Nomad indie-folk rocker, Tennyson King, just released the new single, It Ain’t Easy, from his upcoming album, Good Company, out January 21, 2022. Listen here and watch the official arm wrestling competition-styled video (featuring Tennyson, Kelowna’s actress/spoken word artist, Sian Flanagan, and members of the Okanagan Arm Wrestling Club [Richard Henson, Dan Marcelino, Tim Gelinas, & Jacob Metz]) here.
The catchy, rhythmic and synth-chorus upbeat track sounds light in nature but was written from an emotionally difficult tough time Tennyson experienced.
“I felt pressure to have to fit in with the white Canadian music that was being made, the way the artists looked, acted, what they sang about, in order to have the same type of success they did,” Tennyson says on the track. “There aren’t many ethnic musicians in my genre to look up to as stories of success. I found that I couldn’t fully be myself because if I wanted to be successful, I couldn’t be exactly how I looked and who I was.
“While writing this song to understand these emotions, I then realized that this had been a recurring theme in my life growing up in Canada as an immigrant. This is my anthem to deal with these struggles and to extend my hand out to others who struggle.”
The video sees the six participants warming up with various exercises for the arm wrestling battle of their lives. And then of course, features the battle! The inspiration for the video came from a show Tennyson played in Cobalt, Ontario where in the small, seated venue, people began arm wrestling one another while he played through his set. It got rowdy with people drinking, and flexing their muscles in celebration while throwing fits in defeat. Watch it here.
