Mallory Johnson is a phenomenal singer-songwriter from Canada. We interviewed her ahead of her performance as part of Couchsongs.
Hi Mallory, how are you?
I’m good better now, thanks for having me!
Not at all! I always like to go back and set the scene for my interviews, you grew up in Canada in Newfoundland and Labrador?
Yeah, I grew up in Newfoundland mainly, Nashville is home base for me now and has been for a few years, but I’m currently back in Newfoundland for the pandemic.
I know you started off there, playing a lot of Celtic music, can you talk a bit about that?
Yeah for sure, so being from Newfoundland and Labrador, this province is very saturated with people from Ireland and Scotland and that heritage. If you walk downtown St John’s or George Street in Newfoundland, it feels like walking down Temple Bar in Ireland, it’s the same music, the same culture. I know in movies when people try to do the accent it sounds like an Irish accent, so there’s a lot of similarities there. I grew up, of course being a country music fan, my mom was a country music artist, so grew up listening to her playing Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn and my dad was a huge Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard fan. I did have the country music influence, however of course being from Newfoundland, I did grow up with the Celtic stuff, a lot of my aunts and uncles play accordions and bagpipes at every wedding and funeral. Everyone sits around playing a guitar and mandolin and having a kitchen party, so I was definitely bit by the bug. When I was eleven years old, myself and my mom and my uncle and my cousin, we formed a Celtic family band, so we toured the country, we toured Scotland, we released four albums, so that was the music that I performed before I made the transition to country music.
It’s so interesting because of course Celtic music is a huge part of the heritage of country music.
Of course, I just love Celtic music. When I hear the bagpipes, it makes me so emotional. When we toured Scotland, I remember getting off the plane and I spent my 19th birthday over there. We were greeted by a huge bunch of pipers and I was crying and I was so emotional. That music, it has a home feeling for me, when I hear it. The transition to country music was pretty effortless because like Celtic music, country music is all about the storytelling, so it felt natural. Growing up, I loved that genre regardless so it made sense.
How far in then did you make the move to Nashville?
So I will have been there for three years in October, so I’m still a baby, I don’t tell a lot of people that, because it’s known to be a ten year town.
You grew up in Canada first though, that obviously has such a hugely rich country culture, so even though its a ten year town you’ve paid your dues there…
Yeah, I’ve been on stage since I was eleven. I feel like I have a few years under my belt.
Do you feel like your sound has changed a lot since being there?
You know what, that’s a big yes. When I first went to Nashville to record, I actually recorded eleven songs for my debut album and Sandy Kershaw produced that which was really cool. I went down and I recorded for the album, I had five songs for my original music and I had six songs that I was very lucky to have my hands on – Hillary Lindsey, Steve McEwan… I went and I recorded all these songs and after releasing a couple of singles, we were like ‘ok, where are we with this album.’ My management team said ‘ok, we should do an EP and we should look at all the songs we’ve recorded for this project, pick the six best ones.’ So I did and only one of my own made the cut, because after experiencing that town and experiencing the songs. In hindsight, I’m really grateful for that, because since moving to Nashville, I’ve grown so much.
That must be a weird decision, because obviously you want to go with which songs sum you up the best, and sometimes those songs aren’t the ones you wrote.
Exactly, I’m a firm believer in the best songs wins, so regardless of who’s voice is on it if I relate to a song and I didn’t write it, I still think that song should be heard. I am a songwriter though and the songwriting side is really important to me, but I think I made the smartest choice at the time. Since moving to Nashville, I feel like I’ve grown leaps and bounds, you’re forced to evolve and get better because the cream of the crop is there, it’s equally as motivating as it is intimidating. You have no choice but to grow.
Last year, you released your double shot singles, Drunk Mind, Sober Heart and Hungover. Can you talk about those two?
Of course, well back in the summer of 2019, we had all of this new music that I’d been working on and we were trying to figure it out. It was about time we released new music because my EP had been recorded in 2015 or 2016. We were trying to figure out which songs to jump out the gate with for with this new sound and we thought what would work with radio, which path to go. We were just focussing on one single, and then one of the guys on my management team threw out of this idea of a digital 45, because he knew how much I loved ‘Drunk Mind, Sober Heart’ but it wasn’t necessarily a radio song. He said why not do a digital 45 and we’ll put a clever hook on it – they’re both about alcohol in some shape or form and that way you get your radio song and that big songwriting ballad to showcase your voice. So that’s where the digital 45 thing came from, ‘Hungover’ was the Side A radio single and we just released the music video for ‘Drunk Mind, Sober Heart.’
What’s up next for you then after all of this? Are you managing to get in the creative headspace?
It ebbs and flows, like everybody I’m just trying to adapt to this hopefully not ‘new’ normal. I’ve got a lot of original music that people haven’t heard, so there’s an opportunity to get some new music out there. I’ve been doing the whole livestream thing and I’m doing my best to hang in there.
Final Few
If a biopic was made about your life what would be the opening track? I have this song I wrote with this two friends of mine that’s on an upcoming project, it’s called ‘Wise Woman’ so I think that would be a good opener.
Would you rather give up songwriting or performing? Ooh that’s a 50/50, I can’t pick one over the other.
Which record would you bring to a desert island? Mmm, either a Dolly Parton or a Kacey Musgraves, maybe Golden Hour.
Your song to dance to? I love the oldies, I had some Sinatra playing during my last video shoot to set the mood so maybe that.
Complete the sentence…
Music is… everything.
Country music is… stories.
Mallory Johnson is…an artist you should all go listen to.
