We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brittany Bexton a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Brittany, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Do you have an agent or someone (or a team) that helps you secure opportunities and compensation for your creative work? How did you meet you, why did you decide to work with them, why do you think they decided to work with you?
I have been singing, dancing, and acting since I was a very little girl, went to an acting conservatory for college. So, when I still lived in CA I had an agent I did a lot of work with. However, When I moved to TN 12 years ago I knew I needed to focus on my music and touring primarily. I also wasn’t sure how much opportunity there was for acting in Nashville. So, acting took a back-burner, though I did do an occasional project here and there. But, in about 2017 I took a step back from full time touring in order to heal from PTSD, spend some time putting down actual roots in TN, and also writing for my new project, so in order to do that I started doing real estate along with my music. I was going to be back on the road again in 2020 to do a book & music tour with my new book and new single at the time “Believe Again,” but the world shutting down put a damper on those plans. I was grateful to have real estate to fill in those gaps, but the market got so crazy, it honestly took over and pushed my creative endeavors back. So, in 2021, God spoke to me about taking a step back from real estate so I could focus on music and ministry again. He wanted me doing performing arts full time again. So, I asked God how I was going to fill in the gaps and cover expenses as music touring was put into motion again, because it’s a process to get tours booked. He told me I was going to do acting again and I had to get an agent. Thankfully when God calls you to something He puts the right people in your path. I had a friend who did some regular acting gigs, and he was able to connect me with an agent in Nashville, who isn’t only a great agent, but is also known as a faith based agency, which opened up new and exciting opportunities for me. We knew after our first meeting that we would work well together, and I signed with her. I am grateful to have Misty at Advantage Talent representing me.
Brittany, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’m originally from Northern California. And I have truly been singing and performing my whole life. I practically came out of the womb singing. Somewhere I have a picture of me at less than 18 months singing with a microphone in hand on stage at a church camp. I always knew that I wanted to be a singer-songwriter & actor. I lived and breathed the performing arts growing up, from voice lessons and dance classes to theater productions, and modeling. If it was performing arts related I was involved if i could be. I have always been that person that sings and hums during the day without even realizing it because music is so much a part of me. I have had amazing opportunities over the years. I got to perform in Carnegie hall with my jazz choir when I was 15. And I got to be part of some professional theater productions locally when I was still in High School. I attended PCPA, a conservatory for the performing arts for college, and got in depth acting training, along with continued dance and music education. The school boasts Robin Williams and Kathy Bates as alumni, so I knew I was going to gain the acting chops I needed there. while in college and for a couple years afterward I did professional theater full time, but decided after about two years that I really wanted to focus on my own music and film/TV work. So I stepped away from Theater, started working with an agent in San Francisco, and started my own band. I knew I couldn’t do what I really wanted to with music in Northern California, so that journey eventually led me to Nashville in 2011. I started touring full time pretty shortly after I moved and for 4 years I toured and wrote music full time. But in the process of moving to Nashville, and doing this I went through some back to back personal trauma, and in 2017, I took a step back from full time touring, and instead toured part time, did real estate on the side, and focused on healing and putting down some roots here in Nashville. People had always told me from my crazy experiences since moving that I needed to write a book, but I always thought, yeah maybe at some point when I have a little more victory to share. I was thinking a memoir style book. But as I healed from PTSD, I also healed and grew in the area of my faith in God. God was giving me revelation for my healing, and growth regularly, and I would share some of it in my monthly newsletters to folks who follow my music, and I started getting really amazing responses from what i shared. I started realizing that what people really need is a guide of how to get through the mess in the middle of the trial and healing. That is what birthed my book “Learning to Believe Again: 30 Days to Finding Hope, Faith, and Comfort in God’s Truth,” which can be found at any bookstore and amazon for order, or on my website. It also birthed a number of songs that were part of my own healing process and thankfully, have gotten to be part of other people’s healing as well. This songs ended up on an EP together, that is still being released. I have released two singles off of that EP, and have another coming later this year. I believe music is more than just entertainment. It helps us feel and express emotions that are greater than words, and it heals. I love being able to share my music with people and touch peoples hearts and help them dance, and laugh, and cry, and heal.
My plan in 2020 was to go on the road again with my new book, and music but when the world shut down, those plans got put on hold for a bit, and real estate took over temporarily. Toward the end of 2021, God told me He wanted me to pull back from real estate and focus on music/performing arts and ministry full time, so after finishing up some work obligations I have been doing just that. I am grateful to be getting on tour again and playing shows both here in middle TN, and doing touring dates. One of the things I have started doing is speaking engagements. I’ve also started focusing a bit on sync placements, which are songs placed in film, TV, and Commercials. I’ve even gotten the opportunity to write some jingles for different brands, which is a lot of fun. So, if you find yourself in need of a jingle, so that is one of the services I provide for people. I have also done personal songs for people, as gifts, or helped them write their own songs, by co-writing with them, so they could express their own experiences. One of the more unique things I do as well, is performance coaching. After years in theater and on stage, I love helping other people improve their stage performances, and have gotten to teach classes on this topic for TSAI (Tennessee Songwriters Association International) in the past. I am grateful to have a wonderful agent in Nashville, Advantage Talent, so I can still do acting work. And I have had such a great time leading worship in the last year with some amazing folks for some very special projects, and churches, including a revival in Kansas this last October. Currently life is filled with amazing opportunities, and a lot of wonderful people to work with, and such amazing people to meet as we go out and play music.
One of the amazing things I have gotten to do alongside of my music is to raise awareness for domestic abuse, and help people get out of it. Both men and women are affected by abuse, and it’s much more prevalent than most people realize with statistics saying that 1 in 3 people are affected by it. So I have been so grateful to have the opportunity to help educate about it, and also help people get free and heal. I’m excited to do more of this work as I continue to tour and meet people, and expand my reach with music and the arts.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I had to unlearn being a workaholic. I used to work 16 hour days most days, all for music. I’d either be touring, or I’d be home working on booking and press submissions, and writing and making connections. Did it accomplish things, yes. But it only went so far and then I would hit a wall as to how far I could go on my own. I watched other people I know not work nearly as hard, but make amazing connections and gain crazy amazing opportunities, and the main reason was that they knew how to step back from work, and connect with people and have fun. Their biggest breaks and opportunities came from their downtime, not their work time. I learned that from watching over the years, but I learned it in a deeper way, as I’ve grown in my faith. I’ve always been a believer, but the Lord has really worked on me over time in learning how to trust Him on a deeper level and not try to muscle everything out myself. Is a healthy work ethic important, absolutely! But we also need to leave room for God to work. We need to take our Sabbath and downtime, and connect with people. God can do more for us in one minute when we are trusting Him and taking time to enjoy life, than we can do for ourselves in years of workaholism.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
When I first moved to Nashville, I had never been here before, and I didn’t know anyone except one touring musician who was never here. So, moving in and of itself was a leap of faith. But then, when I had only been in town for 3 months, my roommate threatened me in the middle of the night. For my safety, I not only had to move out without a place to actually go yet, I also ended up needing to get a restraining order, as the threats continued. God protected me and took care of me, so thankfully, I was never actually living in my car. Some amazing young women let me stay with them temporarily, but I was technically homeless for a period of time as I didn’t not have a place of my own. It would have been easy to run at that point and just head back to California, but I knew I was supposed to be here, and I knew that I had work to do here. I wasn’t going to let what happened and what that person did stop me from doing what God had called me to do. And I wasn’t going to run in fear at those taunts. If anything, it actually made me work and fight harder for a while, if for no other reason, to prove that I wouldn’t be intimidated, and I would make it work. If I hadn’t been sure that this is where God had lead me, it likely would have been different, but I knew this is where I was supposed to be, and I knew I had to continue to walk in purpose.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.BrittanyBexton.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/BrittanyBexton
- Facebook: facebook.com/BrittanyBexton (My account was recently hacked so this is not a good way to reach me)
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittany-bexton-120ba368/
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/BrittanyBexton
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/bbexcountry
Image Credits
Shirley Ann Wellman Photography Darcy Ferris Photography Brandon Oursler Photography Cory Lowry Photography