Having recently been nominated at the 2024 Canadian Country Music Awards for Female Artist of the Year, Alli Walker is showing the world what it looks like when hard work pays off. After years of releasing her music independently, and going viral on social media, she finally signed her first record deal with RECORDS Nashville in March 2024.

Inspired by Taylor Swift to embark on a career in country music, Walker moved from Prince Edward Island to Toronto to pursue her dream of becoming a successful country music artist at the age of 19. After a decade-long commitment to producing, writing, and performing on stage, she launched her first album, The Basement Sessions: What I’ve Learned So Far, which landed on iTunes Top 10 country chart. 

Elixuer had the chance to chat with Walker about The Basement Sessions and about her 2021 single “Country Music.” 

You have described your debut album The Basement Sessions as “mindful music.” Please expand on this phrase, and tell us what are some key takeaways for your listeners?

My first album is called The Basement Sessions: What I’ve Learned So Far because it really was what I’d learned so far, and I coined the terms “mindful music” and “conscious country” because I was talking about terms like mental health and bullying, and just discovering myself through my twenties. 

I was just writing songs for myself to use as therapy and a release. Then I was like, “Let’s just put these songs out and see if anybody else might need these types of songs, to maybe help them feel heard or less alone in what they’re going through.”

So, I ended up just putting them out. [My husband and I] recorded them in our basement, literally, and the response was awesome. 

I think the cool thing is it really opened the conversation with my audience and my fans to a level where we’re almost friends, and we can just be more open and honest with each other. 

How would you say your new single “Country Music” has set a new direction for your music?

“Country Music” was written with Dustin Bird and Brian John Harwood during the pandemic. We were writing a bunch of songs, and I had come up with the concept about writing a song based on the songs that we were influenced by and grew up on. We put 13 country music references, song titles, and some of our favorite names in the country world weaved into the storyline of the song. So, it’s kind of like a treasure hunt of references while you’re listening to the song. 

If you did grow up on country music, it will make you have that nostalgic feeling of maybe what you felt when you heard these songs for the first time growing up. And if you don’t know country music, it’s almost like an introduction to country music.

As an artist, would you say that the creative process involves sharing the innermost parts of your being to the world?

Absolutely. I spent a lot of years just writing songs that I thought would do well on radio or that people would like, and I don’t think that was very productive because you were kind of just writing about what everybody else has already written about. So, it wasn’t until I started writing what was actually going on in my life, and what I needed to release from my soul, that it actually hit home with a lot of people. So that’s been my motto ever since: to really just exude what’s going on in my life, or what I’ve learned about myself, or what I’m struggling with, in song form.

What are the biggest sources of inspiration for you as a songwriter?

Lately, I get inspiration from songs more than I get obsessed with a single artist. I love a great song. I love a song that has a beginning, middle, and [an] end, and it’s a full storyline and takes you on a journey. When I was younger, I would listen to Canadians like Avril Lavigne and Sum 41, and bands in the rock world.

Then I’d listen to country artists like Keith Urban, Alan Jackson, Brooks & Dunn, Martina McBride, and then Taylor Swift came out and I absolutely was obsessed with [her]. She definitely gave me the inspiration and push to do this for a career. I also loved the pop world — Demi Lovato, the Jonas Brothers, and Justin Bieber. I can get inspiration from literally anywhere.

Aun Abbott | Contributing Writer