Alana Grace Biography
http://www.myspace.com/alanagrace
Fresh out of high school, Alana Grace packed her bags and left her hometown for New York determined to make good on her lifelong promise of musical stardom. The bright-eyed beauty came to the Big City to find a stage for her music and to make her own name in the business that she’d watched launch a thousand stars back in Nashville. On her own in New York, she found herself wrapped up in a city full of characters, “I’m really inspired by strangers,” she says. “You can usually find me wandering around the city people-watching and eavesdropping.” “I also have a very active imagination,” she admits. “If I see two people in a café and they have serious looks on their faces, I will imagine what they are talking about. I’ll create a whole world for them and that is where a lot of my music comes from.”
She’s often on the lookout for anything that she might see through someone else’s eyes, and will even walk the streets with a 35mm camera, snapping candid photos of people in places where they seem most alive. Tapping her own experiences, she delves into the heartache of first love and the longing of losing touch with friends. As she grows into adulthood, the sweet-voiced young songstress has also dared to take on heavier subjects in her music, making bold charges against modern day apathy and expressing deeply felt empathy that evinces wisdom far beyond her years.
As a fan, Alana looks to classic songwriters of the ‘60s and ‘70s. She admires Joni Mitchell and hopes to capture the precision of her evocative lyrics, “You listen to Joni Mitchell and every word is perfect.” She’s also an ardent fan of Ray Davies and The Kinks, admiring his skill in putting everyday people and situations to music. “I got tired of a lot of the teen music that I’d been listening to and asked around for advice on what I should hear. I’ve always been surrounded by musicians so I had a lot of people to ask. Joni Mitchell and The Kinks really stood out for me.” Imagining her own career she sites a handful of legendary musicians that she would hope to emulate in various ways. “I’d love to have the longevity and significance of someone like Bruce Springsteen or Madonna, but I really want to create something really new instead of repeating anything that has been done before.”
Alana was born in Los Angeles but moved with her family to Nashville when she was still very young. Music was always a focal point of her upbringing. Her grandfather sang in a barbershop quartet in the ‘40s and her father had also had a career as a performer before becoming a successful talent executive. Alana credits her parents for her drive and ambition and for keeping her grounded in the frenetic industry “My father works so hard and he really encourages me and my mother is so down-to-earth and the most generous person. She is the one who can keep everyone going during hard times. I can be a bit of a pessimist, but I’ve tried to learn from her example to be more positive” For now, the raven-haired chanteuse continues to take new chances as an artist and as a young woman infusing her music into a world of new experiences. Her unrelenting passion for a pure and distinctive new sound demands to be heard.