Tate McRae is up for two Juno Awards — Canada's highest musical honor — this Sunday night, and the 17-year-old Calgary native can't believe she's going from just watching the show to actively participating in the ceremony.
Tate's up for Breakthrough Artist and the Juno Fan Choice Award; she's in the the latter category with stars like Justin Bieber, The Weeknd and Shawn Mendes.
"Apparently, I'm the youngest musician nominated!" she tells ABC Audio. "I didn't really expect — because I've always been watching the Junos and seeing all the nominations — I didn't actually think it would happen! So it's really cool. I mean, I'm nominated against all my idols! So it's really an honor."
"I always watched the performances on YouTube and stuff," Tate recalls. "I remember seeing Jessie Reyez perform at one Junos and I was like, 'That's really cool.'" I mean, it's like the Canadian Grammys! It's, like, a huge deal. So honestly, it's just really cool to be involved this year."
Fellow Canadian JP Saxe is up for five Junos on Sunday, including Song of the Year for "If the World Was Ending," Songwriter of the Year, and Juno Fan Choice. While much of his competition — Justin, Shawn and The Weeknd — is super-famous, JP has an intensely rabid online fan army to vote for him.
"I feel like they're my little siblings," he tells ABC Audio. "I never had a kid sister or brother, and I very much feel like I have an army of sisters and brothers…on Twitter, because they pick on me, they give me s**t for all kinds of things…but they always have my back, and I always have theirs."
The 50th annual Juno Awards streams Sunday, June 6 at 8 p.m. ET on CBCMusic.ca/junos and on CBC Music’s socials.
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