We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Brenna MacMillan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Brenna below.

Brenna, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

Music has been in my life from the beginning, and I am very grateful for that. From an early age I was singing and performing with a variety of groups… family, church, local bands, talent shows, festivals, that sort of thing. I got to be part of different recording projects as well, including a couple of albums with a band that my brother and I started. All of these experiences have shaped me and been amazing to be a part of, but I didn’t realize how meaningful music was to me until I decided to record my own album. Piloting a solo project seemed really daunting, but giving life to a collection of songs that I had originally written for myself became a dream I didn’t know that I had. It’s been incredible working with amazing musicians and coming up with arrangements and instrumentation that seem to fit the songs best. This project has brought out a whole new side of me that I didn’t know existed… one that is motivated, inspired, and courageous. And I guess that is why I feel that this has been the most meaningful project, because of how it’s changed me and pushed me towards new horizons.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I moved to Nashville in 2018 after graduating Berea College with a degree in Chemistry, concentration in Biochemistry. As soon as I got to town, my brother and I had a couple of duo gigs lined up in town, one of which was at the world famous Station Inn. We put together a full bluegrass band for that venue and afterwards decided that was the full sound that we wanted to go for with our music. We continued on to make two bluegrass albums and toured for a few years. During that time I began playing with other bands in town and began to pursue being a sideman more proactively. We mutually decided to pursue our own music careers late in 2022. I’ve been playing with anyone and everyone since about 2021, lots of throw together bands in town, as well as some bigger touring acts. I started my own social media around the same time my brother and I decided to do our own thing, and this has brought about a lot of opportunity for me to begin sharing my own music. In fall of 2023, I had enough friends tell me that I should record my originals that I decided to go for it and hit the studio in December. Early spring in 2024, I went full time music after working a day job as a chemist for almost 6 years. This has brought about all sorts of opportunities for me and I’m really grateful. I’m really proud of the album we made over the winter, I’ve released two singles so far and can’t wait to release the full album for folks to hear. I have no idea what the future holds but I know it’ll include a lot of music, whether my own, playing with others’, or both. Probably both :)

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Having worked 9-5 type jobs for about thirteen years, I am well acquainted with the pros and cons of a day job. It’s pretty financially stable, you get to know your coworkers really well after years of daily interactions, and there’s always a little drama to keep from getting too bored. But it can also feel monotonous to a creative, doing essentially the same thing every day, and by the time you get home, it’s hard to find energy to invest in hobbies/creative outlets/second careers. So to me, having recently gone full-time in music, I find that being a creative comes with a lot of freedom. So much freedom that I have increased my work ethic by like 10X, simply because I know if I don’t hustle, I will get zero money. You gotta wake up every day and figure out what you can do that will make money, and also your work hours are more like 24/7 instead of 9-5… you never know when an opportunity to be productive will come up. It could be an evening hang that turns into a serious 2am cowrite, it could be 3 gigs in one day, it could be 10 hours of laptop time booking/scheduling/promoting/updating websites and social media.. anything can turn into a job when you’re your own boss. I’ve never worked harder, and I see that being confirmation that this is what I’m supposed to do, since I care about it more than I’ve cared about anything before.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I didn’t have any goals in mind when I made my own Instagram and Tik Tok back in 2022 besides to keep tabs on one of my nieces who had recently gotten social media. Soon after I started posting some videos playing the banjo, I realized that a lot of folks were hopping on to follow along my music. I try to think of social media like an ad in the paper 50 years ago, it’s a platform (for free!) to promote your business. It happens to be a great platform for musicians to get the word out about their music and gigs, especially in a day and age when people hardly read emails anymore. My advice for anyone trying to grow their social media would be to just be yourself, show your art authentically (in snippets) and ya gotta post pretty frequently at first to get traction! :)

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.brennamacmillan.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brennamacmillanofficial/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/Brenna-MacMillan-100089484241246/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSEoxDWjdCtsduluwB10qcg
• Other: Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brennamacbanjo

Image Credits

Sophie Clark, Oceanna Films, Emma McCoury, Thomas Beck