Upstart pop singer Shiloh is already somewhat of a music-industry veteran at the age of just 16, even with only one album under her belt.
The B.C.-born, Saskatchewan-raised singer spent the better part of a decade crooning country tunes in music competitions across North America until finally getting her big break and inking a record deal last year.
Now the energetic teen — who’s plugged into social media and gives her fans almost hourly updates on what she’s thinking: “Omg the album just hit 1 pop album on itunes YAY,”
“The smell of jack Daniels makes me wanna puke,” “Just woke up and about to shower then get a mani and pedi then chill” — is eager to continue her nomadic lifestyle and cross the country in support of her debut, Picture Imperfect, released Tuesday.
“I’m really missing the bus life now, I don’t think I could get burnt out, I’m so hyper,” Shiloh tells The Canadian Press during an interview, decked out in a black leather jacket, red tights and tall heels.
She describes her upbringing as “pretty much a whirlwind,” and at the age of seven she started taking part in singing contests, which took her through Canada and the United States, where she’d belt out country songs she learned from her mom.
It was at an Edmonton radio station’s competition in 2006 that she won a chance to work with some professional songwriters and producers, which spawned her first single, the catchy Operator (A Girl Like Me), and led to her being signed to Universal Music Canada.
She has writing credits on half of her album’s 13 songs, which mostly play around relatable themes of teenaged angst like breaking up with boys, overcoming tough times and torment, and struggling to be yourself in an image-obsessed society.
“Most girls want to be a ballerina, I wanted to be a vampire,” she says, a silver fangs-shaped necklace hanging around her neck. Shiloh, who has been home-schooled since leaving her high school — because of “too much craziness of bullies and stuff like that” — says she never had a real agenda and didn’t know what to come up with when she sat down to write songs.
“I just kind of wrote down whatever I was feeling that day and it ended up being a full-out song,” she says.
She calls the Evanescence-influenced “I Remember” one of her favourites on the album, which touches on some personal experiences of lamenting lost love.
“It was something, you know, I was really attached to a guy at the time and you know plans didn’t work out the way I thought they would,” she says.
Shiloh’s tour was set to begin Wednesday in Whitby, Ont., followed by shows in Belleville, Ont., on Thursday; London, Ont., on Friday; St. Catharines, Ont., on Saturday; Hamilton on Aug. 27; Ottawa on Aug. 28; Montreal on Aug. 29; Toronto on Aug. 30; Cobalt, Ont., on Sept. 6; Winnipeg on Sept. 9; Regina on Sept. 10; Red Deer, on Sept. 11; Kelowna, B.C., on Sept. 16; Vancouver on Sept. 17; Calgary on Sept. 18; Edmonton on Sept. 19; and Saskatoon on Sept. 20.