Inspiration is the Key!

April 5th, 2011

As anyone would probably guess, great songs come from some sort of inspiration given to an artist and/or songwriter. Whether it is heartbreak, falling in love, disappointment, or just happiness, it all can add up to a wonderful song that many people can relate to.

When writing my song “Drive”, off of my new EP, I was inspired by a very emotional heartbreak that I had recently gone through. It was a tough time for me, to say the least, and because of this hard time, I found inspiration in something that I thought was just the end of the world. I can remember driving home one day from my classes and when I came to the turn that led to my house, I decided to just keep on driving. I had no idea where I would go… I just kept going straight and hoped I could find a good place to turn around later on. All the while I would listen to sad songs, and just cry and cry and cry until I had to pull over because it was getting hard for me to see (pathetic… I know!) An hour later, I returned to my home and I honestly felt so much better. That night as I was lying in my bed, I started to write lyrics on my BlackBerry memo pad and these lyrics turned into my song, “Drive”.

I think sometimes it is therapeutic to just drive on an open road, having no set destination, and just clearing our minds and letting go all of the stress and troubles that we go through. For me, this time in my life was extremely hard and I didn’t think that I would get through it as well as I did, but I am so thankful that God put me through this because something great came out of it… my first single!

If it hadn’t been for this heartbreak, I might have never pursued my dream and wouldn’t have gotten as far as I have already, today!

SO, let me say a big thanks to “YOU” for giving me the inspiration that I needed to begin this journey and hopefully live out my dream!

Bye for now!!

xoxo,
LA <3

Long Way Home

April 3rd, 2011

Well, after a whirlwind six months, I am so happy to finally be able to display the hard work that my producer, musicians, writers, designers, photographers, my family and myself have put in to my 6-Song EP that is coming out APRIL 20TH!!!! I can vividly remember the phone call from my dad explaining to me that he had talked to a man, who would later be my producer: Trey Roth, and he and my dad discussed the idea of me recording an album. I really can’t explain what went on in my head at that moment. Total excitement.. shock… doubt… but this had always been my dream, so I decided to move forward with the process and meet with Trey personally to discuss the future plans. I can still remember the first time that I met Trey Roth in November, on the corner of West Solomon in front of my home for the next month, Black Cat Studios. After we officially introduced ourselves, I remember sitting down with Trey and my dad to discuss what the heck we wanted to do! None of us really had a clue what it was that we wanted to do…. I just knew that I wanted to make a country record. But how to do it, I had no idea! After a long discussion, we decided to do a 5-Song EP. I had brought two songs that I had written prior to this meeting, and I (attempted) to play one of them for Trey so that he could see kind of the direction I would go… but let’s be honest here.. it was terrible and thank God we didn’t go in THAT direction!! So, after hearing this lovely piece of work I had done (not!), Trey recommended that I team up with a guy that he knew by the name of Jeff Chandler to begin writing songs for the album. I am so thankful that Trey led me in Jeff’s direction because I learned so many things from him. As I began writing with Jeff (which was all via email due to the fact that we were in different parts of GA) I could tell that I was becoming a MUCH better writer and picked up on some of his techniques that he showed through his writing! Jeff and I didn’t have an extremely long period of time to get these 5 songs written due to the fact that Trey and I were starting production in less than a month from the time that we began writing.

So, as you can imagine, my life was a crazy house at this point. Trying to balance school with music… it was definitely hard! However, by the time pre-production rolled around, I had 5 solid songs to potentially be cut on the album, one of which was not written by Jeff or myself, but by Doug Wick (Ya’ll will hear this one on the album, “This Wasn’t My Fairy Tale”). During pre-production with Trey we sat down in his home studio and began working out the right key for my voice as well as putting temporary tracks of the different instruments being used in the songs in order for me to sing the scratch vocals. I will never forget this week, because lo and behold, I got sick with a severe throat and sinus infection. Just my luck, right?! Thankfully, I got through the pre-production gracefully and we were off to tracking the instruments. During pre-production we decided to add in one more song to the CD making it a 6-Song EP. I am really happy with this move still today! I would go into the studio every day to listen and watch the studio musicians as they would record their tracks for their particular instrument and every day these guys never ceased to amaze me. I was literally in awe the whole time wondering how in the world these people could pick up on a song so fast! After all of the musicians had finished recording, it was now time to do the lead vocals. Thankfully, I was no longer sick at this point and ready to go! My first time in the recording booth was, honestly.. pretty scary! I was definitely afraid of messing up and looking stupid, but I got over that fear pretty quickly. The first song that I tracked lead vocals on was “Cold November”, which is still one of my favorite songs on the record! After all of the lead vocals were finished, it was time to record backing vocals. I can remember Trey asking, “Well, how good are you with harmonies…?!?!” (kind of in a doubtful.. oh my goodness I really hope she is good with harmony because if not this is going to be a long day.. kind of way!) Turns out, I surprised him by letting him know that harmony was one of my favorite things to do when singing! The backing vocals went as smooth as silk and we were almost to the conclusion of our production. On the last day, James David Carter graciously came in to the studio to record backing vocals for a song on my CD called, “This Girl”. James David was so much fun to hang out with and have in the studio and I am so honored to have him on my record!

After production was finished, we sent off the files to Nashville to be mixed by mixing engineer, David Zaffiro. During this time, my next job was to design a CD cover, design a web site, find band members.. yada yada yada! This was NOT as easy as it sounds! However, we got it accomplished… successfully, I must admit!

After the completion of the mixing, Zaffiro sent the finished mixes to Chris Athens with Sterling Sound in New York City to be mastered. Both of these men did an amazing job on the mixing and mastering of the CD and I could not be more pleased with either of them!

Now it is time to finally let the world hear what everyone that was involved in this project worked SO hard on and I cannot explain how excited I am! This whole experience has been a complete whirlwind but it has been the best time of my life. I am extremely excited to move forward from here and to get my music out into the world. This has been my dream forever and thanks to the support of my family and friends the journey to fulfilling my dreams is beginning! It really has been a “Long Way Home”, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way!

Ya’ll be on the look out for my self-titled EP on iTunes, Amazon.com, and CDBaby.com, as well in stores in Griffin and Statesboro. I cannot express how thankful I am for everyone’s support and I hope that ya’ll will stay with me as I continue my journey!

XOXO,

LA <3