For episode 101 of the podcast, we chatted to Tiera about what she’s got coming up this year and her journey so far. The interview is available on the podcast here.
Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me. I was so bowled over by your performance at CMT Next Women of Country! It’s so magical when people can capture an audience with just a guitar.
Oh thank you, that makes me feel happy.
I wanted to talk about your video for ‘My Truth,’ which was such an inspiring concept. Can you talk about that and what that song meant to you?
Thank you. I wrote that song with two of my friends, Nicole Croteau and Karen McCormick. We just wrote that song about how people, especially on social media, people perceive our lives kind of differently to how they really are. We just show the good parts on Instagram and social media. We just wanted to write a song, kind of letting everybody know that you don’t really know what’s going on in other people’s lives and to not judge that. So, instead of recording the song, my boyfriend Jason Kennedy is a filmmaker and so he recorded an acoustic video for us. We sent it to CMT and they were more than happy to put it on CMT, which was really exciting because we were able to get the message out to more people.
It’s one of those songs that I feel like loads of people relate to. It’s so relevant right now, and relevant to so many people.
Yeah exactly. I feel like, even though so many people don’t want to say anything, everybody is going through something in their lives and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with showing the best parts on social media but I think it’s important for people to know that not everybody’s lives are perfect, especially when you have younger kids looking up to you.
Absolutely! Now, you’re the first person we’ve interviewed from Alabama. I know that it being in the South, it’s kind of the heartland of country music, so was it something that you just grew up with your whole life or were there loads of different influences on your music from a young age?
I listen to a lot of different stuff. I kind of grew up in the age of Taylor Swift, all the Disney channel stuff but I also loved to listen to country music, pop music and a variety of different stuff. I think what drew me to country music was the songwriting part of it, I started writing songs and I wasn’t really trying to go for a specific genre – I just wrote what was on my heart – but the music I was creating just naturally sounded country. That’s when I fell in love with country music and started looking at the songwriting and the writers of songs and saw that they were all in Nashville. I started visiting Nashville and it was just an organic thing.
I mean that’s the thing I love so much about country music is how much we celebrate the songwriting aspect of it.
Yeah, I think a lot of the times when people hear songs, they automatically think that the artist wrote the song. In Nashville, they really highlight the songwriters, everywhere you turn there’s a songwriter’s round going on. You really get to know the stories behind the songs.
Did you always know then that music was going to be your path in life?
So I always loved music but when I was younger in middle school, I did modelling and dance and my parents really encouraged us to try a variety of things just to see what we loved. I was always in choir and all that stuff. I didn’t really get serious about all that stuff until high school, that’s when I started writing songs. I started taking it seriously then and performing around town and nurturing my performance skills and my songwriting skills.
While you were at university, I know you recorded some music at the legendary FAME studios in Muscle Shoars. What was that experience like?
Yeah so I was at school at the University of North Alabama and I was studying Entertainment Business. The FAME studios is literally 15 minutes away from the school and my manager at the time had introduced me to someone at FAME Studios and we just started writing together a couple of times a week – that was really my first introduction to co-writing because there’s not really a huge co-writing community in Birmingham, Alabama. It was really surreal, getting to write and record where Aretha Franklin recorded music. Honestly, before I even decided that I wanted to go to UNA, I was stuck on Belmond in Nashville which is one of the biggest entertainment industry colleges in Nashville. I couldn’t understand why God was drawing me to North Alabama, but after that year I realised my reason for being there was to record music. I learned so much there in terms of co-writing and just nurturing my sound as an artist. It was really cool to not have that noise around me. I feel like in Nashville there are so many artists and that’s not the case in Muscle Shoars, I got to hone in.
You did move to Nashville though quite recently. What has moving there given to your music?
Yeah, so I moved to Nashville three years ago and I made the decision to move after a year in college. I was moving back and forth and I just felt like I was learning a lot more being in Nashville and being submerged in the community, that’s what a lot of people will tell you – if you really want to do country music, you have to be in town. It’s such a tight-knit community and as soon as I moved to Nashville, I had a show and have been co-writing ever since I moved here. It’s been really cool because in the past year, I’ve really figured out the people that I love to write with and who understand the direction I want to go with my music. I’ve got to work with some really cool producers and writers and it’s just very valuable being in Nashville and being able to drop whatever you’re doing and go to a show or a write. I’ve been loving it.
Part of being in Nashville, you’ve been involved in Song Suffragettes. How important are organisations like that for women in country music and also what can fans do to support women in the genre?
Song Suffragettes and CMT are definitely huge supporters of women in country music and there are obviously some other ones. CMT just recently announced the other day that there would be an equal split of women and men on CMT, which is a huge step in the right direction. Sometimes, it’s frustrating having to talk about it all the time but that’s the way that we’re going to bring awareness to it. A lot of fans are not submerged in the business side of country music as much as the artists are. I think just continuing to talk about it, makes fans realise that there is a problem. I think in the past few months that things have started to turn around and it doesn’t make sense for just women to be on the radio. So many amazing females in country music, we all have a different sound and I feel like we all bring something different to the table, not everyone listens to the same kind of music and we want that diversity. I think that we’re really headed in the right direction for that.
Last year, you also went on ‘Real Country’ with Shania Twain. Can you talk about that experience?
Oh man that was completely unexpected. It was their first year doing that show and one of the members on my team had heard about the fact that they were doing that show and had auditions in Nashville. I auditioned for the show and Shania picked me to be on her team. It was a fairly fast process, what I loved the most about the show was that it was filmed in Nashville. I got to still be co-writing and playing shows and stuff while we were filming. Honestly, it’s so hard for me to go back and watch the videos because it just makes me want to cry. It was such a cool experience and it was my first time doing stuff like that and working with a bigger team. We had wardrobe and they were so cool about letting us pick the songs we wanted to sing, which I don’t think a lot of shows are like that. They really let us have a lot of control and portray ourselves as who we are as artists, so I’m really grateful I got to do that show.
What have you got coming up for the rest of the year?
So I’ve got a new single coming out, which I’ve held onto for a few years. It’s one I wrote back in Muscle Shoars and it’s one of my favourite songs that I’ve ever written. I have a couple of songs that I’ve written in the past few months too that I’m so excited to release.
Final Few
Wine or whiskey? Wine, definitely wine.
What would you do if you didn’t do music? Oh man, probably something with health and fitness or something with plants.
Do you have a pre-show ritual? I do my vocal warm-up and then I honestly just chill around.
Do you have a record you couldn’t live without if you were stuck on a desert island? Probably one of Dolly Parton’s.
First concert you ever went to? (laughs) Jonas Brothers.
Is there a song you wish you’d written? Bless the Broken Road – my favourite song ever.
Complete the sentence…
Music is… healing.
Country music is… real.
Tiera is… fun.
