I first heard of Brianna Lane at a local music panel presented by the Diverse Emerging Music Organization.
I'd never heard Lane's music and I didn't know a thing about her (not uncommon in this town of thousands of musicians). But what I did learn from her that night is she releases her own albums, she's touring non-stop, she's basically doing all the legwork herself – and she's making a living at it.
This is leaps and bounds past her high school days when she picked up a guitar to impress someone she admired, someone who played guitar. She wrote songs to learn how to play her guitar and it became the origin of the singer/songwriter she is today.
Lane's musical sound fits somewhere in between a more melodic Suzanne Vega and a fluent vocal style reminiscent of Shawn Colvin, yet her influences don't drown out her own voice.
Lane moved to Asheville, North Carolina, to attend college and found the local music scene to be invigorating and inspiring. While Minnesota's root and folk music is more contrived like John Fogerty singing "Born on The Bayou" (Fogerty is originally from southern California), the roots and folk scene in Asheville was authentic.
"Asheville was full of old guys coming out of the hills and coming from Madison County, guys who'd been collecting songs for hundreds of years. They'd sit in front of the courthouse and pick – they could really play," Lane said.
After college, and a brief stint as a music teacher, Lane embarked on a full time music career and has since released two full-length albums: "On Rooftops" in 2002 and "Radiator" in 2005. She's currently writing songs for her third album, but Lane admits the songwriting process is getting harder.
"I write each song differently and I do a revision process. I tend to overwrite and write 20 verses and then pare it down to four. I have a couple of songwriters I trust to tell me what they think – and they're brutally honest," Lane said. "When I first started, it was just opening up my journal and writing about what I see, but it's been a long process for the last few songs. Now it's more collecting visual imagery and analyzing what's stuck with me. It's a lot harder now because it really means so much more to me."
Lane has also toured nationally, intent on building her fan base one show and one fan at a time. The Internet and MySpace have been great tools for her, enabling her to book her tours and make connections with fans. She can almost book an entire tour via e-mail.
"I'll sit at the Acadia Cafe sending e-mails from my computer, saying 'hey I'm going on tour.' I do a lot of house concerts now from people seeing me play," Lane said.
Lane's fall tour started in Minneapolis on September 8, 2006, and will end in Minneapolis on November 18. She's traveling on her own, which is one of the positive – and negative – aspects of being a singer/songwriter.
"I'll be visiting many friends on the road and meeting people I'll be playing with at specific dates. I then have two weeks to hang in out Asheville for a writers retreat. I listen to a lot of books on tape and talk radio. I have a partner now and a dog and I do miss home, but it's definitely inspirational to be touring," Lane said. "The ups and downs of touring are really hard. I can be playing a really amazing show one night, a show I feel really good about, to people who came to hear me and the next night, play to people's backs in a smoky bar."
Lane has embraced the do-it-yourself work ethic, but admits it would be nice to have people booking her shows or helping her release albums. She wants it happen naturally and not push herself into a business relationship unless someone really gets into her music and has the experience and ability to help her music career.
"If there's something I know I can do better, than why not keep doing it, but at the same time, I'm really tired," Lane said. "In the folk world, it's just a matter of time and a little luck and a lot of talent, so I have to work on my songs."
Lane's songwriting and her ability to connect with her live audiences, combined with her work ethic and drive, will provide the spark to shine a brighter light on her, making her more visible to a larger audience.
"I'm going to play my music for people and if they don't get it, I don't care, because I get it, but at the same time, I do want people to get something from it," Lane said. "I am beginning to look at songwriting as more of a visual art. I want my songs to move people, but it really doesn't matter how I move them because my songs could move us all differently."
www.briannalanemusic.com
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