This week, Tenille Townes will perform on the main stage at C2C Festival, following the release of a string of new singles – ‘Villain In Me,’ ‘When’s It Gonna Happen‘ and ‘Girl Who Didn’t Care.’ Here, we interview Tenille Townes about the singles, the new era of her music, her UK fans and more.
Hi, thanks, how are you doing today?
Not too bad.
How are you feeling gearing up for next week’s long haul flight?
I can’t even handle it. I’ve got my suitcase out. My heart is so ready to come back.
I think the last time you were here, you did your first headline show and now you’re on the mainstage at C2C. I know a lot of artists try and build that UK fan base, but I feel like you’ve really done it in a way that other artists maybe haven’t. Has that always been important to you and what tips would you give up and coming artists?
Oh, thank you for saying that. I mean, I am so in awe of the way that you guys listen to music and how incredibly welcoming everybody in the UK has been on my trips. We just keep coming back as much as we could – not as much as I would have liked to with everything that happened in the last two years. I mean, it’s just been some of my favorite memories of playing music there. I’m so grateful for the way that everyone’s embraced me, so I can’t wait to just keep coming back and forth more and more – I think we’re working on some things for the fall. I feel like I’m still working at it and figuring it out, but continuing to just get on the plane and make the trips is worth it. It’s so worth it, it’s just so fun. I love, love, love getting to play music on your side of the world.
Obviously this time it’s sort of like the new era, The Lemonade Stand was sort of pre-COVID and now you’re hitting this new era of music. How does that feel, because The Lemonade Stand was your debut, there must be a certain comfort in in that space. Stepping out of that, the music you’ve been releasing is so raw and so real, has that transition felt a little scary?
Absolutely. I mean Lemonade Stand was such a window of that season of my life, it was how I saw the world and it was the first record to get to work on like that. So, I had the best time getting to kind of see that come to life. There was such an emotional release once that was out into the world – to be creative, again, felt therapeutic and, honestly, the songs very much came out that time of having so much time by myself in my house. I think as a whole world, we’ve probably been some of the loneliest we’ve ever had, this new group of songs I’ve been working on, very much come from the heart of a place of processing many more of those vulnerable feelings – being in that state of reflection. So, I couldn’t really help the way the songs were just coming out more personal, which is definitely terrifying to me. I love to be the storyteller, but to really be sharing some of my own truths on a new level with this music has been super exciting and also scary to me.
My takeaway from the Lemonade Stand was beautiful, telling so many stories and shining lights on really difficult things, but I feel like this project seems very introspective. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve sent ‘When’s It Gonna Happen’ to some of my girlfriends who are going through things because I’ve never heard it sung that way, or put it that way. Can you talk about writing that song because I feel we’re always told to be empowered, be happy being by yourself, but actually sometimes there’s a real power in that vulnerability of saying the opposite?
Absolutely, I mean, this song is completely and honestly very much how I feel sometimes in being single. It’s true. It’s easy to say, ‘Hey, I am so grateful for my life and the season that I’m in and everything’s cool’, but there’s certainly moments where there’s other sides to that emotion of being single. There’s something in that reality that of course you’re not the only person who is single in the world, but there’s this feeling that comes with that, that’s like everyone else has found them. It’s not true but it feels like it’s true.
The song comes from that feeling and I wrote this song with two friends of mine that I’d actually never met in person before, we wrote it over Zoom together. We were getting to know each other and talking about what was happening in all of our own little worlds. I was looking at this stack of wedding invitations that I’d gotten in the mail from some friends and was like, ‘wow, I this is where I’m at today… why don’t we write a song about that?’ We were writing more and more lines and I felt it was honestly how I felt. It was so interesting, as we got further and further through the song, feeling that I’m not the only one who feels this way, so that was definitely encouraging for me to be able to share that this song. It has been incredible getting to hear from people, after sharing bits and pieces of it and hearing comments back like ‘this is my anthem’, ‘I feel the same way’.
It’s nice to be able to share that feeling with people. I know you wrote that one with Steph Jones and Stephen Wrabel. How was that process of forming relationships over Zoom and sharing your heart. I mean, you’ve been part of the Nashville songwriting community for such a long time now that it probably would have been easier in that timeframe to draw on the writers that you’re comfortable with, but sometimes, the best music can come out of that space of finding new voices and fresh collaborations.
Yes, absolutely. Honestly, so much of the creative time came from when no one was leaving their house, even writing with my Nashville family was going to be on Zoom too. So, it became this season of really figuring out that the music will prevail no matter what. Writing on Zoom is definitely not my favourite way to create, it’s so hard to be creating something through a screen, but it’s possible. So many songs came from that season and honestly, I think it was so helpful for my sanity and mental health to be able to focus on the creative process and be able to channel so many of the feelings and emotions that I was going through in that time and put them into songs with friends. What was interesting too, songwriting in general, whether it’s through Zoom or in person, often you walk into a room with strangers, and there’s just this common feeling of the walls are down because the music makes space for all of us to be a little more vulnerable than we maybe would.
Songwriting opens up those doors in such a special way and I felt that very much the same on Zoom and with these people that I’d never met before. Both Wrabel and Steph have become such dear friends to me in these past two years, and we’ve written a lot of songs together with other people. Between the two of them, I’m sure there’s maybe 15 or 16 songs we’ve made together and it’s just been that that was one of the brightest silver linings in that really isolating time. I was feeling close to an entire group of new friends and everyone who was navigating through the same thing.
Another of the tracks you’ve recently released is ‘Villain In Me’ which I know you released after seeing the fan reaction to it. Can you talk a bit about that one because again it’s such a vulnerable space that you opened up in that track?
It was in the heart of searching for meaning and reason, in spending way too much time by myself ,with all of my uncomfortable and vulnerable thoughts and working through some things. I think ‘Villain’ is all of us in the quietest moments and in those sort of lonely and isolating places, I think when we hear the voices in our heads the loudest, and to me, this was my way of being able to put some of those feelings into the song. I was writing this one with Alex Hope – this is the first song we’d ever written together and had never met in person. I think we were both very much struggling with similar things and the song really just found us in such an interesting light, it just sort of fell out. As we’re writing it, I was very terrified going, ‘I don’t think I’ll ever share this’ – the song is so, so personal, and eventually I turned it in and really didn’t think much of it. This was just a very therapeutic, healing song for me. The song kept pulling at me and I thought ‘maybe that is something.’ I posted a video playing it in the bathroom. It meant the world to me to hear people respond saying that it connected to something in them and somehow the villain in all of us united in the most beautiful way. I thought ‘we have to put the song out.’ That was such a special moment to me of really feeling connected to a lot of people through the distance and through a really dark time.
I guess that’s the silver lining with social media – you’ve been able to go and get that instant feedback with fans in a way that you probably would have done if you’d been trialing the songs in live shows. I know one of the songs you’ve recently been teasing is ‘The Sound of Being Alone’ which has a different vibe to it. Has that been a conscious move with experimenting more with the rockier, heavier side of your production?
This definitely has been going, ‘okay, how do I want this music to feel in a live show?’ especially coming out of missing live shows so much. It was really fun to dream about – if we’ve got an entire new collection of songs, what do I want that to feel like when we can finally all come together and sing it together? That was very intentional behind the creation of all this, but in the same respect, I trust the music and the way that it comes to life. I follow the music arrows – to me it connects to something in me that feels good. There’s a gravity and the song very much was just exploring. I wrote this with my friends Meg and Dan Wilson – he had this really cool guitar thing going and we just started talking about the sounds that we were hearing in all of our respective houses. It really, really felt like this kind of moody, tormented thing – I love the way that it’s reflected in the music. I can’t wait to get that one out there hopefully soon.
Obviously, you have also come off your first headlining tour – how was that for your soul? Generally, how did it feel?
I can’t even tell you in words, it was so special to get to do that. We started at the end of last year, getting to tour back to the homeland and Canada and seeing people come out – knowing the songs, singing them together, it blew me away that people got a ticket and came to the shows and just that sense of community. Being able to do our first round of our shows for the first time and cultivating that sort of community night after night was remarkable. I had the best time and I can’t wait to come back to those places and to keep going to new places and just keep meeting new friends, because I’m having the time of my life.
Finally, is the plan to continue to release music the way you have been doing – sort of drip feeding it – because I feel like this is the new way for fans to connect a little bit more with every song?
Yes, which is exciting to me. This is such a new horizon of releasing music – I will always be an album romantic at heart. It’s exciting to show a little bit more of a spotlight on individual songs on the way there. I’ve got some fun things up my sleeve to get to share hopefully in the next couple of weeks, so I’m really excited to get some more new stuff out there.
Exciting!
Well thank you so much Tenille, it’s always a pleasure to talk with you and safe travels!
