Our Artist of the Week, Heather Brave, reflects on how she got to where she is today. Check it out below:
Everything started for me when I was 5 years old. I saw a show in NYC that had a cast of all kindergarten aged kids, and I turned to my parents and said, “I want to do that.” I ended up auditioning for that same show and everything just blasted off from there. I was super entrenched in the NY theater scene, and had done some roles on soap operas and Law & Order. I loved that acting required 100% commitment and once you were onstage, there really wasn’t any looking back. You just go.
When I started middle school, though, I started to feel like maybe that scene wasn’t for me. I discovered artists like Ingrid Michelson and Regina Spektor. I went to an Adele concert in 8th grade and was just mesmerized because this was so different from the pop I knew when I was really young that I listened to while flipping my hair up and down in my basement like I was Britney Spears. Adele just stood and was so unapologetically honest and real, and that was more enchanting than anything. These artists opened me up to so much and I knew I wanted to tell stories like they did. I got a purple guitar and the first song I learned was Hey Jude by the Beatles. I started covering songs in my bedroom, especially whenever I felt lost or in my own world. At lunch at school, I would go to the practice rooms and sing The Call by Regina Spektor and The Cave by Mumford and Sons.
By freshman year, I had released my first EP, just testing the waters. As time went on and I dove deeper into the kind of artist I wanted to be, I started working with different producers in New York and LA. I would spend a few months in LA, and a few months in New York. I was so eager to write and put my music out, but a lot of the people I worked with didn’t really get what I was trying to do with my voice. They would list off people and say you should be like this person or this girl, but I didn’t want to copy anyone. I just wanted to attain that distant vision I had of what I wanted to say and sound like. I moved to LA full time for a bit, writing at Capitol records, gaining even more perspective until I reached a huge discovery.
When I was home visiting family in NY during a sticky hot August, I was running around catching up with friends, and the city was moving at its same ruthless pace. I had this overwhelming feeling of belonging. I knew I had to move back to the east coast. The attitude of NY matched the honesty and grit I was trying to infuse in my music. After moving back to my roots in October 2016, I knew I was ready to be the artist that was always hiding somewhere within me. I started going to Nashville to work with my producer Jase Blankfort who understood me on such a real level. We would sit on his porch in the rain and just talk before we ever even started thinking of what the song would be. We always started with the big picture, the gut feeling, and that provoked whatever we created. We also worked with this duo named A+A in NY who sprinkled some smoothness into our lyrics and melodies.
Now, almost 2 years later, I feel grounded in a way that is beautiful and gratifying. We have released 3 singles with more just waiting to be out in the world. “Like a Wave” is playing on radio stations across the country and people are starting to connect with “Spinning.” Everything that my music says is that, no matter what craziness I’ve endured, or how winding my path was, I’m here now and I’m going for it without hesitation. I hope that resonates with people so that whatever it is they might be thinking about before they go to sleep and right when they wake up in the morning, feels possible and tangible for them. I have thrown away old expectations and plans to get to where I am, which I know is the right place. Patience with and trust in the forces that are bigger than you are so important, and I’m just really excited to connect with more people through my music who have also said or are learning to say, “I’m just going for it,” and that’s going to somehow be something great.
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