The years after the pandemic were not especially kind to Teagan Johnston. “That period of my life was post-pandemic where I was finding it just exceptionally hard to find my footing,” she says. “I felt honestly a bit lost and just overall pessimistic.” She kept writing in fits and starts, but she was “probably away from writing anything seriously or with a bigger picture in mind for about two years.”
What pulled her back was a Beyoncé song. “The thing that struck me most about ‘Texas Hold Em’ was just the sheer storytelling of the song,” Johnston explains, “and to see that there could be such a mainstream audience interested in that kind of lyric-forward writing was very inspiring to me.” She also points to the Canadian fingerprints on the track: “Lowell and Bülow are two amazing Canadian artists who do such amazing work with their lyricism and storytelling and they were involved in the writing of ‘Texas Hold Em,’ so it was really cool to see them have their writing be appreciated by a larger, more mainstream audience.”
The result of that spark is “My Luck,” Johnston’s newest single and a follow-up to the recently released “Neon Schoolgirl.” Both tracks point toward a larger album taking shape. “As soon as I wrote that song it felt like, hey, this feels like a part of something bigger, and I’m ready for it again,” she says. Writing it “really brought me back to the studio and playing with other people again.”
The song started in Niagara Falls, a place Johnston describes with the kind of loaded affection that makes for good songwriting. “I feel a deep connection to Niagara Falls and I feel as though it encapsulates the themes of ‘My Luck’ perfectly,” she says. “Niagara Falls is simultaneously a place that in some ways feels it has given up but then also is trying harder than anywhere. It is gritty, dirty darkness while also being shiny and bright and over the top.” The music video leans into that fully: “For this video I wanted to show my love for Niagara Falls in all its magic; sadness, darkness, joy and beauty included.”
She does not think of herself as someone who requires a particular setting to write. “I wouldn’t say I need a specific environment to write, but more so that I am usually writing about what I am experiencing and what’s happening around me. It’s beautiful when your exterior environment can kind of line up with your inner world in a moment. That’s what happened for me while in Niagara, which made it really easy to bring my thoughts together and create the world for this song to live in.”
Johnston has been a lot of things besides a musician. Born in the Yukon and raised across South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, and the West Coast of Canada, she released music as Little Coyote before stepping out under her own name, acted in films, directed music videos, composed original scores, written op-eds for the Toronto Star and The West End Phoenix, and taught piano. She does not seem particularly interested in keeping those things in separate boxes. “In recent years I have been interested in filling up my time with as much as I can that is not just music related because I think it all makes for life experience, which in my opinion makes for more interesting art. They are all different in their own ways but each inevitably bleeds into the other for sure, and I like it that way.”
Releasing music under her own name after years as Little Coyote has come with its own particular weight. “It’s been challenging in many ways to carve a new identity under my own name,” she admits. “It feels more complex and multifaceted and I hope that is how the music is feeling too.” Her 2022 album Sentimental Ballad drew strong responses for its emotional directness, but Johnston was deliberate about not letting that shape what followed. “I definitely try my best not to let people’s reactions dictate how I write, although I am sure it seeps in sometimes. I think in an opposite way, Sentimental Ballad was so raw and dark and sad that on this new work I really wanted a bit of a reprieve from that. There is a lot more humour and silliness in the new music that feels just as raw as my old music but on a very different end of the spectrum, and I’ve been enjoying that path.”
Piano is where she keeps coming back to, in every project and configuration. “I think it’s just the most ‘me,'” she says. “It’s the reason I started making music and it is what really comes naturally to me. I love listening to all kinds of different genres and types of music but when it comes to what I want to put out into the world, I think piano-based compositions and lyric-heavy music is what I really love to offer.”
She has spent enough time on stage across North America, Japan, and Europe to have a pretty clear sense of what she is after in a live room, including a set at David Lynch‘s private Paris nightclub, Silencio. “When I met the soundtech to set up for the show, he met me on the street and then we took an elevator that opened up onto a street in Paris and then took us down into the club,” she recalls. “That felt pretty surreal. Silencio is very far underground. It was all very Lynch, in the best way.” Whatever the room, the aim is consistent. “I try to make it just feel how I feel when I am playing the songs just for myself,” she says. “Being able to lose myself in whatever I am sharing is the most important part to me.”
The album is finished. Both “Neon Schoolgirl” and “My Luck” are on it. Johnston says she plans on “sharing the full thing as soon as I can,” though she is in no particular rush to announce a timeline. “I have just been taking my time getting back in the swing of things after taking a bit of a break post Sentimental Ballad, and I am really enjoying kind of not even quite knowing yet where this record will end up and when. Just for now focusing on live shows and sharing the songs when it feels right, like right now with ‘My Luck.'”
Photo – Calm Elliott-Armstrong
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