Tenille Arts Artistfacts

April 19, 1994
Tenille Jade Dakota Arts grew up around a family wheat farm in the small prairie town of Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada. She was singing all the time from a young age. "My mom has a video of me on my first birthday singing instead of blowing out my candles, and in the video she says, 'All she wants to do is sing,'" she told Toast Life. "I was always walking around the house making up songs, so it was just a very natural thing for me."
A neighbor first tipped off her mom after hearing 8-year-old Tenille belting Shania Twain's "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" in the backyard; soon she was in piano and voice lessons.
Her parents, Kevin and Glenda Arts, nurtured her talent with music lessons, festival trips and radio talent contests. Looking back, Arts credits those early supporters - and the discipline of life on a Saskatchewan wheat farm - for giving her the drive she would later carry to Nashville.
When she got a guitar for her 14th birthday, it sparked her songwriting. Arts started posting videos of herself covering popular songs, including Taylor Swift's "Fifteen," which eventually caught the attention of Nashville executive Hal Oven. She briefly moved to Music City but returned home to finish high school.
Arts gained major US exposure with three appearances on The Bachelor, performing her originals "Moment of Weakness," "I Hate This," and eventually her breakout single, "Somebody Like That." That first performance of "Moment of Weakness" led to her signing with the indie label Reviver Records.
Arts made her Grand Ole Opry debut on September 21, 2019, describing it as "pure magic" and a lifelong dream realized. She also performed the Canadian National Anthem at Game 3 of the 2019 NBA Finals in front of roughly 20 million viewers, and returned to perform it at the 2020 NBA All-Star Game in Chicago.
When "Somebody Like That" climbed from #11 to #9 on the US Country chart, it became the first Top 10 single by a female artist that was entirely written and produced by women; Arts co-wrote it with Allison Veltz Cruz and Alex Kline, who also produced the track.
Arts keeps her romantic life largely private, but her songs reveal the emotional landscapes behind her experiences. In "Don't Ruin Flowers," she turns heartbreak and boundary-setting into a moving narrative, using flowers as a symbol of protecting what remains beautiful even in the wake of disappointment, while keeping the real-life inspirations offstage.
When she's not recording or performing, Arts uses touring as an excuse to explore new places, sneaking in extra time to experience cities between shows. It's all part of the same curiosity and drive that carried her from a prairie wheat farm to the heart of country music's biggest stages.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

More Songfacts:

Brass In PocketPretenders

Chrissie Hynde got the phrase "Brass In Pocket" from a Northern England slang term meaning you had some money, "brass" meaning coins.

TemptedSqueeze

The Squeeze song "Tempted" is one of their few with lead vocals by Paul Carrack, who sang the Ace song "How Long" and was in Mike + The Mechanics.

God Bless AmericaKate Smith

Irving Berlin said "God Bless America" was "not a patriotic song, but rather an expression of gratitude."

Radar LoveGolden Earring

At the end of "Radar Love," the driver dies in a crash but maintains a psychic bond with the woman he was racing to see. The song's lyricist was inspired by stories of extrasensory perception (ESP).