Tenille Arts: A Complete Artist Profile

Tenille Arts is one of the most compelling stories in Canadian country music. She grew up in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, a small city on the southern prairies, and turned a genuine love of songwriting into an international career that stretches from Canadian radio to the Grand Ole Opry stage in Nashville. Along the way, she has scored a historic, double-platinum #1 single, earned a JUNO nomination, and built a fanbase that most artists twice her profile would envy.

This is the full story of who Tenille Arts is, where she came from, and where she’s headed.

Early Life and the Prairie Roots

Tenille Jade Dakota Arts was born on April 19, 1994, in Weyburn, Saskatchewan. She grew up in that small prairie city, taking lessons in piano and singing, and developed a real obsession with songwriting in her early teens. By 13, she was already writing her own material. That instinct to put emotions into songs, not just perform other people’s, would become the throughline of her entire career.

By 2009, she was posting cover videos online, and one of them, a rendition of Taylor Swift’s “Fifteen,” caught the attention of a talent manager based in Nashville. That moment led to a brief relocation south of the border, but Tenille made the decision to come home and finish high school first. It says a lot about her approach that she didn’t chase the opportunity recklessly. She waited, finished what she started, and went back when the time was right.

The Nashville Move and First Steps

In 2015, Tenille relocated to Nashville for real this time. She signed a publishing contract with Noble Vision Music Group and released “Breathe,” a charity single in support of Cystic Fibrosis research. That same year, she entered the Boots & Hearts Emerging Artist Showcase, one of the most competitive platforms for up-and-coming Canadian country artists. It was her first major festival stage appearance, and it planted a flag.

In 2016, she earned the Emerging Artists Award from the Saskatchewan Country Music Association and received a nomination for the Discovery Artist program at the Canadian Country Music Association. Her self-titled debut EP, released through independent label 19th & Grand Records, hit #1 on the iTunes Canada Top Country Album Chart and cracked the top 100 on the US iTunes Country Album Chart. For a debut release from a small-town Saskatchewan artist, that was a genuine statement.

Debut Album and Radio Success

Tenille’s official debut radio single, “What He’s Into,” was sent to Canadian country radio in January 2017. It reached #47 on the Canada Country airplay chart, a solid start for a completely independent artist. Her debut studio album, Rebel Child, followed on October 27, 2017. The album was preceded by the single “Cold Feet” and made a dent on the Billboard Top Country Albums sales chart in the US.

It was a well-crafted album that showed exactly what kind of songwriter Tenille was building herself into: emotionally direct, melodically strong, and willing to be vulnerable in a genre that rewards that quality when it’s done with conviction.

As she reflected in a recent episode of our podcast, On The Porch with Front Porch Music, writing Rebel Child felt like tapping into a lifetime of emotions. “I had been writing for it since I was like 15 years old,” she said. “You live all of those life experiences and you’ve got a lot to talk about.” She also revealed something interesting about the headspace she was in during that writing period. She was writing breakup songs before she had even been through a breakup. In hindsight, she thinks she may have been subconsciously sensing that a relationship had one foot out the door before she consciously knew it.

The Bachelor Effect

The moment that changed everything for Tenille Arts happened in January 2018. Her song “Moment of Weakness” was selected to be performed on Season 22 of The Bachelor, the popular American reality television series. Getting an original song placed on a national network show as a relatively unknown artist is rare. Getting invited back is almost unheard of.

They invited her back.

In January 2019, she performed “Somebody Like That” on the show. The exposure from both appearances was massive. It introduced her to millions of North American viewers who had never heard of Tenille Arts before, and it directly led to a record deal with Reviver Records, which she signed in March 2018. Her first release for Reviver, “I Hate This,” charted on the Hot Country Songs chart in the United States. A Canadian-exclusive single, “Mad Crazy Love,” became her second single to chart on the Canadian country airplay charts.

Rolling Stone took notice. She was named to their list of “10 New Country Artists You Need To Know,” and was featured in Rolling Stone, CMT, and PopCulture. Within a couple of years, she had accumulated over 25 million streams.

Love, Heartbreak, & Everything in Between and a Historic #1

Tenille’s second studio album, Love, Heartbreak, & Everything in Between, was released on January 10, 2020. It was supported by singles “Call You Names” and the song that would become her signature: “Somebody Like That.”

“Somebody Like That” is a hopeful song about looking for the right kind of love and refusing to settle for less. Tenille wrote it with Alex Kline and Allison Veltz Cruz across two writing sessions. She knew from the moment the demo came back. As she told us on On The Porch, “I just remember listening to it in the car being like, this is it… I was literally thinking that as I was listening to the demo for the first time. So yeah, it kind of weirdly ended up exactly how I hoped that it would.”

The three of them made history. “Somebody Like That” became the first #1 country single written, produced, and performed by all women, with Alex Kline making history as the first solo female producer to reach #1. As Tenille told the JUNO Awards in a featured interview around that time, the achievement still catches her off guard: “All of those stats, by the way, were things that we didn’t even know could happen… I had already assumed that an all female team had done that.” The song peaked at #3 on the US Country Airplay chart, spent three weeks at #1 on the Radio Disney Country Top 50, and was the #1 most added single the week it impacted country radio. It went double platinum in the United States.

It also made Tenille the first Canadian female artist to hit #1 in the US since Terri Clark did it back in 2004. She found out about that particular record partway through the single’s climb, and when it finally happened, Terri Clark invited her over to her house. “She throned me,” Tenille said with a laugh on our podcast. The title of that episode, Tenille Arts: Dethroning Terri Clark, comes directly from that moment.

That same year, Tenille won the Rising Star Award from the Canadian Country Music Association, one of the most meaningful honours in the Canadian country industry.

Girl to Girl and the JUNO Nomination

On October 22, 2021, Tenille released her third studio album, Girl to Girl. The album produced two major singles: “Give It to Me Straight” and “Back Then, Right Now.” The latter reached #85 on the Canadian Hot 100 and #34 on the US Country Airplay chart.

In the same year, Tenille was nominated for the ACM New Female Artist of the Year, her first major US award nomination, and was named to CMT’s Next Women of Country Class of 2021. She joined Lady A on their “What A Song Can Do Tour” as a supporting act.

Girl to Girl earned Tenille a JUNO Award nomination for Country Album of the Year in 2022, her first nomination for Canada’s biggest music prize. In a “7 Questions With” feature published by the JUNO Awards at the time of the nomination, Tenille described what the moment meant to her: “I have watched the Junos for years, so to be nominated is a dream come true. It feels like the whole music industry is putting its arms around you and celebrating the art that you made.”

She also shared in that JUNO Awards feature that her two biggest musical influences are The Chicks and Shania Twain, connecting both to their vulnerable songwriting. “To me that’s what makes country music so special,” she said.

You can read our coverage of “Back Then, Right Now” and her performance on the Kelly Clarkson Show, where she took the song to a massive national television audience.

Signing with Dreamcatcher Artists

In 2022, Tenille made a major business move. She signed with Dreamcatcher Artists as their flagship artist, becoming the first artist on the newly launched record label imprint from Dreamcatcher Entertainment. What made the deal significant wasn’t just the label support. For the first time in her career, Tenille had a hand in the ownership of her own music.

“I am honored to be the first artist to sign with Dreamcatcher Artists,” she said at the time, “and to have the opportunity, for the first time, to participate in the ownership of my music.”

The first release under the new deal was “Jealous of Myself,” a heartfelt, emotionally precise ballad that reflected on the moments you shared with a past partner and the strange feeling of being envious of who you used to be. It’s the kind of song that only works if the songwriter is genuinely living it. We covered the release of “Jealous of Myself” on Front Porch Music, including what the move to Dreamcatcher meant for her career.

To Be Honest and “Hangover at My Place”

Tenille’s fourth studio album, To Be Honest, was released in May 2024. It included singles like “Last Time Last” (featuring Maddie & Tae). In a candid moment on our podcast, Tenille admitted she felt like the album was somewhat rushed, written while she was in the middle of heavy touring. “I would almost just like want to redo the whole release,” she said, not because she doesn’t love the songs, but because she felt some of them never got the attention they deserved. She specifically mentioned a song called “How Do You Sleep,” written in the wake of a school shooting in Nashville, that she never had the chance to properly explain to listeners. Songs like that, she said, got lost in the album rollout without their full context.

In November 2024, she teamed up with fellow Canadian country artist Tebey for the duet “Hangover at My Place.” The collaboration brought two of the stronger voices in Canadian country together on a track that felt easy and natural. We wrote about their collaboration here on Front Porch Music when it dropped, and the chemistry between the two is hard to miss. The song peaked at #38 on the Canada Country chart.

What’s Next: The Road to 2027

Tenille is currently in the middle of a busy run of new releases, building toward a 2027 album. The strategy is intentional: put out singles consistently to “test the waters,” let fans respond in real time, and let the album shape itself around what connects. She told us on the podcast that some songs she originally planned for the album have already been replaced by newer writes. “I don’t know what the album is going to look like, to be totally honest,” she admitted, “which is scary. But that’s kind of the exciting thing.”

Recent singles include “Don’t Ruin Flowers” (which peaked at #31 on the Canada Country chart in early 2026), a song with a title so long she said her team had to get creative with how to fit it on merch (“If Somebody Told Me You Were Dying”), and “Lonely Weekend.” She’s also been co-writing with Canadian country artist Lydia Sutherland. For outside inspiration while writing, she’s been listening to Maisie Peters and deliberately staying away from country music so she’s not accidentally chasing trends or subconsciously borrowing from what’s already on the radio.

She describes the new material as heading somewhere “sassy” and a little unhinged. “I’ve kind of gone down this path of wanting really interesting song titles,” she said. “And that has pushed me to go back to some of the most unhinged things that I’ve written in my journal.” She’s also returning to themes she’s explored on past albums, like body image, but approaching them from a much different headspace now. She’s working again with Alex Kline, the producer behind “Somebody Like That,” and says the new sessions feel more natural than anything she’s recorded in years.

She’s building back toward live shows too, with more touring expected as the album cycle develops.

The Fanbase

One thing that sets Tenille apart from a lot of artists at her career stage is the loyalty of her fanbase. There are active fan pages dedicated entirely to tracking her fashion choices, her tour updates, and general news, all maintained by real fans with no involvement from her team. Tenille has a theory about why that is, and it goes back to the pandemic.

During COVID, with touring shut down and social media the only connection point, Tenille went live almost every day. She was doing interviews constantly, talking directly with fans in a way that most artists only do occasionally. “We really got to know each other on a more personal level than I think a lot of fans get to know their favorite artists,” she told us. “I would consider them friends.”

That foundation held. When she stepped back to work on new music and figure out the next chapter, fans waited. They came back when the music did. As she put it, “They were ready to support and come along with this next chapter.” She also credits her songwriting for keeping that connection alive. She’s not writing party anthems that only make sense at 22. She’s writing about the stuff her fans are actually going through now, marriages, changes, uncertainty, and they feel that.

Career Highlights and Awards

Canadian Country Music Association (CCMA)

Rising Star of the Year (Won, 2020)
Album of the Year: Love, Heartbreak, & Everything in Between (Nominated, 2020)
Multiple Fans’ Choice and Female Artist of the Year nominations

Saskatchewan Country Music Association (SCMA)

Multiple Female Artist of the Year wins (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022)
Multiple Songwriter of the Year wins
Single of the Year: “Somebody Like That” (Won, 2021)
Album of the Year: Love, Heartbreak, & Everything in Between (Won, 2021)

JUNO Awards

Country Album of the Year: Girl to Girl (Nominated, 2022)

Academy of Country Music Awards (ACM)

New Female Artist of the Year (Nominated, 2021)

CMT

Named to CMT’s Next Women of Country Class of 2021

Discography

Extended Play

Tenille Arts (2016) — 19th & Grand Records

Studio Albums

Rebel Child (2017) — 19th & Grand Records
Love, Heartbreak, & Everything in Between (2020) — Reviver / 19th & Grand Records
Girl to Girl (2021) — 19th & Grand Records
To Be Honest (2024) — Dreamcatcher Artists

Notable Singles

“What He’s Into” (2017)
“Cold Feet” (2017)
“I Hate This” (2018)
“Somebody Like That” (2019) — RIAA Double Platinum; first all-female team to reach #1 US Country; first Canadian female to hit #1 in the US since Terri Clark in 2004
“Give It to Me Straight” (2021)
“Back Then, Right Now” (2021)
“Jealous of Myself” ft. LeAnn Rimes (2022/2023)
“Hangover at My Place” with Tebey (2024)
“Don’t Ruin Flowers” (2026)

More Tenille Arts on Front Porch Music

Here’s everything we’ve covered on Tenille Arts at Front Porch Music, all in one place:

Tenille Arts is the kind of artist who earns her place at every table she sits at. She came up through the emerging artist circuit, paid her dues on smaller stages, caught a few big breaks, and then did the hard work to make sure those breaks stuck. A 2027 album is taking shape, a new era of singles is already underway, and based on everything she shared with us on the porch, she’s writing the most personally honest music of her career. The story isn’t close to done yet.

Front Porch

In country music, the Front Porch has long been a place of reflection. A place where you can look at the life you have inside that front door. A place where time almost seems to stand still, where you can get away. It’s also a place where you can go to observe the world as it passes by you. To think about your place out there beyond the driveway.