Tommy's #1 SHANIA TWAIN SuperSite Message Board

Q&A: Shania Twain on Taylor Swift, making her own clothes and country's legacy

By Rory Appleton | Indianapolis Star | July 13, 2023

Shania Twain is out on the road on her own terms.

For the aptly named "Queen of Me" tour, the country icon has her stamp on everything: the music, the stage setup, even her headline-grabbing outfits, which she designed herself — mostly from clothes dug out of her closet.

Ahead of what is sure to be a sold-out performance Saturday at Ruoff Music Center, the five-time Grammy winner joined IndyStar for a phone interview to discuss the tour, her new album, her relationship with next-generation protégés like Taylor Swift and Harry Styles and her firm disagreement with the idea artists no longer "cross over" from genre to genre.

Here is that conversation, lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

IndyStar: How's the tour going?

Twain: It's going amazing. The audiences have been so welcoming, so ecstatic and have energized me. Every night I'm like, OK, it can't get any better. There's so much love out there. I'm having a blast.

Tell me a little bit about the new album. What was the inspiration for it?

Well, I'm always writing music and always looking forward to being in the studio. During COVID, I built up a lot of songs in my writing catalogue that I was very anxious to record. By the time I was able to do that, I was chomping at the bit and very excited to get the album out and then to share it.

The next step was to get out on tour and sing some of the songs with my fans. I've got several songs from the new album in the show. I've got, of course, the classics, and it's turned out to be a really a great mix and flow. I change up different songs randomly as well, which is a lot of fun.

I was reading about some of the earlier shows, and in addition to reviews of the performances, there are also quite a lot of stories about your outfits. Do you have a lot of input on that as well? Do you have designers who work for you or on the other visual aspects of the show?

Well, I'm styling all of that myself.

Wow.

I decided that instead of doing a quick changes in a show, I'll just change every night. So every show, the fans get a different look. It's been a lot of fun, and it keeps it all fresh for me.

I'm enjoying basically pulling things out of my closet that I've had for years. Some of it is vintage haute couture, some of it is just from boxes of fabrics that I've had in storage. I'm repurposing and reimagining a variety of these things on my own.

I wanted to ask: In addition to filling up your own shows every night, several newer artists who are on massive tours themselves have listed you as as their primary influence. Taylor Swift, Harry Styles. Is that something that you think about? You're still very much in the studio and performing, but do you stop and think about your own legacy and the impact that you've also had on other musicians?

The beauty of having longevity is that you get to experience from their own words what influence I may have had on them and still do. I have relationships with a lot of these artists. So, it's surreal for everything to go full circle within my career, and I'm enjoying it very much.

It's just a really great feeling to be able share what I've been going through in my career all of these years, and what they're now going through themselves. When they discovered me, they were little kids. Now, I'm talking to adults. It's really funny.

Earlier in your career, you were very much labeled as a "crossover artist." You were a country artist first, then a pop artist. I think that term, "crossover," and music genres in general really mean less and less today. It's all just music. Do you agree?

No, I would not say that. The term pop means popular. Pop music encompasses everything that's popular, but it's got to be popular on a more global level.

If you're a country music artist and you are part of the pop culture, then you have become an international global artist, which almost nobody does in country. A lot of country artists focus more on being specific to the country genre.

Country is unique in that way. It used to encompass more styles within country. For example, you used to find more bluegrass artists, more of a Latino and Mexican flair in country music with some of the artists. There was more variety when my grandparents were playing country music around the house than there is now.

But pop music has always been a very broad spectrum. It's always had everything from R&B to rock to new wave to indie. If they're true hit songs, they'll be in the pop realm.

Do you still consider yourself a country artist?

Yeah, I'm a country artist who went global, so I'm included in the pop music culture. That's how I see it.

What else about the music industry has changed? It seems like tours are now sort of the main focus and moneymaker. It's maybe less about the albums and more about your live show. Has that been your experience?

I think, certainly after COVID, there has probably been the biggest appreciation for live shows in music history. Maybe in post-war times we would have had a similar joy and celebration of being able to be together, to unite, to come together and dance together and be in live music environments. I'm really feeling that now.

But also, I think the only other change is (the industry) is more hit-based than album-based. I think that hits have always driven live music. It's very difficult when you're an artist and you don't have enough hits to play through an hour-and-a-half show.

But the luxury for me, which I have to say I'm really enjoying at the moment, is I've got more than I can do in a two-hour show. So, it gives me a lot of room to just get out there and enjoy performing live more than I ever did before.

At the beginning, like every early artist, you're just praying for that hit. Because you want to do the hits. You don't just want to go up there and do your album cuts.

Today, I think there's so many single-based, hit-based successes that as long as you've got those, you've got a live show. Maybe that's never been different. Maybe it isn't that different today.

You had mentioned the energy of the crowds that you've had so far on tour. Are there a lot of kids at your shows? You mentioned having quite a lot of hits to draw from. Is everybody singing along regardless of age?

For me, I'm experiencing something unique. Because 25 years ago, there were so many children at my shows — a lot of parents with children. Little children. Toddlers.

These artists who you were mentioning, like Taylor Swift or Jonas Brothers or Harry Styles. They were kids when my music came out. Now, they're adults, and they're having their own children. All of a sudden, I'm now seeing babies come to the show. I'm seeing the grandparents.

It's heartwarming and it's moving for me to see three generations at one show. I even had one lady who came up on stage with her little girl, who was 4, I think. It was a little girl, the mother, then the mother's mother and grandmother were in the audience. I was just blown away. I think it's a very unique experience to have in one career.

https://www.indystar.com/story/entertainment/music/concerts/2023/07/13/shania-twain-taylor-swift-making-clothes-country-legacy-tour/70356297007/