The C2C Sit Down with Alli Walker
When we first met Alli Walker a year ago at the 2024 edition of C2C: Country to Country in Berlin, the native of Prince Edward Island had just made the move south of the border to the bright lights of Music City and had just signed her deal with RECORDS Nashville.
Fast forward twelve months and she is back in Europe, but this time as well as a return to the German capital, The O2 in London is beckoning where she we perform three sets across the weekend of March 14th to 16th. Over the past twelve months, a lot has happened for Alli as she has collaborated with Gretchen Wilson on her latest release “First Time Living”, continued to rapidly grow her social media following and received her first CCMA Award nomination for Female Artist of the Year.
Jamie hung out with Alli over in Berlin once more to chat about her upcoming shows in London, drinking a beer out of a catfish and showcasing some more bagpipes (or as our German friends call them: a “dudelsack”) to her catalogue with upcoming single “Ride It Out”.
This is a proper case of Déjà vu isn’t it?
”Haha I‘m pretty sure this is the exact same picnic table that we were sat at last year.”
Oh my gosh, you’re right lol but it’s great to see you again and have you back here at C2C.
“I am so happy to be here, it’s just been good vibes from the jump.”
Your rooms have been packed out too, they were just stopping people coming in and I don’t think I’ve seen that before on that stage.
“Wow that’s so cool and honestly it's been cool to have the fans come back, know the songs more, buy the merch and see my face on their shirts.”
Does it feel super weird when people come up to you and you are hugging your own face?
“Haha I just made my first piece of merch with my face on it because I was like, there's no way anyone is gonna buy a fricking t-shirt with face on it but my team made me do it.“
All the other ones you have had look really cool, I know I have a Spice Girls t-shirt on today and had a Sabrina a Carpenter one on yesterday but normally the big logo or big face thing isn’t for me and I’m like as much as I like an artist would I really wear that?
“Yeah, it's been stuff that I would wear but I'm working with a new merch company and they're like, no, the fans want your face haha.”
This time last year, you were just about to move but now you’re a Nashvillian or whatever the term that you use now that you live there but not just that you’re not just Alli Walker, you are CCMA nominated Alli Walker!
“It was very mind blowing to get that nomination. It came out of nowhere, I thought maybe I would get like specialty player of the year for bagpipes or something haha.”
We have a five-strong Team Canada heading to London next weekend and you are the first ever from PEI to play London! It’s such an exciting time for Canadian artists right now and so many of you are killing it down in music city. I spoke to Meghan (Patrick) on Friday, she is doing the two weekends back-to-back like you are and she has also moved south of the border but we talked about once you do make that move how you feel you become an ambassador where you need to fly that Canadian flag.
”Yeah and you have to be in Nashville. I did it for fifteen years not being in Nashville, then the second I moved there, it was like everything changed, you know? People take you more seriously, it's easier to write with people because you would normally go down for a trip and book things out, then a lot of writing sessions get cancelled, but if you live there, you can just do it the next day. It was a big change and I feel like I'm getting better faster, because I'm writing every single day, I'm performing all the time so, Nashville is the place to be for that.”
Jamie hung out with Alli over in Berlin once more to chat about her upcoming shows in London, drinking a beer out of a catfish and showcasing some more bagpipes (or as our German friends call them: a “dudelsack”) to her catalogue with upcoming single “Ride It Out”.
This is a proper case of Déjà vu isn’t it?
”Haha I‘m pretty sure this is the exact same picnic table that we were sat at last year.”
Oh my gosh, you’re right lol but it’s great to see you again and have you back here at C2C.
“I am so happy to be here, it’s just been good vibes from the jump.”
Your rooms have been packed out too, they were just stopping people coming in and I don’t think I’ve seen that before on that stage.
“Wow that’s so cool and honestly it's been cool to have the fans come back, know the songs more, buy the merch and see my face on their shirts.”
Does it feel super weird when people come up to you and you are hugging your own face?
“Haha I just made my first piece of merch with my face on it because I was like, there's no way anyone is gonna buy a fricking t-shirt with face on it but my team made me do it.“
All the other ones you have had look really cool, I know I have a Spice Girls t-shirt on today and had a Sabrina a Carpenter one on yesterday but normally the big logo or big face thing isn’t for me and I’m like as much as I like an artist would I really wear that?
“Yeah, it's been stuff that I would wear but I'm working with a new merch company and they're like, no, the fans want your face haha.”
This time last year, you were just about to move but now you’re a Nashvillian or whatever the term that you use now that you live there but not just that you’re not just Alli Walker, you are CCMA nominated Alli Walker!
“It was very mind blowing to get that nomination. It came out of nowhere, I thought maybe I would get like specialty player of the year for bagpipes or something haha.”
We have a five-strong Team Canada heading to London next weekend and you are the first ever from PEI to play London! It’s such an exciting time for Canadian artists right now and so many of you are killing it down in music city. I spoke to Meghan (Patrick) on Friday, she is doing the two weekends back-to-back like you are and she has also moved south of the border but we talked about once you do make that move how you feel you become an ambassador where you need to fly that Canadian flag.
”Yeah and you have to be in Nashville. I did it for fifteen years not being in Nashville, then the second I moved there, it was like everything changed, you know? People take you more seriously, it's easier to write with people because you would normally go down for a trip and book things out, then a lot of writing sessions get cancelled, but if you live there, you can just do it the next day. It was a big change and I feel like I'm getting better faster, because I'm writing every single day, I'm performing all the time so, Nashville is the place to be for that.”
I always see you posting stuff on your socials and that’s a big part of being a musician which you are really dialled in on when your promoting songs but I need to hear about the catfish when you were putting “Creek” out. Was it spontaneous or did you think do know what, that’s a great idea when someone suggested it?
“Yes, I have a song called “Creek” where the second line is “catch you like a catfish” and I was performing at the Nashville Predators hockey game. Their thing there is that people bring dead catfish and throw them on the ice, so it was already a thing for the Nashville hockey team but when I was performing there, we were just like hey, do have a catfish? Can we do anything with it? We just thought it would be behind the scenes and no one would see it but as I was performing, we decided that it would be good idea to chug a beer out of a catfish and went viral for it. I didn't know that it was gonna be on TV, because where I was playing was just for the people in the arena, it wasn't like broadcasted, but they went from commercial early and put it on. As soon as I got done with my set, I went on Twitter and it was already viral which is hilarious so, now I’m known as the catfish girl but I love any kind of PR stunts. As I'm getting more eyes on my social media and whatnot, I'm obviously getting more hate and negativity too and it’s the first time having that but I'm surprised that it has not bothered me at all. Nothing anyone has said, so far has taken the wind out of my sail, so I’m proud of myself for that, but it did come with ”Creek” and the catfish, where I had some people try saying that they're gonna report me to PETA or stuff like that.”
I don’t think too many people here will have seen you do it here and beyond hearing it as a word in songs, probably don’t actually know what a catfish is so you’ll definitely just be the bagpipes girl. So it’s Glasgow on Friday, then Saturday and Sunday in London but Friday is also new song day! Let’s come back to talking about the magical dudelsack, which is still my favourite German word and we have “Ride It Out” coming out in time for Paddy’s Day. In your sets here in Berlin, you have been saying that you have pretty much just been writing bagpipe songs for the last couple of months and your fans have almost taken the SNL “more cowbell” skit and just been shouting for more bagpipes.
“Yes! Literally more dudelsack! People want the dudelsack, I did a set in Nashville and my team came out where they had never seen me play before. They were like, we love all the songs, but DUDELSACK!!!!!!! We want more bagpipe so I’ve been writing and writing and writing bagpipe songs. The next two songs coming out are bagpipe songs, you can hardly tell in the one after but it’s rockier and like “Creek” with bagpipes.”
With “Ride It Out” itself, we’ve said it’s a bagpipe song but can you just tell us about the song itself, where the idea came from and how long you’ve had it in the locker?
“I love the term locker. I’ve only had it in the locker for like six months and I wrote it with Brinley Addington and Dave Cohen. Dave Cohen is also the producer and he produced “The Whiskey’s Gone” and we kind of wanted to have a sequel to that so it's similar vibes because I wanted to come back with something that people were kind of familiar with. It’s a drinking song, it's a sea shanty with fiddle and bagpipes, and it's about riding out the storm with all your buddies at the bar and they pick you up from having a bad day. We just shot the music video for it and this is my first music video where I get to be like a character and it's pirate themed. It's all nautical themes throughout the song, like batten down the hatches and I just shot it in Toronto where the bar like goes under the sea and turns into a boat.”
Oooh, that sounds fun. Have you gone full-blown Keira Knightley like Elizabeth Swann in Pirates of the Caribbean?
“Yes absolutely, my outfit was exactly like that and I’m so pumped to post all of the behind the scenes stuff so, that will be out with the song on Friday.”
Can’t wait to see it, that’s so cool! Going forward and things, you said that there's more tracks coming, are we building towards like a bigger projects later this year?
“Yeah, actually I was just working out what an album would look like and I’m ready to put it out. I've put out like eight songs that haven't been on an album and I’ve got so many songs that I can just put them all together and put them into like a 15 song type thing hopefully for like Spring maybe.”
This weekend has gone even better than last year did, next weekend is going to be phenomenally well.
“Yeah, I hope so, it will be the first time to get to see those people in London and Glasgow, so they might not know who I am yet.
Then, I guess that the goal next time is to bring some more people up on stage with you so that it isn’t just you and Eric for a couple of songs.
“In Glasgow and London, I’m going to have a guitar player for all of it so, Eric is let go for those but I would love to come back with a full band, that’s the goal. It’s a pretty rock heavy set when I get to play with a full band so I would love to do that and we’re coming back in Wales and Chelmsford maybe?”
OMG, this is so bad of me to not hype up you playing my hometown! You are indeed playing in Chelmsford, which is in Essex so very much in your Love Island territory of accents. It’s where I went to college and where my parents live. It’s about an hour north east of London and we had a massive commercial pop festival that was the highlight of our summer through my teens and twenties seeing The Killers, Ed Sheeran, Kings of Leon, Coldplay, Beyonce, Rihanna and even very early Taylor. That stopped a while back but it’s great they are starting something up again and especially a country festival.
“That’s cool, I think I’m going to be over here a lot with lots of new music, lots of new shows and I think I’m even going to get a booking agent over here so, I’ll have the whole thing going on.”
Yes girl! That is very exciting to hear and the more you are here, the more I get to see you, which is AMAZING! Lastly on the other thing that completely drifted out of my mind when we went on random tangents, “First Time Living” and getting Gretchen Wilson on that track with you. How did that come about? I think the song itself is a really cool idea and we all it when we think our mum is being really hard on us at times but you forget that it is their first go too.
“I just had a voice note of the song, normally I have a demo but this one I just wrote with a guitar and my manager sent it to her contact. She heard it right away, she replied right away and she said she started bawling when she heard it because she thought her had written it specifically for her. I love Gretchen, but I did not know like her family history where her mom had her really young, then the first line of the chorus is “Don’t we all need a little Grace” and her daughter's name is Grace. So, I guess she just like folded and loved it, she had no idea who I was but she said yes. The fact that I've had so many talks with different people about doing features or duets, you know this and that but it never really goes through because they have their own schedules and stuff so, it was actually awesome that came to fruition and I got to put it out. She did awesome, she did it so quick in the studio too, she killed it!”
“Yes, I have a song called “Creek” where the second line is “catch you like a catfish” and I was performing at the Nashville Predators hockey game. Their thing there is that people bring dead catfish and throw them on the ice, so it was already a thing for the Nashville hockey team but when I was performing there, we were just like hey, do have a catfish? Can we do anything with it? We just thought it would be behind the scenes and no one would see it but as I was performing, we decided that it would be good idea to chug a beer out of a catfish and went viral for it. I didn't know that it was gonna be on TV, because where I was playing was just for the people in the arena, it wasn't like broadcasted, but they went from commercial early and put it on. As soon as I got done with my set, I went on Twitter and it was already viral which is hilarious so, now I’m known as the catfish girl but I love any kind of PR stunts. As I'm getting more eyes on my social media and whatnot, I'm obviously getting more hate and negativity too and it’s the first time having that but I'm surprised that it has not bothered me at all. Nothing anyone has said, so far has taken the wind out of my sail, so I’m proud of myself for that, but it did come with ”Creek” and the catfish, where I had some people try saying that they're gonna report me to PETA or stuff like that.”
I don’t think too many people here will have seen you do it here and beyond hearing it as a word in songs, probably don’t actually know what a catfish is so you’ll definitely just be the bagpipes girl. So it’s Glasgow on Friday, then Saturday and Sunday in London but Friday is also new song day! Let’s come back to talking about the magical dudelsack, which is still my favourite German word and we have “Ride It Out” coming out in time for Paddy’s Day. In your sets here in Berlin, you have been saying that you have pretty much just been writing bagpipe songs for the last couple of months and your fans have almost taken the SNL “more cowbell” skit and just been shouting for more bagpipes.
“Yes! Literally more dudelsack! People want the dudelsack, I did a set in Nashville and my team came out where they had never seen me play before. They were like, we love all the songs, but DUDELSACK!!!!!!! We want more bagpipe so I’ve been writing and writing and writing bagpipe songs. The next two songs coming out are bagpipe songs, you can hardly tell in the one after but it’s rockier and like “Creek” with bagpipes.”
With “Ride It Out” itself, we’ve said it’s a bagpipe song but can you just tell us about the song itself, where the idea came from and how long you’ve had it in the locker?
“I love the term locker. I’ve only had it in the locker for like six months and I wrote it with Brinley Addington and Dave Cohen. Dave Cohen is also the producer and he produced “The Whiskey’s Gone” and we kind of wanted to have a sequel to that so it's similar vibes because I wanted to come back with something that people were kind of familiar with. It’s a drinking song, it's a sea shanty with fiddle and bagpipes, and it's about riding out the storm with all your buddies at the bar and they pick you up from having a bad day. We just shot the music video for it and this is my first music video where I get to be like a character and it's pirate themed. It's all nautical themes throughout the song, like batten down the hatches and I just shot it in Toronto where the bar like goes under the sea and turns into a boat.”
Oooh, that sounds fun. Have you gone full-blown Keira Knightley like Elizabeth Swann in Pirates of the Caribbean?
“Yes absolutely, my outfit was exactly like that and I’m so pumped to post all of the behind the scenes stuff so, that will be out with the song on Friday.”
Can’t wait to see it, that’s so cool! Going forward and things, you said that there's more tracks coming, are we building towards like a bigger projects later this year?
“Yeah, actually I was just working out what an album would look like and I’m ready to put it out. I've put out like eight songs that haven't been on an album and I’ve got so many songs that I can just put them all together and put them into like a 15 song type thing hopefully for like Spring maybe.”
This weekend has gone even better than last year did, next weekend is going to be phenomenally well.
“Yeah, I hope so, it will be the first time to get to see those people in London and Glasgow, so they might not know who I am yet.
Then, I guess that the goal next time is to bring some more people up on stage with you so that it isn’t just you and Eric for a couple of songs.
“In Glasgow and London, I’m going to have a guitar player for all of it so, Eric is let go for those but I would love to come back with a full band, that’s the goal. It’s a pretty rock heavy set when I get to play with a full band so I would love to do that and we’re coming back in Wales and Chelmsford maybe?”
OMG, this is so bad of me to not hype up you playing my hometown! You are indeed playing in Chelmsford, which is in Essex so very much in your Love Island territory of accents. It’s where I went to college and where my parents live. It’s about an hour north east of London and we had a massive commercial pop festival that was the highlight of our summer through my teens and twenties seeing The Killers, Ed Sheeran, Kings of Leon, Coldplay, Beyonce, Rihanna and even very early Taylor. That stopped a while back but it’s great they are starting something up again and especially a country festival.
“That’s cool, I think I’m going to be over here a lot with lots of new music, lots of new shows and I think I’m even going to get a booking agent over here so, I’ll have the whole thing going on.”
Yes girl! That is very exciting to hear and the more you are here, the more I get to see you, which is AMAZING! Lastly on the other thing that completely drifted out of my mind when we went on random tangents, “First Time Living” and getting Gretchen Wilson on that track with you. How did that come about? I think the song itself is a really cool idea and we all it when we think our mum is being really hard on us at times but you forget that it is their first go too.
“I just had a voice note of the song, normally I have a demo but this one I just wrote with a guitar and my manager sent it to her contact. She heard it right away, she replied right away and she said she started bawling when she heard it because she thought her had written it specifically for her. I love Gretchen, but I did not know like her family history where her mom had her really young, then the first line of the chorus is “Don’t we all need a little Grace” and her daughter's name is Grace. So, I guess she just like folded and loved it, she had no idea who I was but she said yes. The fact that I've had so many talks with different people about doing features or duets, you know this and that but it never really goes through because they have their own schedules and stuff so, it was actually awesome that came to fruition and I got to put it out. She did awesome, she did it so quick in the studio too, she killed it!”
Awesome. It’s so nice to see you, thank you for taking the time to hang out friend and I’m looking forward to everyone getting to see you kill it again next weekend in London.
Alli Walker will play at C2C: Country to Country in London with performances on Saturday March 15th at 12:30 on The Countryline Stage along with sets on the Jack Daniel’s Big Entrance Stage at 13:00 and The Wayside Stage at 16:00 on Sunday 16th March. Full festival details and last minute ticket information for London are available on the WEBSITE or socials (INSTAGRAM TWITTER FACEBOOK) whilst you can find more information on the Berlin event on their WEBSITE or can relive all of this year’s activity on their INSTAGRAM & FACEBOOK.
The new single “Ride It Out” from Alli Walker will be released on 14th March and is available to pre-save HERE. To keep up to date with all that Alli is up to, you can check out her socials and follow along on INSTAGRAM TIKTOK FACEBOOK & X.
Alli Walker will play at C2C: Country to Country in London with performances on Saturday March 15th at 12:30 on The Countryline Stage along with sets on the Jack Daniel’s Big Entrance Stage at 13:00 and The Wayside Stage at 16:00 on Sunday 16th March. Full festival details and last minute ticket information for London are available on the WEBSITE or socials (INSTAGRAM TWITTER FACEBOOK) whilst you can find more information on the Berlin event on their WEBSITE or can relive all of this year’s activity on their INSTAGRAM & FACEBOOK.
The new single “Ride It Out” from Alli Walker will be released on 14th March and is available to pre-save HERE. To keep up to date with all that Alli is up to, you can check out her socials and follow along on INSTAGRAM TIKTOK FACEBOOK & X.
