The stories behind her emotive tunes and how a chance meeting on a stairwell led to the Bryan Adams duet "The Thing That Wrecks You."



Nicole Roberge (Songfacts): You've had an exciting holiday season, being in Hallmark's Time For Him To Come Home For Christmas. You were a multi-faceted entertainer in this movie, along with having "One In A Million" featured. How incredible was that for you and your career?

Tenille Townes: It was such a dream to be a part of that. The Hallmark Channel was always on in my house growing up. Especially my mom - we watched so many of them together. That felt like such a cool full-circle moment to be a part of that. It was my first time getting to act in something, which was really exciting and terrifying. I'm so glad to have been able to sing and be a part of the movie.

In all honesty, I heard it was a possibility they were using "One In A Million." I had that on my vision board for a while - have my Christmas song be in a Hallmark movie, or be a part of writing songs in a film one day. We went to watch it the night that it came out and it started the opening scene with that song. I just lost it.

Songfacts: It's such a lovely song, and to have it used in a different medium is probably so meaningful.

Townes: It is. It's such a dream. And to know that the music is going to find more people, and more friends to be a part of this adventure with me. That was really exciting for so many reasons to be a part of that film.

Songfacts: What's really nice is that they used you, as a person, and not a made-up character, to be a part of the film. What great exposure.

Townes: Yes! It was. I was so grateful and excited they were up for doing that. I really thought I was showing up to play a part as a singer and they were like, "Can we use your name?" I was like, "Yes, please! That'd be awesome!"

Songfacts: You basically got on the Polar Express after that. You were a part of the Canadian Pacific (CP) Holiday Train as a performer. What was that experience like?

Townes: I rode a holiday train all across Canada just before Christmas that felt very much like a Hallmark movie. It was amazing. Playing shows to raise money for food banks across Canada, getting to play in a lot of different remote areas where I don't know that they get a lot of live music passing through. It was such a dream to feel like we were a part of so many of those communities leading up to the holidays. We were seeing just a snapshot of a lot of generous people coming together in a really beautiful way in the freezing cold.



Songfacts: So far, totals show C$1.3million raised and 121,000 pounds of food collected for local food banks. What a remarkable thing.

Townes: The resilience is pretty amazing, and the community spirit to show up when it doesn't matter what the temperature is, they're coming out to support this. It's incredible. It was so fun. I love trains, so that was like a dream.

Songfacts: Your song "Where You Are" was also used in an Air Canada holiday commercial. This was from your EP Living Room Worktapes. That must have been a nice Christmas surprise.

Townes: That was an insane surprise, truly. All of these things throughout the holiday season were such a high. I had heard that Air Canada was thinking of using that song. I was excited about the possibility and sending up all the good vibes about it. I had no idea how fast they turned things around because a few days later after I heard the possibility, my Memere called and was like, "I just saw an Air Canada commercial and heard your song on the TV." I was like, "What? That's so crazy that they used it."

I was really excited, and that commercial just blew my mind. The animation is so incredibly stunning and it's a heartwarming story to watch around the holidays. To be a part of that, as the "narrator" with the music behind that, was such an honor. It turned out so beautifully and I heard from a lot of people I knew, and many I've never met before who were sending messages. Things like, "I found this song because of this commercial and I'm coming to your show now," or, "I listened to this song, and it means so much to me and my daughter." It meant so much to hear from people in this way. That was the ultimate Christmas gift, for sure.

Songfacts: How did your single with Bryan Adams, "The Thing That Wrecks You," come about and what was the songwriting process for this?

Townes: I was recording the music in Vancouver to be a part of the Hallmark movie. The studio we worked at was The Warehouse, and I was there throughout the day working on the Christmas arrangement of the song at the end of the movie. I went to leave late that evening and literally ran into Bryan Adams on the staircase. I was losing my mind. This is somebody who has been so inspirational to me as a Canadian, as a trailblazer, who has made this incredible, fierce path with their music that has impacted the world in so many ways. I said, "Wow, it's an honor to meet you." My manager and I were telling him we were visiting, that we live in Nashville, and we thought his studio was incredible. He gave us a quick tour and I felt so inspired. I just had this energy about me. What an incredible thing to build a studio like that. To have this creative space. I was dreaming of how cool that would be to have one day.

We were riding the elevator later in the hotel and I said, "How crazy would it be if I could sing a song with Bryan Adams one day? That would be amazing." My manager and I were listening to his music, and I said, "I know exactly what song it would be, this song I wrote a while ago." I went into the studio a couple weeks after that and recorded a version of the song as a pipedream mission to go, "What if I sent this to Bryan Adams and he decided he would sing on it?" My band and I got together and we put this arrangement together. I burnt a CD and I put a QR code on top of it and FedEx'd it to his studio in Vancouver. I thought, Whatever. If you don't take a chance and have wild things happen, you just never know how things are gonna go. I'd rather take a shot and see what happens. I thought it was crazy the whole time, but I dropped it off at FedEx and drove the whole way home smiling, going, "Who knows?"

Two days later I got an email from Bryan Adams saying, "Hi. I got your song. I love it and I'd love to sing on it." I was like, "Is this real life? Is this actually happening?" It's been incredible getting to work with him. I've learned so much about his creative process, his perspective as a songwriter, sonically. So many of his ideas to add to the song were truly incredible so I've loved the time getting to get to know him as a writer, artist, and a mentor. It's been worth so much to me, and the song just feels like a bonus. I'm so grateful for this experience together. I can't wait for people to hear this song.

Songfacts: And this was just a song you had hanging around waiting for that opportunity?

Townes: This was just a song I had hanging around. And Bryan also joined us as a writer and made some contributions and changed things that brought the song to life in a new way. It feels like a new song now, but it was a song that I had started and written a while ago.

Songfacts: What was it about this song that made you think this was the one for Bryan Adams?

Townes: There was just an energy about this song. Something about his voice and the texture of his voice just felt like it would relate to the feeling of what this song represents. In a lot of ways, it's just the wreckage of someone who brings out the best and worst in you. I think you grow together through that. The tension of that, I feel in his music a lot. I look up to that. I felt like that is something that would transfer well. I also was like, "How cool would it be to hear our voices together?"

Songfacts: It seems like it was all meant to be, and the start of a nice friendship.

Townes: I hope so. It feels like the beginning of something. I left just thinking, we were supposed to cross paths at this moment. I'm gonna hold on to this feeling. I think it's good to pay attention to those moments when they literally come and meet you on a stairwell.

Songfacts: Your songs have this intense power to strike a chord with people. How meaningful was the song "Somebody's Daughter" for you and did you think it would resonate with people so much?

Townes: When I wrote the song, I wasn't necessarily thinking about that. I was thinking about the girl I saw on the side of the interstate while I was in the car with my mom. I was thinking about her story, and the fact that we've all got a story. I had started an idea for the song, and I had gotten to write with two of my heroes - Barry Dean and Luke Laird. I was telling them about this moment and the song found us in such a special way that day. It kept pushing itself forward through the whole creation of The Lemonade Stand record. I knew it was what I wanted to put out first to establish this foundation of what I want music to talk about - the storytelling and the ability to call people to see one another. That's where I wanted to start this musical journey together. The song has taken on so much more meaning and life than I ever could've imagined. It's still by far one of my favorite songs to play live. It has this energy to it that feels like we're looking around the room and noticing one another. I think that's such a powerful thing that music can do. I have loved the journey of this song very much.

Songfacts: It relays a very powerful message. Do you have to completely immerse yourself in a story to write a song?

Townes: I do. The process of songwriting is a spiritual thing where you're transported through the music. It's a form of surrender, where you're trusting where the song is taking you. Then you get through a few hours and you're like, "Wow, this thing that didn't exist in the world before is here now." It creatively feeds itself. It's a hard thing to put into words. It's the closest thing to a real-life magical experience. Sometimes it can be really painful and hard. It's like being entirely entrenched in an emotion. That can feel like a wrestle too. It's magical but it can be this crazy experience to have a song come to life.

I feel like your job as a songwriter is to be a vessel for whatever you're listening to that's coming through you. I love the storyteller perspective of songwriting. That's my favorite place to write from, to be able to zoom out from a situation, put myself in it, and imagine what it would feel like. Then there's pieces of myself that end up in it. Writing entirely from my own emotional, healing perspective, something that I'm walking through, is a lot harder for me than being a storyteller. But I enjoy both parts of that process.



Songfacts: That internal process is the approach you took on your latest album, Masquerades?

Townes: Yes. I felt kind of forced to, as I think a lot of people did around the world, in the heart of the pandemic. Stuck in our homes and in ourselves in different ways. And maybe we have before in different ways. Music was a safe place for me to be able to talk about whatever was running through my mind - my thoughts and a lot of the darker parts of that loneliness in that time. That project was a bit of a different writing experience for me in getting a lot more personal. It was insane and incredibly encouraging to share pieces of that process as I was writing and posting clips of some of those songs.

One of those songs that started it was "Villain In Me." I sat on the floor and made a video of me singing the song. So many people responded saying, "I feel the same way. I struggle with the same voices. Thank you for putting my truth into a song." I was like, "Well, this is my truth too, so I'm so glad we can stand together in this." It gave me the courage to keep digging into those harder places within myself. And to be able to feel like there was this open-armed embrace that felt supportive of people listening to those songs. It meant a lot to be able to share the journey of that time.

Songfacts: I think people were grateful that you didn't have the fear of exposing those emotions. In "Villain In Me," you sing, "You'll only see me laughing, sunshine and a smiling face. Sometimes I wear it like a mask." By opening up and taking down that mask, it made other people more comfortable taking theirs down.

Townes: I think we give each other permission, which is super awesome to me. It's like wow, that's the human experience. You feel the same and you're being brave and talking about it? I can do that too. I've gotten the courage to do that from people just as much as I hope I can give the courage to do that too. It goes both ways. It's not like doing it in lack of fear. It's like being fearful and doing it anyway.

Songfacts: Do you get your power and confidence through songwriting and music?

Townes: I do, absolutely. Being honest in a song, it's easier for me to take down the mask in that scenario than it can be for me just walking around. I feel very optimistic. Putting on a smiling face, there's a lot of strength that could come from that. I think that there's the honesty of the fact that it's OK to take it down sometimes. It's important that I'm learning that I'm in the middle of that process. The songwriting definitely gives me strength. It's a safe place to talk about anything. It always has been for me.

Songfacts: "Shared Walls" (featuring Breland) is so poignant and vulnerable. It's speaking those often-unspoken words about connection. The song came to life from the pandemic - is that lasting message still important to you?

Townes: It is! It's a very true story. I was living in my apartment building feeling so far from everyone and also closer to my neighbors than I'd ever felt before, and closer to neighbors around the world, who were going through this same, really hard thing. I was seeing people singing in the streets in Italy. All of us, locked in our little boxes. I think it felt like, wow, as hard and horrible and dark as this is, there's a commonality that is bringing humans closer through something hard. That's the silver lining we have to look for, otherwise, it's too hard. I just felt like whatever walk of life you come from, there's such a commonality we went through in that experience. And in life in general, what a way to just look at the world as a neighborhood.

I'm really glad this song was part of this project. I loved getting to sing with my friend Breland. He's incredible and has such a joyful spirit about him and such a versatility in his music. His ability to do so many different things and keep the heart of the matter at the core of all of it. It was a dream to sing this song with him.

Songfacts: Your versatility is impressive. To go from a song like that to "When's It Gonna Happen?" which connects with people on a different level. It's those thoughts that go through everyone's head at some point, about wanting to find a relationship, that can sometimes be self-deprecating. Here they're transposed into a fun and uptempo song. How do you find that contrast?

Townes: Honestly, I don't know that I'm thinking about it. It's like, "This is what's on my heart right now, and I have to write about it to feel better and to find a sense of belonging in it. And getting to share it is so cool, especially to hear people say, "I feel the same way." That is my favorite part about music. That song has united this incredible force of empowered single people that I feel so much closer to around the planet. It's awesome. I love seeing so many people, especially young girls at shows, screaming the words like, "This is my anthem, I feel this way." I'm like, "Same!" I'm really glad we can stand in it together.

Songfacts: It's so true. It's funny - everyone's had those thoughts.

Townes: At some point in your story, of course you do! It's human. I love getting to sing about it. It's something that doesn't get talked about enough.

Songfacts: You have this compelling talent to write songs that relate to people, where even if they aren't shared experiences, the emotions are shared. "The Last Time" is one of those songs that hits really hard. It makes you stop and think about the meaning in those last shared moments or everyday experiences with people. Was there a particular moment that made you want to write this song?

Townes: It came from a conversation I was having with my Auntie Sue back at home in Alberta. She was telling me about how her youngest started driving himself to school, and was feeling sentimental about it, saying, "I remember his first day like it was yesterday. I don't remember the last day I dropped him off. It must've been a few weeks ago, but I didn't make a moment of it. Now he's just been driving himself and I'm sad that I missed that." I was like, "I'm really sorry for your sorrow, Auntie Sue, but I'm gonna steal it and write a song about it." So that's where the spark for the song came from.

I think about it a lot, the sentiment of the chorus. We always put a special frame around the first time we experience something because we know it's going to be important in our story. But the last time is never a guarantee. It just comes or goes, or it never comes, and we didn't get a chance to put a frame around it. To me that's a reminder to make every moment and pay attention to it and enjoy it for the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. Let's be present and take it in. I'm very glad we got to release this song last year, and it's been very cool hearing people's stories about it and seeing people sing it at shows is the best thing.

Songfacts: Your songs really seem to make people stop and think. It appears you have a very overwhelming fan connection, personally and through your music.

Townes: It feels that way to me. It's definitely overwhelming and awesome. I love getting to read all the messages I get over Instagram, TikTok, even through the Road Phone. People will text in stories of what these songs mean to their lives. This is what this is all for. It gives me so much meaning, and to see that show up in such a tangible way at a show is my favorite thing. If I could live every day on the road in a different city, feeling that, I would. I love that so much. It means the world to me that they're along for the ride with me. I wouldn't get to do this if they didn't listen to the songs or buy a ticket to the show - there'd be no gas in the tank for the van. There'd be no reason to share a song. It's everything to me to get to do this together. I hope people feel how much it means to me. It really is the best in the world.

Songfacts: Is there a song of yours that you are most connected to?

Townes: I think the song that means the most is one I hear the most stories about, which is "Jersey On The Wall." People sharing people in their lives that they've lost too soon. It's so devastating to hear these stories, but it also fills me with hope knowing that we have all felt that way. That feels like the most isolating thing to go through, saying goodbye to somebody. Hearing an overwhelming amount of stories saying, "This makes me think of this person in my life," makes me think we really aren't alone in that. It takes so much courage to talk about that because it's so hard.

I'm constantly in awe of people coming up to me after a show by the merch stand. You can tell by the way they have their eyes down by the floor that they have something heavy on their heart they're trying to say. I can't put into words how much I admire the courage it takes to talk about that. Music has this ability to push down the walls that we put up in ourselves and we can go into the places that are a little scary to go into alone, and you hear a song, and it makes it a little easier. That song has felt like the most tangible evidence of that to me. That song will always have a special place in my heart.

Songfacts: This song stems from your visit with a high school in Grand Manan, New Brunswick, and them having lost a special student in their class in a car accident. Was your objective when writing the story in that song to share in those emotions of loss?

Townes: Yeah, my intention was honestly just my own question, how could something so horrible happen to this incredible group of people? My way of pacing the floor and processing my own feelings was to write about it. I'm so grateful that that family was alright with me sharing that story. At the same time, one of my closest friends lost her little brother. All of that had me spinning in my own questions for God and writing about it was my safe place to talk about it.

Songfacts: Your ability to understand human connection and translate that through your songs is remarkable. You always seem to be coming from an honest, sincere place. That's why people connect so much.

Townes: Thank you so much. I'm in the middle of processing the next group of songs that I want to finish writing and get ready to share. Those are very encouraging words to hear today, so thank you for that.

Songfacts: Are you working on Silver Linings, the follow-up to Masquerades?

Townes: Yeah, it's still a living, breathing thing. I think that's what I'm headed towards, but it may surprise me and take me somewhere else entirely. I'm just holding on for the ride at the moment. It's exciting. The unknown adventure of it all - exhilarating, terrifying and all the things. I am doing my best to just enjoy the ride because it's so wild to do the things I really love to do. I'm having the time of my life.

Songfacts: You have other exciting news, opening for Shania Twain at the end of this year, which is very full circle for you, as you sang on stage with her when you were 9. How impactful was that?

Townes: It is very full circle. I was one of those crazy kids at 9 years old who got pulled up on stage with my hero, Shania, in Edmonton. I had a costume that looked like her Miami concert DVD that I had watched a million times. I had a sign that I made that asked if I could sing with her. She reached out her hand and pulled me up on stage. That was it. I was like, "This is what I want to do for the rest of my life." I will still feel that feeling and I'm hoping to keep paying that forward as much as I can. It's going to be pretty surreal to be up on that same stage as her again.

Songfacts: That's amazing. What song did you sing with her?

Townes: She pulled me up on the song "What A Way To Wanna Be!" off her Up! record. We finished the song, and she had three tiers of her stage. We were on the top tier. The lights made it look like a curtain. I couldn't see the audience at all but I could hear what it sounded like to hear 18,000 people screaming. At the end of the song, she asked me to sing a piece of something for the audience on my own, so I sang the chorus of "Honey I'm Home." Then she hugged me and told me she should probably take me back to my parents and wished me well and that was that. Any time I see somebody pull a kid on stage at a concert now, it makes me weepy. The power that moment of belief has is like planting the foundation of that person's identity. I know what that feels like. It's so crazy, I love watching that happen. I hope to make that happen a lot down the road. It's pretty awesome. I'm really looking forward to those shows together.

Songfacts: In addition to your music, you are very involved with charity work. You started Big Hearts For Big Kids when you were 15?

Townes: Yes, we're coming up on our 13th event. It's been life changing watching what can happen when a small group of people who believe in something come together around it. I heard about the youth shelter, the Sunrise House, in my hometown and how there were kids at the time who were my age in my own small city that were needing a safe place to sleep every night. I thought, What can we do to help? The night of our first event, the shelter had to close down due to lack of funding. We all looked around at each other, like, We're supposed to do this tonight.

Within a year and a half of that first event, that shelter was fully renovated and restaffed, and back up and running in our community. They've been going strong ever since. They're in the process of building a brand-new youth shelter. It's incredible. We've raised over 2 million dollars in the past 12 years of these events in my hometown. Seeing my community come together every year with so much generosity to wrap their arms around these kids - that's what music can do. That's what we are capable of doing.

February 23, 2023

Keep up with Tenille Townes on Instagram

More interviews:
Bryan Adams
Jessie Jo Dillon
Rhett Miller of Old 97's
Catt Gravitt

Photos: Robert Chavers (1), Ben Dartnell (2,3)

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