We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Erica Brighthill a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Erica, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
From a young age I always loved singing. My mom’s best friend was a country singer and when I saw her on stage I told myself ”Wow that’s what I want to do”. When I was young, me and my friends used to play and pretend we were on American Idol and sing for hours and when I was alone at home I would sing with a hair brush or my karaoke mic. I started taking music more seriously after high school. At the age of 15, my friends all knew I loved to sing and they thought I was good so they pushed me into doing a school talent show where I ended up surprising my parents with my singing. After that event, I started singing in all the school talent shows, I entered competitions and I started taking singing lessons to learn how to properly use my voice. I took lessons for 2 years with my vocal coach Chantal Hackett, who is now my best friend, and who I now work with, in building a music school called Sing House Studios. I have now been giving singing lessons for 4 years. Through Sing House Studios, I was able to do many shows, competitions, community events and festivals around my town and I was introduced to the management team I am working with today, Willow Sound Records, who have helped me take my career to the next level.
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 am a country singer songwriter and I am also a vocal coach and run a a music school called Sing House Studios. I think what sets me apart from others are my values; authenticity, women empowerment, professionalism, generosity, compassion, hard work, positivity, and being open to learning. Through my music, I always have to be authentic because I only sing or write about something that I am going through or that I feel. With that, I want other people who feel the same way to be able to relate and to help them with what they are going through. I also believe that it is so important to be kind, grateful to the fans and to the people you work with because it takes a team to make music and build a career out of it. I love developing my music career but I also have the pleasure of working with other artists and kids into developing their own music careers with the music school I run. This music school got me to where I am today and I couldn’t be happier to help other people develop their passion for music.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Singing and music is my passion, and is also something I would like to do as a career. Being an artist is having a business, you are the product. It is not easy, you really have to love it and work hard at it. I would say my biggest challenge in music has to be time management and the financial aspect of it. In the beginning of a music career, it is very challenging to make money and there are a lot of expenses, such as the cost for recordings, videos, photoshoots, outfits, equipment, marketing and promotion, etc. With that being said, when I started taking music seriously, I was a high school student with the plans of going to university and working part time. Managing all these together had to be my biggest struggle since all three of them were a priority. There were times where I wanted to quit university and do music full time, but it was hard to justify that decision knowing I had always been told to go for the safe choice (family & friends) because by going to university or college, I would have a guaranteed job and pension, etc. Now having graduated university and being a qualified school teacher, my passion and what I love still remains music, so I decided to not go ahead and become a school teacher but instead dive deep into my music career, I am now solely focusing on music and combining both my passions for music and teaching by continuing to run the music school Sing House Studios. As they say, do what you love and you will never work a day in your life, I couldn’t agree more, because I wake up in the morning and I am happy to go to work, I feel fulfilled, I feel like I am making a difference and I am doing something I love.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
I think society can definitely make a difference in supporting artists and creatives. For example, to support up and coming artists, if you like their music, share it on social media, pre save their music, spread the word, these things don’t cost anything and help greatly and if you have money, buy some merchandise, go see them when they play live, all these things go a long way.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ericabrighthill.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericabrighthill/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ericabrighthill
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU6-K79vhbQc_uhWJa3gEgw
- Other: Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ericabrighthill Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7vRyDrFi1TssiWseEGXaJX
Image Credits
Image #1, 2, 3 and 4, novovisio productions