Elijah Woods on first-ever Asia tour, ‘loving’ Filipino fans

Canadian singer-songwriter and producer Elijah Woods (stylized as elijah woods) is bringing to Asia his ilu 24/7, 365 tour. The series of shows will commence on May 13 in Singapore and travel through Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Manila, Tokyo and Taipei.

While still considered an industry newbie, elijah has already earned platinum and gold records, four JUNO Award nominations, and been honored with the SOCAN 2022 Pop Award. On the year of his debut as solo artist in 2021, he held strong in the Top 5 of the Billboard’s Canadian Emerging Artist Chart for more than 39 weeks.

He’s gaining more traction internationally, drawing in fans from various parts of the world, including the Philippines where he has the highest concentration of listeners on Spotify. With over 350 million streams and still growing, his career is expected to hit new heights.

The 30-year-old pop artist particularly credited his 2023 viral single 24/7, 365, from his bright orange everglow EP, as the song that altered his life in so many ways.

During a recent interview with The STAR over Zoom, elijah spoke about how the song became a major confidence booster that gave him the courage to embark on an Asian tour.

“I think it’s really, really helped with maybe just establishing a foundation of who I am musically, especially in that area of the world (Asia),” he continued.

“It’s opened a lot of doors for me in terms of meeting some of my idols, in terms of songwriters.

“It’s pulled a lot of really great people into my life and pushed a lot of bad people out of my life, which is also a really nice thing.

“So, it’s interesting and it’s wild that a little bit of success can sometimes do that and I think that’s always for the better. So it’s been a really interesting journey since the song came out.

“And, I think, just seeing it resonate around the world is the most wild part.”

The track was primarily inspired by his engagement last year. “I proposed to my girlfriend at the time, and that was in New York City and I was filled with all this tension and all this excitement because it was a complete surprise to her.”

A month later, he came up with the song. “It’s just about this (message that) ‘I’ll love you forever and no matter what, you’re always going to be my person and let’s make that permanent.’”

He recalled writing the song in his boxers at 10:30 a.m. and posted a video of it by 1 p.m. and “then all of a sudden, it had millions of views and people were like, we need this song right now.” The single has since racked up at least 50 million streams.

Here are more of elijah’s answers to The STAR’s questions during the virtual chat:

I want to know how do you feel about your first-ever Asia tour and what are you most looking forward to about performing in Asia?

“I’m feeling very excited. I mean, not to be dramatic, but this is probably the coolest thing I’ve ever done.

“I think it’s so insane that I can put up music in Canada and have it resonate with so many people across the world. I think that’s very special.

“But then to be able to come and perform these songs and experience that in person is something. And I’m really looking forward to seeing how it makes everyone feel,  like how that experience is. I’m really, really excited for that. And I think everyone keeps joking with me that I should be.”

How aware are you of your fanbase from this side of the world and do they reach out to you?

“I do, yeah. I think I first started experiencing it a couple years ago and I started looking at my Spotify insights and my Apple insights and seeing that the Southeast Asian countries were creeping up on my list.

“And now, for the last year and a half, the Philippines has been my No. 1 listening country overall on Spotify, which is just so cool.

“So, it has really tuned me into sort of like, hey, your music resonating with a certain people and for me, it’s been just finding the people on Instagram, going on TikTok (and seeing) who it’s resonating with and interacting with them.

“But one thing I’ve noticed is that everybody I’ve talked to is just so loving. Like they’re so sweet and they’re so genuine and I want to go as far as to say I think the Filipino people as an entirety are just incredible.

“Because anytime I talk to North Americans in general, they’re all like cold and too cool and whatever. But with Filipinos — it seems like everyone wears their heart on their sleeve and I really respect them for that.”

When did you realize that you wanted to be a music artist?

“I didn’t know I wanted to be an artist until… not super long ago. I started playing the guitar when I was really young. My dad was in bands all my life growing up and he taught me how to play guitar really young. And I was always like, oh, I’ll never do anything with music. I don’t really have any interest… and I dropped out of piano lessons because I thought they were lame. I wish I never did that because like I had to relearn at 20 and that was impossible.

“Then I started DJ-ing when I was in early high school and mixing songs together at dances… That really got me back into music in a big way. I started producing dance music for other artists. I started making a little bit of money doing it.

“That kind of led me down the path of exploring music production and singing-songwriting. I was in a band (Elijah Woods x Jamie Fine music duo) for a little while and that went really well. Then we split up and I was like, what am I going to do?

“I started singing these songs that I’d written for other people and realizing that they were my songs all along and they were my lyrics and my words and my stories.

“I put out a song in January 2021 (lights)… that was the first time I put out a song as a solo artist, it took off and I started doing it — singing. Then, I kind of just bit in. I was like, this is so fun. I love doing this and I just kind of never looked back.

“I had no idea what it meant to be an artist or a singer or anything. But I just knew that it felt right. And it just continues to feel right… I just need to keep going.”

Can you bring us back to some of the biggest challenges you’ve encountered as an artist?

“A couple of different things. I think success, fame and money and all the things that come with being a recognized musical artist — not that I’m recognized, I’m not Ed Sheeran, like, I very much understand that — but it’s more of… at whatever level you’re at, it brings a set of challenges for the people around you because you’re pretty enveloped in your own life. You’re pretty much like, OK, well, I’m elijah woods the musical artist, and I’m also elijah woods the brother and elijah woods the fiance and the partner and the friend.

“And a lot of those relationships get complicated and follow the wayside. So I’m really, really fortunate that I have a really good group of people around me who keep me pretty in check with what I’m doing and keep me pretty honest about things like, hey, how are you actually feeling about this?

“Or are you just doing this for a stupid reason or are you doing it because it’s really bringing joy and whatever? That’s been like the biggest, I guess, hurdle in this whole thing — figuring out when I’m doing something for the wrong reasons or having the wrong people around me or not having the right support system. That’s been a tough one.

“The other weird one is when you have a song that does really well. And I’ve been lucky enough to have a few on my own project and with the band that I worked with for a while, and then on the production, I’ve had a few.

“And it’s interesting to watch if something goes well, it’s really misleading to just keep doing that thing. But as soon as you redo it, it’s like, well, I already did that thing. I got to do something else now, I got to keep progressing.

“But it’s really enticing to be like, oh, that works so I can just do that forever. But I think creatively that would kind of kill me. So, it’s always a battle to just do something that you really, really love and something that excites you because you already did that thing.”

(elijah woods’ ilu 24/7, 365 Manila tour is happening at The Podium Hall on May 20. Tickets to the concert, which is presented by Live Nation, are available via smtickets.com and its outlets.)