After spending the last month competing in a televised singer-songwriter competition The Shot based in Toronto, local up and coming acoustic star Michaela Cahill is . . .
back in town with an optimistic outlook on her future.
While she didn’t come home with the grand prize, it was never truly about winning it all. Far exceeding her expectation, finishing in the top four, was an accomplishment for the Fort Coulonge native to be proud of.
“I didn’t take it bad at all,” she said. “For me, win or lose just making past the top five. Since making it to the top four, the rest of it was basically irrelevant to me.”
Despite not coming out as the champ, her talents didn’t go unnoticed as she won a big ticket of her own – a spot performing at next year’s Canadian Music Week festival in Toronto.
Unaware that fan votes required a small monetary payment, Cahill believes that the lack of information on the matter likely played a role in her not winning the competition. However, since the outcome was no longer in the hands of judges at that point, she was at peace with the result.
“If the judges have nothing to do with it then that’s fine,” she said. “It doesn’t really bother me.”
Looking back on the experience, Cahill recalls the constant support from the close members of her family and the hundreds of people cheering her on back in Fort Coulonge as one her biggest galvanizers.
Ever since falling in love with music at eight years-old, Cahill has dedicated herself to her craft. And with the support of those doing everything they could to help her realize her dreams she’s extremely thankful.
Whether it was her aunts and uncles providing her places to stay during her trips to Toronto, or the countless encouraging Facebook posts from folks in all parts of the Pontiac, she knows that she couldn’t have done it all by herself.
“If it wouldn’t have been for them, I don’t think I would’ve kept going for a lot of it,” she said. “Just to know that I had so many people behind me and so much positivity, even as hard-headed as I am, I knew that I couldn’t stop.”
Cahill first found out about The Shot on Facebook, the platform on which the show is broadcasted, when discussing singing opportunities with her godmother Nancy Dagenais at the beginning of the summer. Interested in propelling her career to the next level, she jumped at the opportunity with excitement.
But that’s when she ran into a little problem.
Having previously never written songs in her life, Cahill originally believed The Shot was exclusively a singing showcase.
When she found out that the contest also demanded artists put together their own original content, panic suddenly started to creep in.
“I wasn’t a songwriter at all,” she said.
Stuck with two choices, she either had to force herself to write songs or go home.
While it wasn’t an easy journey by any means, providing her with many sleepless nights and grumpy mornings, her experience on the show proved to be very beneficial to her development as an artist.
Still singing elegantly as ever, the ability to write songs is something she’s grateful to have added to her repertoire.
“It’s another thing to add to the resume,” she said. “I just used different techniques. Not what everyone told me, but what works for me. If I had something in my head, I’d sit there and keep writing, keep writing, keep writing. As I was finishing one, something else would come out and I’d have to write it down as soon as it was there or I’d lose it.”
“It feels good to actually be a songwriter now,” she added.
Not a big fan of her material at first, things just didn’t feel right for the 24-year-old. But when all the instruments came together in the studio, the end product surprised Cahill beyond belief.
“I did not like my songs when I first wrote them,” she said. “I didn’t think that they were A-1 until the band put their spin on it. It was still my song. It was still my everything. But whenever you get a full band behind it and they put their little spin into it it changes the song completely.”
As for her future plans, Cahill will continue performing across the region as part of her acoustic duo with René Bertrand. However, she’s currently in the process of putting together a band with a group of local unnamed artists and expects to keep making big moves in the music business.
“Bigger, better things are coming,” she said.
