{"id":167663,"date":"2026-08-14T07:51:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T07:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/167663\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T07:51:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T07:51:08","slug":"sister-ray-leaving-the-big-sky-country-for-toronto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/167663\/","title":{"rendered":"Sister Ray: Leaving the big sky country for Toronto"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Before Sister Ray<\/a>, otherwise known as Ella Coyes, was a Juno-nominated, Toronto-based artist, they were a kid growing up in Sturgeon County.<\/p>\n

\u201cFolk festivals are such a big thing here,\u201d they said. \u201cI think you grow up in the tradition of roots music, more than maybe other places.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those ties to the folk scene are evident in both the style and lyricism of Coyes\u2019 music. Folk music played a big role in growing their interest in music, but so did growing up around M\u00e9tis music.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up with a lot of that music, and it\u2019s regional, I guess,\u201d Coyes said. \u201cI think that played a big part, not necessarily how the music sounds, but wanting to play music and I think wanting to be a storyteller, kind of follow that path.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their career ultimately led them to move out east. They\u2019ve found a lot of other Alberta transplants in Toronto too. While Alberta\u2019s music scene has a lot of great venues, there are just more people in Toronto, Coyes said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were more venues when I was living here pre-pandemic, right? Which happened everywhere, places closed in Toronto too,\u201d they explained. \u201cBut I think there, there\u2019s just more venues and so there\u2019s more playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Coyes misses the big sky and DIY, fighting attitudes of artists in the Edmonton scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a real spirit I think because there\u2019s so much fight here, and in Toronto you don\u2019t have to. It\u2019s just sort of everywhere all the time,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

The abundance of live music and artists in Toronto provides a lot of inspiration for Coyes. Toronto also has more diversity in its kinds of music because it draws so many people from different places.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re at a really good show, you want to leave halfway through because you\u2019re so excited to go work,\u201d they said. \u201cI feel that a lot going into shows. Sort of halfway through, I\u2019m not present anymore because I\u2019m really excited \u2026 to go home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Celebrating their Juno nomination with family and friends <\/p>\n

In between playing shows, they\u2019ve been focused on releasing singles rather than putting together a whole album.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA record is a big undertaking,\u201d Coyes said. There tends to be more pressure to pin down the themes and cohesion in a record.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe singles are really free from that,\u201d they said. \u201cIt\u2019s just sort of like, I like that song \u2026 and I\u2019d love to be able to play it at the shows a bunch and have it in the universe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both of their recent singles<\/a>, \u201cPlanet News\u201d and \u201cChewing On The Rind,\u201d got plenty of play time \u2014 and love \u2014 at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Coyes got their first Juno nomination for Adult Contemporary Album of the Year for Believer<\/a>. Being nominated for a Juno wasn\u2019t even on their radar until their management sent them a text about the nominations getting announced.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the Juno awards, it was mostly about being around a bunch of friends and celebrating each other. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people [at the Junos] that I see all the time, but we were just dressed nicer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another bonus of the nomination was getting to share it with family. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to explain to your family what your job is, right? And explain the wins of your job, it\u2019s so few and far between, the day-to-day wins.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coyes explained that the Juno nomination was a little like getting to tell their family they got a promotion. \u201cIt translated outside of the world of the people I went with and it was really nice. It was really a special thing to be able to share with my family.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before Sister Ray, otherwise known as Ella Coyes, was a Juno-nominated, Toronto-based artist, they were a kid growing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[2454,53806,53807,52,29183,27674,20688,1216,53808,53809,53810,13703,19228,48,19230,19231,9481,18470],"class_list":["post-167663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-arts-and-culture","tag-believer","tag-chewing-on-the-rind","tag-edmonton","tag-edmonton-folk-fest","tag-edmonton-folk-music-festival","tag-folk-music","tag-juno-awards","tag-juno-nominations","tag-planet-news","tag-sister-ray","tag-sturgeon-county","tag-the-gateway","tag-toronto","tag-u-of-a","tag-ualberta","tag-university-of-alberta","tag-yeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}