Alli Walker: The Ten-Year Overnight Success Principle That Drives Independent Country Music Careers

As a part of our series about rising music stars, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Alli Walker.

Alli Walker, named Top Country’s ‘Top Female Artists of 2019’, and nominated for Rising Star at the 2020 CMAO’s (Country Music Association of Ontario Awards), is a Prince Edward Island raised country music singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who moved to Toronto when she was 19 to ‘chase the dream’. After dedicating over a decade to honing her craft, writing music and playing hundreds of shows, she released her debut album called The Basement Sessions in 2019 to great acclaim, landing a multi-week spot on the Top 10 iTunes country charts. Since her debut release, Alli has been working on her follow-up sophomore album that will be due out in Fall 2022. Leveraging her growing online audience, Alli has spent the last few months teasing unreleased original tracks from the album on TikTok where she has amassed millions of views and over 100K+ followers eagerly awaiting her new record. The first single from the upcoming album “Country Music” can be heard everywhere you listen to music now.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?

I grew up in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, the smallest province in Canada. It was a great upbringing. It just didn’t afford many opportunities for what I wanted to do with my, life, which is music. I moved away when I was 19 to chase the dream. So I moved to Toronto on my own with one suitcase and a guitar and nowhere to live and slept on my friend’s bachelor apartment floor and that didn’t last long. I had to find my apartment. And I’ve been here for 12 years. So it’s been a journey.

Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?

I did so many things growing up. My parents put me in everything from ballet, to dancing to drumming, to volleyball, basketball, and softball. I think I did everything. I played piano when I was younger, and didn’t stick with it, which is one of my biggest regrets because pianists I feel can play and do everything. Then I played electric guitar and drums. Then I played bagpipes, which became my first genuine passion. I loved it, but I knew I didn’t want to do that for an actual living. I auditioned for my high school musical having never sung a note in my life and got the lead female role. Little did that music director know, he changed the entire trajectory of my life, because I got bit by the singing and performing bug. I spent the summer studying voice, and I got into university as a vocal major in classical music, which wasn’t in the vein that I wanted to do because I loved country music. Then I spent the next summer in a dinner theatre production in Summerside which was fun, because I got to act, play drums, the guitar, bass. And sing and act. I knew I needed to do this for the rest of my life, so I packed up, and I moved to Toronto, and the rest is history.

Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

I coined the term “mindful music” and “conscious country” for my first album, The Basement Sessions: What I’ve Learned So Far, because I was talking about what was going on in my life. When you’re in your 20s, you’re trying to figure out who you are and what you want to do with your life and I was being a musician trying to make it in the music business, which is very difficult. Being a woman with social media, you’re comparing yourself all the time to others, so my mental health was going up and down. I ended up talking about mental health, bullying, comparison and the journey to loving yourself into song. I didn’t realize so many people would relate to it as much as they did, which was incredible.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

There’s so many when you play bars and weddings and every venue. I would say the most interesting one was when I was on stage at a festival and I looked back to the backstage area and saw someone stealing my purse, so I stopped my song in the middle of performing and ran to the back and after that person. Turned out it wasn’t my purse. It was so embarrassing that I stopped the entire show and ran after someone in front of everybody. So, note to self: just keep going with the show.

What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?

During the pandemic, I spent two years writing towards this next project. I put a bunch of the demos and songs that I had written on TikTok, which I avoided joining for a long time, because who in the world has time for another social media? Not me. Then I saw comrades within the Canadian music industry getting major American record label deals. So I said, ‘okay, well, what in the world is this app?’ so I joined it. I ended up with one of my first demos receiving over a million views and people asked to have that song on streaming platforms, but I wasn’t prepared to record it yet. I was in the middle of writing and preparing what songs were going to be on my album. I asked my TikTok fans to help choose my entire album, so I spent the next six months putting tons of demos on there, and I recorded the ones that did well or that people related and engaged with. I have that first song out, which is called “Country Music.” And I have a song every six to eight weeks coming out in 2022, which will hopefully appease everybody and their excitement for new music. Then I have the album coming out in 2022. So it’s been a journey, but I have everything in the bank, and I’m ready to pump out a bunch of songs.

We are very interested in diversity in the entertainment industry. Can you share three reasons with our readers about why you think it’s important to have diversity represented in film and television? How can that potentially affect our culture?

I think that country music has not been diverse at all. I think in this last year it’s come to a head, and I’ve been discovering music from artists that I never would have. An up and coming Canadian artist is Sacha, and she’s terrific and now earning all the recognition she should get. She’s doing well on TikTok, she’s listed in the US CMT Women of Country Class of 2021, and I think that’s great, not only for our genre, but for Canadian country, because we don’t have many people of color in the country music genre. To me, it’s never a competition like, ‘oh, there are too many women or there’s too many people to compete with.’ Everyone’s music is different. I think women being a bit of a minority, especially in the country music genre is changing because it has been such a bro country world for the last 10 years, you’re seeing so many more women like Kacey Musgraves now having opportunities as well.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.

1. I wish someone had told me it would not happen overnight. I thought it would take me two years, but here I am 12 years later, still trying to make it happen.

2. That you should never compare your journey to somebody else’s. I was a late bloomer, and I spent a lot of time comparing my journey with other people, wishing that I was getting some opportunities they were getting, but I was not ready. And I’m getting some of those opportunities now and feeling grateful because I say ‘preparation meets opportunity.’ It’s all about patience.

3. Third thing would be, you only get one first impression. I used to go to Nashville all the time, but I stopped for a few years to work on my development. In Ontario, where I could play a bunch of bars, it was more spread out, I got to write with a ton of people that were more at my level, which was a lower level at the time than who I was running with in Nashville and I didn’t want to do all of that development in front of potential record label people where people are going to remember you. So I think a wonderful piece of advice would be you only get one first impression, so make sure it’s a good one.

4. Learn how to do everything yourself. Hopefully, later in life, you are going to have a team, but if you learn how to do all the jobs yourself first, when you’re an independent artist, you can understand what they do. Learning all aspects of your business is important because it is a business.

5. I guess that would lead to this last one; run your career like a business. You can’t just be a songwriter and a pretty face. You need to know every aspect from your accounting and how to run an Excel sheet in budgeting. Knowing how to hire a great band and being your own musical director. To being a publicist, to running your own website, learning graphic design at the beginning of your career, because you will not have a big budget. So learn how to do all the jobs and running a business.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

Take care of your mental health. That is most important because there’s going to come a time when you’re on tour all the time, or you’ve got a ton of interviews. I have issues with food and digestion, and I’ve had to figure out over the years, I’m only good if I eat this, so I need to schedule this or make sure I had a certain food at a certain time. Figure out your body, and then your mental health.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I hope the movement would be to embrace vulnerability and sharing. I felt so alone in a lot of my struggles. The more that artists or speakers or authors are open with their stories, I think that helps so many people. That’s what I’m trying to do with my music. I’ve listened to so many podcasts, and you can hear the same message so many times. But it’s how that one person explains it or speaks to you in a certain way that you digest and hear it, and it makes a difference in your life. So I think people might not think they have a message but I believe that being vulnerable and opening up with whatever your message is will inspire others

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

When I moved to Toronto, I was on my own. Then I met my husband, Eric Paul, a year after being here, and he took me under his wing and said, ‘you’ve got the drive, you’ve got talent, but you have so much work to do,’ because he had been a touring musician for 20 years before meeting me. He knew I had the inspiration or the aspiration to do it, but I had a lot of work to do. So he was the one that was my advocate that put me through the wringer. We played every bar, every festival. He brought me down to Nashville. He would look up songwriters and message them on Facebook and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got this young artist, you want to write with her.’ He was my advocate and my inspiration. There were so many times when I thought, ‘I don’t know if this is for me. I don’t know if I’m good enough. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get to the place where I need to be to compete with others and be at that commercial level,’ and he was the one that kept me afloat the whole time. There came a point where he said, ‘I can’t want this for you more than you want it for yourself,’ and to me that was the absolute lightning bulb moment that I said, ‘okay, my turn to show what I’ve done so far and put my boots on and get to work.’

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Other people’s opinions of you are none of your business.” I used to be on stage when I was younger, and I thought everybody was talking about how bad I was and how I missed this note, or I missed this word. And what I realized is that they’re not and if they are, it’s not my business. I shouldn’t care about what other people are saying about me if I feel like I’m on the right track, and I’m doing a good job. I’m doing my best. It doesn’t matter what other people think of you.

Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

Taylor Swift because not only is she a massive star, but she is the reason I did this for a living. She inspired me since she was 15 because there was a girl that was the same age as me writing songs for a living. But it wasn’t just the music side. I followed every interview she did; I follow all the business moves she made, how she advocates for different causes and women, and she’s even on the political side of things. I love the way she’s run her entire career without having had a mental breakdown. She’s kept her head on her shoulders this whole time. She’s always been an inspiration. I don’t think I could find one story about her where she treated somebody poorly. To have that conversation with her to ask, ‘what was the secret sauce to keep your head on your shoulders this entire time?’

How can our readers follow you online?

Alliwalker.ca is the website and then I’m alliWalkermusic across all the platforms, except Twitter where I’m @alliwalker.

This was very meaningful, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!

Oh, thank you. I really appreciate it.