[music: Halie Loren: Maybe I'll Fly]

Halie Loren: Well, honestly, I didn't really trust in the fact that I could sing until I was probably 13, and that was when I was doing a lot of talent shows. People had told me for years since I was nine or 10 when I started to do performances at my church and at school that I could sing, but I didn't have the confidence in myself until I was about 13 and started to win things, and that kind of brought me to that point where I thought maybe they're right, you know, maybe I can do this, and started really to pursue it then and a whole lot of jazz at the beginning. I had a natural affinity definitely to doing jazz and doing all of the kind of bluesier side of things, and that kind of brought me into doing folkier things and then that brought me into doing alternative rock and pop. And it all kind of just it was a pathway almost, and it expanded my horizons and everything led to something else until I got to where I thought of myself as a singer, I could do anything.

[music: Halie Loren: Maybe I'll Fly]

I took a few lessons of piano when I was about eight and a couple more between the ages of eight and 13, so probably about two or three years of lessons in there. I didn't really start playing piano until the last two years. But as far as singing goes, the story that I hear is that I think it was 4. I was kind of obsessed with my sister's Madonna tapes and I would listen to them in my dad's headphones. One time they came in to the room and I was listening to the Madonna tapes on the headphones and was singing along to one of them; probably not the right words, but they noticed that I was singing the melody right on and they just knew as of right then that, you know, four year old singing a melody, she's got to be able to sing because that's pretty young. That's the story that I hear is that it all began with Madonna, which is kind of strange [laughter] because I'm so not Madonna like [laughter]. I certainly didn't turn into Madonna, but I guess, you know, four years old, they love pop.

[music: Halie Loren: Maybe I'll Fly]

I'm really not the kind of person who seeks out information on technology. I only really study it when it becomes pertinent. So like with my recording project for my CD, it was really the first time that I've ever done my own engineering. I recorded most of the music parts here, learning step by step. I've always watched my dad in the studio, and he's been doing most of my engineering since I was 13 and we started this recording process. But I never really picked up on any of the intricacies until the last year, and it was a really frustrating process sometimes, but I learned a lot by doing it sort of from scratch. And I guess the only way to really learn this stuff is to just do hands-on sort of activity, and I certainly did a lot of that.

[music: Halie Loren: BrightSideBroadcast.com Exclusive: Alone]

I tend to be very interested in women's rights as well; that's just kind of one of the avenues. You know, it's not just women's rights, it's all humanity. But it just so happens that women usually get the short end of the stick in life [laughter] and a lot of cold shoulders and ours is an exception a lot of times. So I try to do everything that I can to further the cause of women's rights. It just seems to be a common theme for me; as a woman and as a musician I'm drawn to events like that, geared toward strong, independent musicians, women musicians specifically, because that support network is so important for independent women musicians. Because we are kind of a minority in the music world and women don't tend to be taken as seriously and without working a lot harder it seems. So having other women musicians in your network to kind of help you out or to join forces with seems to be a really empowering and helpful thing to pursue.

[music: Halie Loren: Sand]

It's going to be titled "Full Circle" as far as I know [laughter]. We artists tend to change things at the last minute sometimes. It's named after one of the songs that's going to be on the album, and it kind of represents the theme of the last two years of my life as an artist. It's definitely been a turning point in the last few years as a musician. I switched from going down the Nashville route, which is where I was when I was 17, 18 and 19, to the independent sort of I guess alternative rock, pop, folk, jazz infusion [laughter] mix that I'm doing now. I'm not really sure where I would categorize myself but it's definitely been a journey and this CD is going to be some of the first material I've written since I got out of the Nashville scene. But I have been working on it on and off for the last year, but I really only started recording in the last six months. It was a slow going process at the beginning because I was doing all of the engineering, all of the recording, all the scheduling, most of the playing, except for the bass drums and guitar, myself. As I was saying before, I didn't know anything about engineering besides what I'd seen my dad work on as an engineer. It was a learning process and I'm glad I did it, but it was frustrating. It was really frustrating at times. But I feel really grateful that I did it now because I taught myself a lot about what I could do by myself with no one to help me this time around. It seemed that the schedules just didn't match up for me to get much help from outside sources, so I just took it on myself and it was a very gratifying process. I feel like I could do it again and it would be probably easier because I'd know a lot more now. It makes me definitely look forward to trying it again.

[music: Halie Loren: Lucky]

Well, really I think if I hadn't had a supportive family I wouldn't be doing music in the way that I'm doing it. I know so many people who are passionate about music and who have been wanting to do music their entire lives but they never really have the support system that would allow them to really dedicate themselves fully to it for periods of time like I've been able to. My parents have been extremely supportive, both financially, emotionally. Definitely that helped me out with the recording process, seeing that my dad designed and furnished our home studio, which we built up over a number of years, but this current incarnation of it is all his that's certainly been a big help. They've always encouraged me to follow my passion; I think that's made all of the difference. That's really the main point that seems to have helped me the most and that. They've never discouraged me from following my musical dreams. They've in fact helped me by seeing what I wanted to do and ask if they can contribute. But even before that, when I was even a kid, they would seek out opportunities for me to do and if I wanted to do them they would help me get there. They would help me arrange my wardrobe and my... [laughter]. There was so much involved, especially as a younger kid. But I loved it, and as long as I like what I was doing and as long as I wanted to do it they'd help me. And they've always been like that; regardless of what I chose, they've always been a big help.

[music: Halie Loren: Lucky]

I found a manager who wanted to work with me who was a very credible manager and was a great person to work with, and I figured I needed to go somewhere, to one of the music centers to branch out and to figure out how far I could go with my music. I tried L.A., just a little trial sort of period, and at 16 it's a pretty scary place to think about living; it's big and there -- a lot of things that are just so uncertain about the music industry, and I didn't know anybody really; I only knew maybe a couple of people, and so that just seemed really daunting to me. My manager lived in Nashville, so I thought, well, maybe I should consider that because I had been doing, you know, some country performances at fairs, festivals, things like that, since I was about 14 and I thought, well, I can do this, so I'm going to go and try this out. And I ended up staying there for almost two years; got to write with amazing writers and I probably learned a lot, more than I would have learned on my own, about form and structure. I could see myself continuing down that path and being true to myself still; I changed too much as a person. Artistically, I actually went back more towards what I'd started out as when I was 14, 15. When I'd first become a song writer I was writing more along the lines of the Lilith Fair period of time where it was Sarah Mclachlan, Paula Cole; my influences were all in that area at that time in my life. I kind of turned my back on that when I went to Nashville. When I came back I took a break from music for about six months. When I started writing again this stuff just started pouring out of me that reminded me of stuff I'd been writing before. I thought, well, maybe this is really where I am. I mean this is who I am musically more than what I was doing. So that's kind of how I made the change. I really didn't, you know, discover this style of music when I left Nashville; it was more like a rediscovery.

[music: Halie Loren: Kitty]

The earliest influences that I had were surprisingly all very eclectic, very different from each other, and that's probably the results of the fact that there was no radio in Alaska except for one station and there was a public radio station, and who wants to listen to that when you're a kid [laughter]. So I only had my parents' music collections to listen to and a little bit of what my sister brought home from Arkansas when she went to visit there. So I had this really strange array of musicians from Nat King Cole to, you know, more jazzy artists like Ella Fitzgerald and bluesy artists like Etta James, Annie Lennox, my sister's pop, which was George Michael and Madonna at the time, which seems so funny to me now. Patsy Cline was a huge one, which probably was why I sort of gravitate towards the country scene. Later on I thought, you know, Patsy Cline, that's one of my favorites, but there's not much Patsy Cline out there any more, you know, there's not that same kind of country. Sarah Mclachlan and Jewel were big influences for me in my younger years when I first came to Oregon; they were on the radio. I had an instant connection to Jewel because she was from Alaska and I was thinking, wow, another Alaskan; we're practically sisters [laughter]. 13, you know, you try and find these connections to people and find similarities. I guess people do that all their lives, but especially at that age. Later on when I started to get into the piano the past few years, even though I'd already been a fan of women piano player musicians I definitely felt more of a connection to them. For one thing we share an instrument and it's hard not to be influenced by people who you really admire who happen to also play the same instrument as you. You kind of pick up on some of the things. The ideas that they contribute to the music scene, like Sarah Mclachlan and Paula Cole and Tori Amos, of course, reaching a spectrum more recently. And just these women who canvas are really wide array of kinds of music, but they all have this one thing in common, and they bring their own voices to it, and it's a very inspiring thing to have all those people to look to and to see how they do it.

[music: Halie Loren: Kitty]

My official Halie Loren website, it's www.halieloren.net, may very well be halieloren.com soon, I don't know, because I used to have that domain and then I another domain took it when my rights to that domain name were released without my knowing it; that's a little dilemma I'm going through right now, but it might be cleared up soon so I will definitely be updating people on that on my website. I have a myspace account like 99% of the world now, it seems. I have my music up at myspace.com/halieloren, and I have a link to that on my website as well as several other pages that I am on, such as sonicbids, which has an electronic press kit on it, which is really handy for booking things. I'm on broadjam.com. I'm on garageband.com, purevolume.com; oh, there are so many [laughter]. There's so many sites dedicated towards musicians for you to post all of your information and gigs. It's really hard to keep up with them all. Definitely the most reliable ones are the myspace page and my official website. My CD will be available on my website as well as cdbaby.com, and I am a member of the Independent Artists Alliance, which is a Eugene-based company, sort of a collection of independent artists from this area and from around the northwest. My CD will be available through that website as well. I'll definitely update people whenever they check into my website they'll find the information right there; I'm pretty good about keeping up to date on that.

[music: Halie Loren: Exclusive BrightSideBroadcast.com]