Oakville's country singer/songwriter Paige Rutledge has been missing many of the same things a lot of us have since the beginning of the pandemic. As a musician, she's missed performing on stage.
But her latest single "Take Me Back to Tiki", released just a few weeks ago, focuses on the optimism of both travel and adventure. Her new song has been a tropical quarantine project from the last place you'd expect to find a tiki bar: cottage country.
Rutledge has been creating music since her debut EP "Hey Girl" in 2016, but she's also known for her 2018 EP "From the Heart" and her performance at the North Country Live showcase last November.
2020, however, has been a year of adaptation for artists across all disciplines. Aafter having all her summer shows cancelled, she spent six months at her family's cottage property near Gravenhurst. And eventually, the need to create something was too much.
"This has been a huge growing year," says Rutledge. "I took everything happening in March [2020] and thought, 'Oh my god, this sucks'...What am I gonna do?"
It started as a joke from a friend about the small tiki bar at her cottage, and missing out on the thrill of free exploration for everyone. The tiki needed a "theme song", but it became so much more.
"I went up there in March and didn’t come home until September," Rutledge continues. "I do my solo writes up and there, and wrote the song with my cousin. We wrote and recorded the song AT tiki this summer."
After recording the new single in the summer, “Take Me Back to Tiki” was released on October 30, 2020. And it's taken off - in just four weeks it's become her #1 listened to song on Spotify. Paige "even got a friend in Michigan who told me it was played on her local radio station, and I went nuts thinking it's getting played in the US!"
It's a fusion of country with light notes of pop, and it's a lot of fun to listen to. Rutledge described "leaning into the 90s/2000s Shania Twain vibe" when coming up with the right sound, but it's also an evolution both of country music as a whole and her own country sound.
"I love the authenticity of country," she says. "I think it’s special because you can tell a story about anything you want. As an artist, I want people to escape - I want people to find their story in the ones I tell in my music."
This story, about wanting to go to the places you love, is very personal for Paige. It's also a continuation of what she calls the "big push of having women heard in country music."
So what's next for Paige Rutledge? She won a preliminary for The Next Country Star, an emerging showcase/contest. It was moved online in April and she's qualified for the festival that was supposed to be in August, but is now indefinitely on hold.
In the meantime, she says, "I'm optimistic about 2021. I have a team of people behind me now that I didn’t have before. I’m super eager to say “Let’s do this” - and I’ve been writing since coming back in Oakville this fall." While an album is still a dream project, she says a third EP is likely next for fall 2021. “That’s the next goal…with a new sound."
It's a good thing we have more of Paige's music to help us bide the time for when all of us get to go back to the places we love.
"Take Me Back to Tiki" is now available on major streaming platforms.