Canadian Musician - September/October 2020 | Page 42

MacKenzie Porter’s
Unparalleled Upward Trajectory
BY ANDREW KING
The word “unprecedented”
has been tossed around a
lot lately. And fair enough,
because it certainly – and
quite literally – applies to
this current moment in
time; nevertheless, its newfound pervasiveness
sort of inherently dilutes its
power, and yet there’s really no better
word to describe county star MacKenzie
Porter’s career trajectory over the
past couple of years.
In July 2020, Porter scored her third
consecutive number one single as a
female Canadian country artist with the
somber but sticky “Seeing Other People”
– a feat that did have a precedent,
though it came 22 years earlier and was
set by none other than international
icon Shania Twain. But add to that
Porter’s 50 million-plus global streams
and the fact that the remix of her super
hooky nostalgic smash “These Days”
has cracked the Top 15 at pop radio
and you’ve got an artist riding a oneof-a-kind
trajectory in an increasingly
competitive music scene.
Now, the challenge is in maintaining
that impressive momentum amidst
a – yes – unprecedented time in history
strewn with challenges and uncertainty.
“The goal is to have a record out sometime
this fall, but things are shifting every
day,” Porter tells Canadian Musician
in late July. “It’s harder to write songs,
it’s harder to get bands in to cut things,
so it’s kind of weird not knowing exactly
what’s happening.”
Still, she’s not phased by the abundance
of question marks, and has been
writing and collaborating pretty much
every day via videoconference to get
that collection finished. The other face
on the screen through the vast majority
of those calls is longtime producer and
Big Loud Records Co-Founder Joey
Moi, a decorated Canadian ex-pat
whose list of studio credits includes
names like Florida Georgia Line, Jake
Owen, Morgan Wallen, and fellow
Canuck Dallas Smith.
“He’s just a killer producer and
kind of my champion in Nashville,” Porter
enthuses. “He obviously has an ear
for quality commercial radio hits, and
that’s always been my path.”
The two first met back in 2015
and became fast friends, often hanging
out in and around the recording
studio. That soon turned into a working
relationship, with Porter signing to both
Big Loud Records and Management
and Moi becoming something of a
Midas-touched mentor.
“He’s been the guy that helps pick
all the songs that go on the record, he
comes to my band rehearsals to watch
the live show and make sure it’s tight…
He’s just so invested in everything I
do,” she explains. “It’s so nice to have
a friend and partner and collaborator at
that level.”
Of course, Moi is just as likely to be
saying the same about her.
Porter began her solo music career
around 2010 and scored a host of early
achievements, winning the 2011 Nashville
North Star competition, taking part
in the first-ever CCMA Discovery Program
in 2013, earning a CCMA Award
nomination for Rising Star later that
year, and opening for the likes of Kenny
Chesney and Doc Walker all the while.
Her self-titled debut LP followed
in mid-2014 and spawned a few singles
that cracked Billboard’s Top 50 Canadian
Country chart; it even landed her a
Juno nomination for Country Album of
the Year in 2015.
Around that time, however, her acting
career started to take off with key
roles on acclaimed series like Hell on
Wheels and Travelers. At first, she tried
to balance her burgeoning success in
both disciplines, but that proved more
challenging than anticipated.
“I was struggling to do it all and
do it properly – trying to keep up with
everyone else when I was doing both
half-time, basically,” she candidly
admits. “I’d be on set for 16 hours a
day, then we’d fly songwriters up to
Vancouver on the weekend for me to
write, but I got burned out doing five
16-hour days a week and then trying to
be super creative in a new mindset on
the weekend; it just didn’t work.”
So, when she decided to re-shift all
of her focus towards her music career in
2018, Moi and Big Loud were ready and
willing to jump aboard for the ride.
She came out swinging in late 2018
with “About You,” a song that tells
you straight-up it’s “about breakin’ up
and wakin’ up / And stayin’ tough and
Maker’s Mark toppin’ off a coffee cup”
in its incredibly catchy chorus. That
was her first number one on Canadian
country radio, and then “These Days”
and “Seeing Other People” turned that
into an ongoing trend.
The track listing and release date
for her forthcoming EP have yet to be
confirmed, and while it will be Porter’s
second formal collection following her
debut LP and a string of singles, in a
way, it feels like something of a new
beginning.
“My first record was totally independent;
I’d written all of those songs
myself,” she shares. “If I’m being completely
honest, I don’t even like to listen
to it anymore; it just feels so far from
where I’m at now.”
That’s fair enough, especially considering
all she’s been able to absorb
from Moi and the handful of hitmakers
she’s worked with over the past few
years in her adoptive home of Nashville.
Now, she and her team are poised
to continue elevating her profile in
Canada while pushing deeper into the
ever-important U.S. market.
Regarding the latter, she says the
growing strength of Canada’s domestic
country music community and industry
have started to turn heads south of the
border, generating a lot more opportunities
for Canadian talent to break
through.
“I’ve been living in Nashville now
for six years, and I will say that when I
first came down, there was such a stigma
about Canadian artists in country
music. I don’t know if people here just
didn’t take it as seriously, but that’s
shifted in the last several years. There
are many artists – a lot of females spe-
42 CANADIAN MUSICIAN