“My dad told me he sang to my mom’s stomach when she was pregnant with me, and he’d sing to me a bedtime when I was little. Music has always, for me, represented a soothing and calming expression of love,” explains indie folk songstress Nicolette Smith. The Southern California native hails from a large musical family that lives mostly in Montana. “We’d travel there for holidays and big family gatherings, and at night, everyone would pull out their guitars and harmonicas and play and sing. I just thought that was the coolest thing, and I so badly wanted to be a part of it,” she recalls. “At 12, I told my dad I wanted to learn guitar so I could play with the family in Montana, and he got really excited. We went right out and bought a guitar for him and one for me, we shared a chord book, and learned together.”
Growing up, Smith was surrounded by the sunny vibes of California beach music, which she cites as early influences. “Jack Johnson, Jason Mraz, their CDs were always in my little Walkman,” she says with a laugh. “It’s happy and lovely, and it definitely played its part in shaping me as a musician. Though Southern California has been a beautiful place to grow up, my heart and soul will always be in the forests of Montana.”
Those forests provide the backdrop for the imagery in her new single, “Beasts Bigger Than Me”, out now via Normandie Records; “It’s kind of ominous; I’ve been working at a corporate-focused job, and sitting at a desk 40 hours a week was starting to wear on me,” she explains of the the ethereal-sounding song’s inspiration. “I played competitive soccer in college, I also coached, I was used to being very active, and the corporate lifestyle was bumming me out. It’s repetitious, I was feeling trapped in a cycle, and I was losing myself. The song came from that feeling, but there’s a hopeful resilience in it.”
“It’s incredible, the capacity we have to feel, and how we are able to share those feelings,” she continues. “I’m in tune with my emotions; I like to talk about my feelings, but sometimes I’m not good at putting them into words. I can sit down and write a song and feel like I can accurately depict how something made me feel in a certain moment in time; if someone can listen to my songs, identify an emotion that helps them understand themselves or other people more and helps them be okay with where they are, that’s my dream.”
Beautiful interview! And GREAT single! Love it!