'It almost felt unreachable': Tia Wood on pursuing music full-timeafter TikTok stardom | CBC Music (2024)

CBC Music

· Posted: Jun 25, 2024 9:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: June 25

Music has always been in Cree Salish singer Tia Wood's blood. Her father,Earl Wood, is part of the Juno-winning powwow drum group Northern Cree; her mother, Cynthia Jim, was in an all-women drum group; and her sister, FawnWood, is also a Juno-winning singer.

Tia has performed with her family for years, tellingThe Blockhost Angeline Tetteh-Wayoeshe is "just so thankful that I grew up like that."

WATCH | Tia Wood's music video for 'Dirt Roads':

Now, Tiais finally putting out music of her own with her first major label release, "Dirt Roads," a moving song about her home in Saddle Lake, Alta.

She joined Tetteh-Wayoe for an interview looking back ather early years as a performer, and makingmusic her full-time career after signing with Sony Music Canada. The full interview is available above, and an excerpt of their conversation is below.

So we were talking about your musical family.

Yeah.

Let's dive into that a little bit, because I don't know,I don't come from a musical family. And I would think that coming from a musical family, it would just be like, "Everybody do music."

Yeah.

But was that just your way of life? Music all day, every day?

Yeah. Growing up, it was kind of inevitable to pick it up because my whole family sang. And that was kind of our way of putting food on the table and keeping the roof over our head. And I'm just so thankful that I grew up like that. It was a fun way to grow up. It was really cool to bondwith my family in that way around a drum, doing gigs and powwows. And that's where I got my start in music.

I mean, you wouldn't say that the song we just heard would fall into [traditional] Indigenous music.

No. Not really.

So how did you find your way to your style? Ifyou were doing traditional Indigenous music?

Well, when I was younger, my parents really played a lot of music around the house. We would always listen to EttaJames, Amy Winehouse, [Creedence Clearwater Revival], the Eagles [and] a lot of country, too, because that's all really our reservation radios would pick up, was a lot of country. [In] Alberta, that's all that's on the freaking radio. So that's kind of where ... I just startedshowing interest in that kind of music.

WATCH | Tia Wood performs 'Saddle Lake' live:

When you talk about singing and singing style, hearing your voice, how do you find thattraditional Indigenous songs in the style of singing ... has been able to transfer into the type of music you want to make now?Vocally, do you feel like it really prepared you to explore the range of your music and your voice and where it could go?

Oh yeah,I feel like it definitely helped with the music that I make today. I honestly wasn't planning on doing this kind of music,R&B kind-of pop ...because I didn't really see a place for it.

[You] didn't see a place for it where?

I don't know, not a place for it, butthere wasn't a lot of Indigenous women singers to look up to.

Yeah.

So ... it almost felt unreachable in a way, to do this as a full-time thing.

So how did you find the gumption to just not let it stop you?

Honestly, the first time that [I] had that realization where I was like, "Oh, man, maybe people do want to hear this," was [during] the pandemic when TikTok was becoming big and Indigenous TikTok wasbecoming really big. And I [saw] this girlsing Indigenous vocals to this modern beat or some Bella Porch thing. And I was like, "Oh, wait."

I started humming something in my head, andI did a video like [hers], and it was super accidental that I would start making content. But I remember that was kind of one of the first videos I did, and it just blew up and I was like, "Oh wait, people maybe do want to hear this kind of thing." And it was crazy howbig it got. And it was like,"Maybe I can do this, maybe there [are]ears that want to hear something like that." So that's whenI kind of knewI wanted to mix the two.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.To hear the full interview, listentoThe Blockon CBC Music.