Toronto’s Teagan Johnston Turns a House on Fire Into a Search for Belonging on “Big Time”

Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist Teagan Johnston unveils her sophomore album, Big Time, a candid exploration of ambition, identity, family, heartbreak and the often absurd pursuit of success. Written and recorded over two years between Taurus Recording in Toronto and Sonic Ranch in Texas, the record pushes further into alt-country territory while retaining Teagan’s distinctive collision of singer-songwriter folk, emo and indie/alternative rock. Previously released singles have been met with critical acclaim from CBC’s Q, Exclaim! and Sirius XM.

Big Time emerged during a period when Teagan deliberately stepped back from her music career and began reflecting on a decade spent struggling to “hit the big time.” Rather than arriving at a simple answer, the album questions what that idea actually means, moving between darker experiences of familial trauma and heartbreak, and moments of brevity, humour and recognition of life’s inherent absurdity.

Those reflections are deeply intertwined with Teagan’s understanding of home. After severing ties with several family members while confronting childhood trauma, she began reconsidering the places, relationships and ambitions she had previously looked toward for a sense of belonging.

The title track was the first song Teagan wrote for the record, arriving before she was even certain the music would become something she wanted to release. Its lyric, “We got on like a house on fire,” unexpectedly connected the song to an image sent to her that same night by photographer Christopher Jerome: his photograph “House Fire.”

The image depicts a burning “Vancouver Special” surrounded by an otherwise dark, quiet neighbourhood. Having spent much of her childhood in Victoria, BC, Teagan immediately connected its familiar architecture to her own childhood home and experiences. The contrast between a seemingly ordinary suburban setting and the urgency of a house engulfed in flames mirrored the disconnect between how a family can appear from the outside and what may be unfolding within it. The photograph ultimately became the album cover.

That imagery carries into the “Big Time” music video, co-directed by Teagan and filmmaker Ryan Glover, whose previous collaborations include the Canadian horror film The Strings. Returning to the DIY approach that has long defined their work together, the pair used a projector, Hi8 camera, and Ryan’s family home in Burlington, ON, filming until four in the morning to create a dreamlike exploration of home, identity and memory.

“I wanted to incorporate the album and song’s imagery of a burning home but present it in a way that could feel joyful, explorative and almost childlike,” Teagan explains. “I think when I was writing Big Time, the question of home and identity were really at the forefront of my mind.”

For Teagan, that search for home also became inseparable from her ideas about success. Having grown up moving frequently, she spent much of her twenties consciously or subconsciously looking for belonging in other people and in her career, hoping something “big” might fill the space left behind. Ultimately, both the song and album turn that pursuit inward, questioning whether the “Big Time” is something external to reach at all.