hometown and there was a workshop. One of the mentors that came through was from Nashville and he's like if you ever want to come check out the city and write some songs there coming so then I was like we got to go. I want to I want to see it. I want to be there and so I just kind of kept going back and for this much as my parents had let me skip school

and when I turned 18 it was time to be like filling out college applications but I just felt like my heart was being pulled to the road and so I had like a kind of a come to Jesus moment with my parents at the table where I was like hey this is I don't want to go to college this is the plan and and I pitched my 10,000 hour theory to my dad because he's a big Malcolm Gladwell fan and I was like all right got it I got to hit the road to get hours. Yeah and so when that came through

I spent 32 weeks in a motorhome traveling across Canada playing for middle schools and high schools and kind of like getting my chops in that area and when that to erupt I was like okay now I need to go creatively put in my hours and I really want to get to Nashville for that and learn from the community of creatives there and so my dad can see to my plan and help to me load up my little Tacoma and we drove 47 hours from my hometown to Tennessee and that was almost 14 years ago

so it's been I literally remember sitting in the vehicle driving going I really hope this works out because I don't want to have to drive 47 hours all the way back home so I'm still here I'm grateful it's yeah we're working yeah well that's you know what that's a very brave thing to do and it's especially you know a Canadian young woman coming to Nashville Nashville's not an easy town I love it down there but it's but it's challenging for artists how wanted to take you to

kind of break through that because people talk about it taking years but how quickly did you

“were you able to gain traction in Nashville? Well some of the early time I spent making trips I think”

helped to my total accumulation of time like in between school and like coming and going but from the time when I officially moved and was like okay I'm doing this like I'm

I'm planting myself here and it was probably four or five years before I met my first publisher

and got introduced to A&R at Sony at that time and and things kind of just kept on folding from there but yeah that was it felt kind of fast on the front end of that but it's definitely been a winding adventure of there's so much that I just love about Nashville in the way that it cares about songs and cares about people and like can be such a huge inspiring asset to that and then there's also a side of this town that's very much like a machine and a system and

and it's it's easy to kind of like lose yourself on the conveyor belt a little bit and I struggled

“with that for for a few years for sure and I think making this record I'm making I just made”

now is kind of like been my like returned to self after coming out the other side of that and just be like okay what's where's my truth what am I doing here and it feels really good to come back to that. How important is it especially in that town but just a music in general to find your authentic voice and did it take you a while did you feel like you kind of you were kind of

there when you showed up. Let's see I when I first moved to town I kind of spent a lot of time

going to live shows and being so inspired by the songwriters I was hearing and then I would just go all the way back to the little apartment I was renting and spent hours writing and singing and crafting my voice and kind of like feeling like there was such a sonic shift that happened in that time and I really feel like I kind of found my voice. It's like I listened to recordings from before that time of like intense diving in and after and it was there was definitely a transition that happened.

So I think that once I kind of narrowed into that I'd kind of like landed into what my

there before I got the deal and started kind of doing all that stuff. So it's always an evolution though

like I feel like a return to that part of my like feisty independent self that was in that zone but also like a totally different human at the same time. It's like you just kind of keep growing and changing and evolving but yeah the anchor's always kind of been there. Yeah and it's it's yeah we got a we have a friend joining us. Sorry this is my dog Sam he's like excuse me.

“I know he what's it that's you he's a kitty. Yeah that's awesome and I think that you mentioned”

Daly part and I I can kind of I can elbow you guys have very different voices but I can hear that in your voice there's a lot that to sit the hard to say but also it feels very intimate like you're you're singing just to the person listening which is a unique ability and do you farm like those signature voices like a Willy a Daly Shania is that something that you're

personally drawn to? Oh for sure I'm always looking for something that sounds different than

the others and it's got like that sort of fingerprint that's your own thing. I've always been drawn to voices that are just like you hear you hear two seconds of it and it's undeniably no exactly who it is that's such a powerful thing. Yeah it's a rare gift to have often talked about that like you know there's people that have better voices maybe not as amazing voices but they have that thing you hear Willy say a word your dolly say a word you know it's them

“and in the you think about all the billions of people in the world that's such a unique gift right?”

Yeah it really is it's pretty amazing. Yeah talk about collaboration because on this album obviously who actually mentioned the producer if you could and then but also talk about collaborating and even with songwriting. Yeah so this record I actually made sitting right here in my little music room so I produced this record myself and I played everything on it. I actually learned how to mix in the process of this too so I ended up doing that and then I sent it off to get mastered

and so a lot of these songs are once that I'd written through the years with friends and and people I've been fortunate to get to right with and like some of them we're actually quite old and they just hadn't found their moment on a record yet they hadn't fit the theme of what I was doing in the past and so I'd always kind of bookmarked them like these songs are special I want to go back to these at some point and then a few of them were just new that I ended up writing on my own

and kind of added to that whole collection and all of them tie into this theme of freedom and vulnerability and like sort of surrendering what isn't meant for you and knowing that what is isn't going to leave you behind and I think there's like a preciousness of time that kind of comes from that perspective as well and all of those things are kind of in the cocktail of the themes for this record but they were very much very raw and kind of messy my plan was just to make

guitar vocals of these songs to get them to a point and go okay what songs do I'll take into the studio with a band almost like a pre like a demo mix of yeah and then when I started working on those I was like I kind of like leaving these as is maybe this is the record

“already so that's what I ended up doing yeah well you know what you succeeded oh well thank”

and it's really cool and I love again like kind of rise to the of the when I first heard Dale's Big Album I was like you felt like you were sitting a little club and it was a very intimate sound which which I yeah I love that because I really it really reaches right into the heart absolutely I love that first record she did too it's so good yeah it sounds like you're just sitting there with the her the studio like you have the same thing you can sing so you don't have the

hide behind production do you find like that's important is that are those kind of artists that you're attracted to when you're listening it the people I could just yeah that could just do it live

and of course I mean that's such an amazing way to get to hear music is like I've always

a fan of stripping the noise away and getting to the heart of it for sure and I absolutely love working with a bunch of different producers and about a lot of fun I love things that feel more rocking and you know the whole full band like there's so there's so much magic to that too but I really do love stripping it all away and just getting back to the core of what the song is saying and I really felt like I was craving that in my sort of creative evolution right now

hmm you've and speaking of like sort of playing live and playing with the band you've you've toured with a lot of major artists Stevie Nicks sent an eye to an orange straight around the Lambert I'm sure many others what's that like because as you feel you feel pressure in that situation I'm sure it's changed for you over the years but with those kinds of artists they have loyal loving fans do they accept you it's a how has that been for you oh I've loved every

experience and it's like I don't know getting an education being able to just watch and learn

things work you know on and off the stage how how their crew operates how they take care of their people how they create an environment on the road that's really supportive and encouraging and I feel like I've just taken pockets of all my favorite things from people and and I hope to get to pay a lot of those things forward someday from from all that I've learned on the road so yeah I mean such hardworking people and and people who just really love music and also very

varied and like um different styles of entertainment it's really fun to watch that too it's like

Miranda shows us always so special to me because those songs are so great and she's just like

“one of you you know that's how it feels and Reba is like a class act in so many ways and just”

really made the show just like hmm that was probably the loudest cheering crowd I've seen was opening for like they're so in brothers Osborne is one of my favorite shows that we watched for sure and like they just never give up on a crowd like they have such a charisma that like demands their audience to participate and I really enjoyed learning from that so there's so many different things from the people I've gotten to learn from but I love being on the road yeah that's

kind of like you mentioned university that sort of is university right that's going to school absolutely yeah and uh obviously all legendary artists which which I absolutely I love that kind of the original country sound to the George straight thing is so powerful um tell me the Nate what's the actual aim of the full album and when's the full album coming out um okay so the albums called the acrobat and it comes out on April 10 you had to be touring is that what your tour plans

are you doing summer to stuff or what what's up with that yeah I'm headed out on a tour called the living room tour um which is an acoustic headline run a date so I have a handful of Canadian theaters and some US club shows as well and they're going to be very storyteller singer songwriter vibes um and just kind of creating that really intimate living room space with the audience to like let the show be a living breathing thing that we kind of create together every night and and really

just get to the heart of the emotion together so I'm really pumped for those shows I'm kind of

“terrified and nervous to do them so low but yeah I think it's going to be a lot of fun and I can't”

wait to connect with the audience in that space and then we have a handful of summer festivals as well so we'll bring the band out for those and that'll be a good time and I'm in the middle of routing uh a fall tour right now trying to make all the dates magically line up for the rest of the acoustic tour yeah it's uh it takes a village but all that together as as we know um what would be some advice for young artists um singers songwriters and trying to it trying to I guess make it but make it

means different things to different people um talk about that if you couldn't and maybe give some some advice to people yeah I'm still feel like I'm learning every single day but I think the most important thing to me um is keeping the like love and joy for music at the front of everything else and like being a fan of music and listening to things that inspire you is like that filling your tank is really sort of like creative oxygen and so much of what it means to be an artist now is

so much different than when I started but uh a ton of it is just through screen and and being able to like reach people in one line hooks and short attention spans and and as incredible as that

community online is and they're so powerful it's like they can like in a second be able to like

support and lift something in such a beautiful way but there's something like intangible and almost impersonal that kind of happens in that lane sometimes and I think creatively like just staying inspired is like what is necessary to balance the like business side of what it means to be an artist so that's kind of some a balance I'm always trying to like get better at navigating but I I really enjoy all the aspects of it and what else would I say to advice I would definitely say

when things start rolling it gets so exciting and like there's such an adrenaline to that

“and I think the most important thing is to like hold on to your autonomy and your instinct and like”

there's there's a period and that I can look back on for sure where I became so like concerned about other people thought and does the team think this is right and what's the right move and

the reality is no one has the answers the only thing is you're like artistic magic that you bring to the

taste it's like this it's just this thing you have as as the artist with the vision that like you have to keep that sacred and and keep that inspired and do you find um I've often said this too because I'm the music that I've been playing for a bunch of years but do you find it's important to

keep that spirit alive and not let not let the business squash that thing absolutely

“it's it's that's what feeling the tank is it's like oh my gosh that younger version of me”

would freak out at the amazing attack of the unfolded and it's like you gotta keep her at the front front of mind for sure as you should it's like that's so much more fun that way I love that

yeah and it's it just makes life fun and like you mentioned we're always learning this is kind of

I always view this life that we lead as as college and then we go home yeah that's great it is at one yeah so true one big experience yeah and it's good to pay attention to be thankful too I think that that that's a big part of it we've also we've all stood on stages and you go man how to like get here absolutely it's so many pinch me moments and it is a lot of hard work but it's really hard to even call it work when it's this thing that you really love so much you know

“and that's so true I think having moments of gratitude is like so essential that like it's like”

ugh what an amazing thing and and gratitude for the pursuit of this thing that you have but also

for like the people that it brings in your life because of that it's like I've met so many amazing people and heard so many great stories and just like the adventures that this has taken me on as far as her feet surpassed anything that that like little dreamer kid would be thinking about you know yeah it's magical it's a magical thing and we're lucky to you know even though we have we all have stories about being in the business so whatever but it's a magical thing and you know God

however you're whatever your belief system is as sort of what dad touched us and said it's gonna be you and how rare is that right so crazy so true yeah um how can people find you on mine and social media and all that stuff oh all the places all the places all the things yeah to kneel towns on all on all the platforms and I love to like message with people and keep in touch and like that I love that part very much it's it is it does feel like community and that's

pretty cool to me yeah it's awesome it's nice that people can actually reach out to you and tell

“you their stories and how you touch them and it's it's super important to get that as an artist”

it's super important to get that feedback absolutely yes it's it you know I feel like art isn't really art unless it becomes like a two-way street that you get to like exchange and share and I love that that's it's that's my favorite part about it to know thank you so much for joining me I know you're you're busy lady and you got to let go it on but I appreciate you making the time of course thank you for taking the time it's been a joy to chat with you and I really appreciate

you lifting up the new music and so fun to share some stories to it wow it's my pleasure in my honor everybody please check out enabling it's out now your Spotify is mentioned is rocking

you've got almost almost half a million listeners among which is amazing and also your full

catalog is there pretty much so check out the songs a lot of great songs and again very very intimate important storytelling which is which is what I love and artists that's something that that connects with me for sure so thank you so much I appreciate it thank you I appreciate you and thanks for caring about music like that that's really awesome you're awesome wow thank you yeah have a good rest of your day all right you too thanks for joining us and please consider

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