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

Hannah, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

I’ve taken many risks in my life. You might say I was born without risk-aversion; I’ve never been afraid to jump off a cliff and figure out how to land on my way down. In fact, this became my MO growing up and moving into adulthood. Lust for life and ambition have been a part of my story from the very beginning.

I grew up with young parents in a very humble household in small-town midwest America. I wonder if the limitations I saw in my parents may have bore some of my wild ambition toward bigger and better things. At 7, I didn’t just aspire to be a gymnast; I dreamed of competing in the Olympics, and knew I had to start training seriously right away to achieve this goal. By 11, I didn’t just dream of being an oceanographer or marine biologist, I wanted to be a deep sea diver with the illustrious career of Jacques Cousteau, my end goal being to capture footage of the elusive “giant squid”. I also wanted to be social and well-liked, which I’m guessing many normal children wanted to be.

These goals weren’t made because I was fearless. The balance beam scared me plenty, and I had fallen on or off of it with great pain to feed my discomforts with it each time I attempted a routine. The grandeur of the ocean scared me, as did the enormous life deep beneath the surface of it. Some social situations scared me; I could feel the burn of embarrassment while growing up, saying the “wrong” thing or mispronouncing a word.

Perhaps it was this very fear that DROVE me. I wanted to overcome it. I yearned more than anything to LEARN, to KNOW, to GROW. I was a quick learner at most things, but I couldn’t seem to master things quick enough for my burning ambition. I was good in school, I learned “the game” of school early on and excelled easily. If you laid out the bar for me to reach, I wouldn’t just meet it, but leap high over it.

I’m sure there were things in my growing up experience that caused this little ambition pressure cooker inside me.

But in the interest of staying on topic, I was all about risk-taking from a young age. In my opinion, before I had even formed one consciously, risk was the ONLY way to learn and grow. If you didn’t take risks, how could you learn and grow? How could you expect to achieve your goals, to pave a new path, to create something? How could you invent without experimenting?

Since it’s very hard to choose just one, here are some of the risks I took which paved the way for achieving some major goals in my life.

Risk #1
I auditioned for my first play in community theater at age 7.
The show was Alice in Wonderland, and I received a small role as a Rose. But I was elated at the opportunity, and found I had natural chemistry on stage. Fast forward to all the acting opportunities that followed, where I not only had the opportunity to be cast as “Alice” in the same production years later, but was “Peter Pan”, “Jack” in Jack and the Beanstalk, “Bilbo Baggins” in The Hobbit, “Patty Simcox” in a major production of Grease, and finally as “myself” in a major network television show (A&E’s “Crazy Hearts: Nashville), and as “Veracity” in the hit Universal film Pitch Perfect 3.

Risk #2
I auditioned for the big talent show at my summer band camp “Dorian Music Camp” on the campus of Luther College in Iowa. I made it into the talent show and performed the original rock song “Don’t Know” which I wrote at age 13. It was my very first performance in front of a large audience, on a stage in a large theater/performance hall, of an originally written song. That song would go on to be the first I recorded with a real music producer in NYC, and be my first big music video I put out as a solo artist, and be in countless sets I played in New York and beyond. I would go on to play many many many shows and perform as a solo artist in cities across the US and around the world. I would go on to busk in NYC and cities around the world. The little victory of playing that very first original song, on that very stage in band camp, planted the seed that over the years bore infinite fruit. It is still bearing fruit to this day.

Risk #3
I graduated High School one full year early, and went on a year long foreign exchange program to Peru.
I’ll be honest – I was restless in Grundy Center, Iowa. I felt I had learned all I needed from school, and was ready to strike out and see more of the world. I read the school handbook, and found there was no “time” stipulation surrounding graduation requirement; only credits. So with the help of my guidance counselor and my school librarian (and academic decathlon coach), I created a plan to take all my senior class requirements at the same time as my junior year. And I still did all my extracurricular activities on top of that – including show choir, honor choir, concert-pep-marching and jazz band, speech and drama competition, theater, yearbook staff, academic decathlon state competition, track, cross country, tae kwon do, and soccer. And piano and saxophone lessons and recitals and All-State auditions. I’m exhausted just typing this. YES – I was (and still kind of am) an over achiever. I warned you that I was ambitious. When I started my plan to graduate early, my principal, teachers, school board, and many members of the community wanted to know – WHY? Some thought I was showing off. Instead of being championed for my ambition, many challenged me over it. Anyway, I was forced into giving the school board a “reason”. My mother had done a foreign exchange program to France when she was 18 which had greatly impacted her life. So thought – I’ll apply to the Rotary Club’s foreign exchange program and make that “my reason” for graduating high school a year early. I was the valedictorian of both classes – my original one and the one I joined. Much to some of their chagrin. And I DID decide to go ahead and get out into the world, embarking on my year in Peru on the day of my 18th birthday. I lived with a host family in Arequipa, and traveled throughout the country and to 5 other countries in South America during my time there. And I have to say – this combined risk – set the stage for EVERYTHING I would come to encounter and need to know as I went on to live in New York City, and other cities around the world.

Risk #4
I applied to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and when accepted, I decided to go.
It was while I was in Peru that I fell ill with appendicitis. And during my recovery, I completed ten different college applications to schools back in the US. One of those schools was NYU, and when I received my acceptance letter at my host family’s home in Arequipa, I was floored. I had a VERY tough decision on my hands. I had also been accepted to a school in Boston, where I was given a full-ride scholarship AND was accepted into their honors program. Not so much with NYU. But NYU is NYU! I made many costly long-distance phone calls debating my decision – not to my parents – ha! – but to my high school guidance counselor. I honestly didn’t even involve my parents at all in my application or decision-making process. It felt very personal to me. I wound up choosing NYU because it appeared the biggest and the best, and why wouldn’t I want to be at the best? They would have the best equipment, the best professors, the best network and connections. I wrote my letter back to them and told my parents after the fact. I would move to New York City only two weeks after arriving back from my year in Peru.

Risk #5
I quit college for three years and joined a band.
This risk was SO tough! I mean, I was in AGONY over this decision. I did NOT take my acceptance to NYU lightly, nor any of the opportunities I had at my fingertips. I went to school with lots of rich kids. I was NOT a rich kid. It was extremely expensive to attend NYU, and I was only able to function as a student on massive loans and scholarships. So to step away – even on a leave of absence – felt in a way like betraying my own goals and possibly letting people down who had high expectations of me being there. I put an immense amount of pressure on myself. I had to seek guidance counseling during this time for extra help with this big decision. In addition to simply pausing school, I would also be turning down an opportunity I had been wildly anticipating – a music video production program in Dublin, Ireland that I had already been accepted to. It was scary, and I agonized over this. In the end, my counselor helped me realize that school – AND the music video program – would be there waiting for me when I chose to come back. The band would not wait. I ultimately chose the band – my first real band, apart from a three-person band I recorded songs with in high school, though we never played actual gig. The band was an all-girl power pop rock band called Girls Don’t Cry. I played guitar and sang. I had bleached white hair at the time, so I already had “the look”. I took a deep breath, signed a two year contract with the band, and put in my leave of absence from NYU.

Risk #6
I left New York and moved to Australia for two years.

Risk #7
I left Australia and moved back to the US.

Risk #8
I left New York for good and moved to Nashville to be on a tv show – this time in FRONT of the camera.

Hannah, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Ever since I started creating cognitive thought, I have loved music. Probably even before then. And it wasn’t just limited to music, though that’s an important part of where my necessity and urge to create is hinged. The music played on long family car trips, or when I was rocked to sleep at night, was woven into my makeup. It was there, a beautiful ever-present soundtrack to our young lives in the midwest. My father had a hefty record collection, and great taste in songwriters including James Taylor and Paul Simon and Dan Fogelberg. He and my mother always played records during the menial tasks of life – housework, dishes, changing the oil in the car, These were my earliest recognitions – that with music, always came peace and positive energy.

I was a daydreamer as a child and still am. We didn’t have television when I was young, and when we DID get a set, it was small, black and white, and had 3 channels. My older brother and I were only allowed one 30-minute show per week. It was books and art and the outdoors for us. My mother taught us to read at 3 years old, and was an avid reader herself. I was NEVER bored as a child, my head spinning with all the exciting things to do each day. My imagination was vast. I had goals to meet, places to explore, treasures to discover. I remember spending hours making little gifts for the fairies outside – flowers wrapped in leaf-bundles tied with stems and placed in the hollows of trees. Or exploring the large cemetery across the street from our small home in Rensselaer, IN. You could say I was a modern-day Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird. Tomboyish and adventurous. I shadowed my older brother, who liked books and drawing, and building models of things. He was a talented fine artist at a young age and had the patience for little details. I wondered what my “talent” could be, impatiently attempting the activities he did, never quite getting the same results. I remember crumpling up papers of drawings.. why couldn’t I work his magic too? I was in a small gymnastics program, and one summer while watching the Olympics, my 7-year-old heart became set on being an Olympic Gymnast. I knew I needed to practice seriously starting NOW. Then there was a love affair I developed with the ocean – repeatedly borrowing the same books and videos on Jacques Cousteau and the Titanic from the public library, obsessing over my dream of documenting the elusive giant squid some day. So I thought, maybe marine biologist or oceanographer. Mind you, I was only 8. But it didn’t FEEL like I had TIME. I had to figure these things out NOW. I needed to set my mind to a path and start immediately to reach that goal. I was very driven from a young age, now that I think back.

Meanwhile, the seed of something deeper and greater and wider than the Olympics or the ocean was taking root in me. My mother had decided to rent an upright Kawaii piano. It was something she never had growing up that she had wanted, and she gave us that gift in our home. Gradually at first, and obsessively before long, I found myself at the bench, pining to discover more of this magic of making music. I found I could MAKE UP melodies – wow! The possibility of a million songs appeared at my fingertips. I then found I could listen to a song and FIND the melodies and parts on the keyboard. I felt I had tapped into some great secret super power. I later learned this was “playing by ear”.

I had some babysitters who helped me unlock the mystical language of written music, and who taught me a few basic melodies. The first I ever learned was “Fur Elise” by Beethoven, which I remember playing incessantly. I also found myself at the bench at all hours, and all walks of emotion. Happy? Piano. Sad? Piano. Fearful or worried? Piano. The keys, the weight of them and the hum and vibration of the instrument calmed and soothed me, in the same way the records my parents played. I didn’t have a cognitive realization of this; I just kept coming back for more. And so, in the same way my brother had found art, I found the magic of music. The same way he could get lost in a sketch book for hours, I could sit at the bench, my hands floating over the keys, stringing together combinations of notes that felt good.

I started taking formal classical piano lessons at 8. Meanwhile, me and my family – now expanded to having a younger sister – moved from Indiana to Minnesota.. then from Minnesota to Iowa. Through these moves and new environs, came new friends, new music, and a whole personal music discovery outside my parents’ tastes that included The Bangles, The GoGos, MC Hammer… Roxette, Ace of Base, TLC, then Prince and Beck and alt rock bands like Spacehog and Soundgarden. I had become an avid self-taught dancer, and my friends and I (or me all by myself) would spend hours constructing dance routines to songs, beginning to end. I had a dance for every song off “The Sign” album by Ace of Base. I knew them so well I might – 30 years later – still be able to conjure up some of the moves.

I got my first two CD albums around 10 or 11, and they were Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette and The Woman in Me by Shania Twain. I have to say, looking back, these were pivotal albums for me. I felt I assumed and embodied the depth and spirit of the independent, against-the-grain female artist.

I developed my own style. We never had much money and often shopped at Goodwill. I developed a love and pride for thrift-store style, always putting funky patterns together, loud colors, bright and wild outfits with suspenders and crazy hairstyles to match. Belly shirts. My school photos largely reflect this; looking back, I see a sea of neutral colors and polo shirts, nicely groomed hair… and then there is ME: Punky Gwen Stefani hair and wild outfit, smiling a knowing smile through the lens.

By 12, I had picked up playing Saxophone and taking classical lessons for that as well. I WANTED to play the drums, but my mother forbade me. So I picked the next-most-rock-and-roll instrument I could think of. I played in jazz band, concert band, pep band, and marching band. I sang in concert and jazz choir. I was very involved in theater, speech and drama. I started attending a band camp every summer at Dorian College.

At 13 I discovered Tori Amos. There was a cassette tape of a concert of hers in a drawer… my uncle had recorded it. I was enthralled. Mesmerized. I had to hear more. I got every album of hers I could get my hands on from the public library, and eventually from music stores to call my own. I got lost in her virtuostic playing and poetic, confessional lyricism. I could feel the visceral emotion of her singing and performances… I BELIEVED HER. I saw parallels in my own life, as I had always gravitated toward rock music and here I was; at a crossroads of sorts between the classical repertoire of my lessons and my the budding songwriter I was becoming, writing my first rock songs on piano at this time. She gave me PERMISSION to go against the grain, be different, have my own style. To weave these vastly different schools of thought together. I spent hours every day pouring over the piano through my teens into high school graduation. It was my safe space, my dreaming space, my Mecca, my everything. It was the place I fell back on when life got overwhelming or scary or confusing. I ALWAYS had my piano.

When I graduated high school a year early (I was ready to get out of Iowa and start my life), I took part in a year-long foreign exchange program where I lived with a family in Arequipa, Peru. I learned a lot about myself that year. It also tested all my musical safety nets, as I immediately sourced all the pianos in town I could use as frequently as I could, but weren’t so readily available to me as my own upright Kawaii had been at home. I experienced a fracturing of self; how could I survive without my emotional support instrument?

Eventually, I purchased my first acoustic guitar and taught myself to play some chords. I brought this guitar back to the States with me, and then to New York where I had been accepted into NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts for Film and Television. And though I followed my class schedule and navigated my new life in the Big Apple, I soon brought my acoustic guitar around to some music clubs, auditioning in person for what would be my very first show ever that was NOT a piano recital.

I got my first gig at CBGB this way. I walked in with my guitar, played a few songs, and booked my first show. Unbeknownst to me at this time, this show would be the gateway to me becoming an artist and performer; the beginners luck that set me on a path of cutting my teeth on the New York City music scene and as a performer at large.

Three monumental things happened at this gig. 1) People CAME. I had a full room, many enthusiastic college freshmen, proud to come support their new rocker guitar-girl friend. 2) The venue recorded the show onto a CD. I didn’t even have a computer or phone or anything yet – so I had never had a way to record myself and send songs over to venues to book shows. NOW I HAD THAT! I had a CD of a show I could replicate and drop off to venues. I had my “business card”! And 3) I got PAID. I had NO IDEA I was going to make any money, and so had no expectation or previous experience with that. Playing the show was enough for me, but when I exited the club with my guitar, my CD, and my friends, someone from the venue chased after me saying “Hey! You forgot your money!” I was floored. I made $75. I couldn’t believe it. I remember clearly thinking to myself, “I want to do this every day for the rest of my life.”

I learned a lot that first year of performing. At my second show, which was at The Bitter End, I played all the same songs and used the same banter in between songs. I didn’t know any better, or any different. But ALL the same people came to that second show… and it was apparent I was recycling my material. So I learned, that I needed to mix it up. Be spontaneous.

I learned I needed to PRACTICE. To work harder at the guitar. Guitar did NOT come easily to me. It was oceans away from the comfort and flow I had on the percussive keys of the piano. I only really knew 5 or 6 chords in the beginning.. enough to support the songs I had written, but not much beyond. I was often fearful I would be “found out” for being a fraud. I had my first tastes of “Imposter syndrome” as I mingled more and more with the greats of the music scene at the time. I hung out constantly on Bleecker Street, at the Bitter End. Made friends with the owner and ran with the “in” crowd, being introduced to many seasoned veterans in the biz. I loved it and felt at home, but that nagging feeling of not being “good enough” was always tucked in there, and I would often break away from intimidating meetings with John Mayer and Joss Stone, or dinners with Gavin Degraw, needing to sneak away into the night and recenter. I was still just a kid… 18, 19 years old. I knew I had some magic, but I felt there was SO much work still to do.

Kenny (who ran the Bitter End, and became my “industry father” as I lovingly called him) would let me come into the Bitter during the daytimes, and bash my emotions out on the piano there on stage. To revisit the Chopin and Rachmaninoff and Debussy of my earlier years, or just to recenter without the pressure of a show.

I had some “work study” jobs through NYU, but upon learning their incredibly low hourly wage, I began supplementing my income by busking in Washington Square Park. I found a time frame that worked, and an open spot away from other performers beneath the statue of Geribaldi. The first time I did it was SUCH a rush. I was both frightened beyond my wildest dreams, and equally euphoric. Again – the beginners luck kicked in. I made something like $60 in an hour. I felt emboldened, and I dared myself to go back again each day, summoning the courage to join the barrage of the NYC street performer scene and hold myself like a seasoned veteran, though I often felt like a shaking leaf. I was 19.

Two years into college, I reached another crossroads. Kenny had connected me with an all-girl power-pop band called Girls Don’t Cry. Among hundreds of girls, I auditioned, and they wanted me. However, I quickly realized college and the band could not co-exist. The rigorous band schedule would be too much to allow for classes, study, and tests. I had been accepted into a prestigious music video program in Ireland to boot; an opportunity I would have to pass up if I signed a contract with the band. After some much-needed counseling through school, I made the leap, signed the contract, and took a leave of absence from school. The schooling could wait, and would be there for me when I wanted to come back. The band would not wait.

As my time kicked off with Girls Don’t Cry I quickly learned I would need additional income. We were a band starting off from scratch, and though we had producers helping us and a swanky studio with nice instruments to use, I needed survival money. I went directly to an audio sales and rental company that I had taken a field trip to in college, and asked for a job. Gotham Sound hired me, with little experience, and despite my warnings to them that “I might not be here for long because my band might get signed”. The audacity of my optimistic young mind.

I’m so grateful they did hire me, because during my year with them, pulling long 18-20 hour days – working full-time during the day and either gigging or rehearsing with the band every night – I learned everything I needed to know about doing location sound. I learned every mixer, recorder, and piece of gear inside and out as we prepped packages for major films and tv projects. Little did I know I was planting a very important (and lucrative) seed for my future.

Girls Don’t Cry was a rollercoaster. The producers in charge had put together a band – much like the Spice Girls – and they wanted ALL the control and credit. Though most of us wrote our own material, we were not allowed to insert it into our performance materials or recordings. I was ALL IN on trying to capitalize on the experience in every way I could. I drew logos and T-shirt designs and did EVERYthing I could do to finagle some piece of the control and artistic rights. We did many showcases for big record execs, but no one was biting. We felt truncated by our producers, and label execs felt odd about the triangulation of the producers and the band and the label. Tensions and frustrations between us girls and the producers inevitably grew and reached a fever pitch. We started rebelling, speaking to lawyers, playing our own songs in our sets to the surprise and chagrin of our producers (and excitement of our followers). We pulled away, and for a period, attempted to sail the ship on our own without them. I spearheaded a shared rehearsal rental space in Gowanus, Brooklyn. We worked up song ideas of our own together. But alas – our personal connection and know-how in the industry wasn’t enough to keep us steaming forward in harmony, and we went our separate ways. I felt heartbreak and shame at the lost opportunity I had put so much personally into, but plenty was learned during this time. It was time to move on.

I had since quit working at Gotham Sound full time and was out on my own, mixing location sound for any shows I could get my hands on. I also adopted a long series of service jobs – something I was never great at, but found to be eternally valuable to learn and it kept the lights on. I was a barista, a server, sometimes a bartender, a cocktail waitress. I worked at popular bars and restaurants in downtown Manhattan and the Lower East Side, including The Pink Pony and The Cupping Room in Soho. I would ride my bike into Manhattan in the dark, showing up at 5:30am to juice oranges and prep my barista station for the day. Many celebrities frequented the Cupping Room and I have fond memories there with staff and clientele. I even played music there a few times.

During this time I also started regularly gigging with a band called Kolker led by Dave Kolker. I saw Kolker perform one night at the Bitter End after a Girls Don’t Cry show, and I was enamored. They were LOUD, unapologetic, and the songs were GOOD – blues rock pop guitar songs that were heavy, like a slow-moving freight train. I had to be involved. I offered Dave my services on Saxophone or Keys anytime he might want.

Dave was kind enough to let me sit in on saxophone several nights, and eventually he had me on rhythm guitar and backing vocals regularly. We would play late night slots up and down Bleecker street, finishing at 3 or 4 am a lot of times. I would sling my two guitars on my shoulders and roll my amp into the subway, making my way back to Brooklyn. There was something magic about playing with Dave. He not only became a dear friend and mentor, and is UBER talented, but I was being given the platform to stretch my legs musically and find my voice. I was building confidence as a player, while not being the center of attention or front person. The experience I clocked getting to tag along with him and his band was revolutionary for me as a player.

As I set forth back on a path of my own solo music, post-Girls Don’t Cry, I reached another crossroads. I applied for an internship program with the BBC in London. I was spinning my wheels working four jobs to make ends meet and unsure what my end game was. Obama had just been elected president and NYC was on fire with excitement and hope for the future of our country. I was accepted to the BBC internship program, and as I continued to gig in NYC, my drummer – who had become a dear friend and mentor – encouraged me to go to London. “There are no bad decisions” he said. But he told me a personal story that was the nudge I needed. So I packed up my little Brooklyn apartment, Kenny from the Bitter End helped me store some of my bigger belongings, and I headed to Europe in January of 2009.

The world of Broadcast Television in England was a breath of fresh air, and so was London’s music scene. It seemed the people REALLY cared deeply about music and emerging artists. I befriended a popular young band and started exploring different venues. I walked daily to my BBC internship past the music shops on Denmark Street, pining after a butterscotch Fender Strat in one shop’s window. I would stop in and play it almost every day on my walk home. Eventually, I got enough nerve to realize, I’m only 23 once, and getting this guitar could change the whole trajectory of my musical life. So I took a deep breath, handed over the 2000 odd pounds, and walked home with the guitar slung over my shoulder, feeling the rush of a new level of dedication.

I played my first show with my new guitar at a place right around the corner from the shop I had purchased it in downtown London. I feel like it was called Denmark Street pub or something along those lines. I’ll never forget the sincere interest people showed in my performance, strangers and friends alike. A music reviewer even attended and wrote a review of the show! WOW! I had never seen this happen in America unless a publicist had arranged for it. I was floored that a stranger had just appeared and published a thoughtful write-up about this little American kid on her Stratocaster.

I continued to gig. On a break from my internship, I bought the customary European month-long train pass and zipped through and across 11 countries with my back pack and guitar. I had some colorful busking experiences (almost getting arrested on a German train platform – oops), and even booked some on-the-fly shows along the way, the most memorable being in Osla, Norway. It was a beautiful, whirlwind trip I will never forget. I arrived back to London exhausted, on fumes.

I traveled the whiskey trail solo in Scotland, again with backpack and guitar. I met many music friends along the way, and will never forget the great rock scene in Glasgow, or playing the grand piano at an estate in the Isle of Skye. I signed up to a farm work-trade program after my BBC internship ended, which took me across the southwest of England, across Wales, and all the way around the circumference of Ireland and Northern Ireland on a push bike. 6 weeks of cycling, camping, farming, sailing!, helping different places with sustainable living practices, exploring, creating, and meeting incredible people along the way. I couldn’t bring my guitar, so a ukulele in a travel bag took its place on my back as I rode. It rained 5 out of 6 weeks. I was very soggy, but my heart was full. I will never forget the extraordinary experiences during that massive trip. Jamming with my host from County Cork over homemade brew in his hand-built hobbit house on his off the grid community, Cool Mountain (yes – that’s what it’s called) where I slept in the adjacent “potato drying house”. Or visiting County Donegal and meeting Enya’s family. The trip finished with a proper gig and a borrowed guitar at a venue in Belfast, Northern Ireland before catching the ferry back to England.

I re-registered for classes at NYU and officially went back to school. I knew now what I wanted to focus on, and it was documentary, with classes in anthropology to supplement. I received a bachelor’s degree with honors from the Kanbar Institute of Film and TV, and one credit shy of an anthropology minor.

I had also given my heart to an Australian I had met while in Europe, and so began my second exodus from New York City. Almost as quickly as I had returned state and city-side, and wrapped up college, I was back out into the world again, this time headed to Sydney, Australia. I had a slew of connections, recommendations, work experience, and a strong resume. I brought the 12-string acoustic guitar my father had given me for Christmas the year before, and I brought my strat – which I had named Clarence after the ‘True Romance’ character in Terantino’s “first” flick.

My relationship fell apart fast upon arrival, but my love affair with Australia had only just begun. After a season of trying and failing to get gainful employment, and gigging regularly but not getting much traction, I landed a full-time job at a TV network and decided to stay well past my year-long visa. I lived on the northern beaches originally in Narabeen, but then in Manly, taking the ferry across Sydney harbor every day to and from work. It was a beautiful time; my quality of life was at an all time high. Rounding the anniversary of my second year, I noticed that though my happiness, financial stability, and lifestyle were thriving, my musical dreams and aspirations had all but dissipated. The producer I had started to work with was selling all his gear. Australian artists and bands were leaving Oz in troves, headed to the States or Europe. There appeared to be a mass artistic exodus and a struggling scene in Sydney, and there I was, all my dreams but ONE – the BIG ONE – unrealized and not yet cultivated. How could I commit to living here permanently (at only 25) if I hadn’t yet exhausted my efforts in music?

I made the extremely hard decision to leave Australia and come back to the states. Though I didn’t have a clear plan, I knew somewhere deep down that, though it was the place I cut my teeth on adulthood and held my deepest network of friends and career, I had to leave New York City.

I traveled around the states in a minivan I had bought before I left for Australia, with a new Australian boyfriend – a talented and playful drummer. We had a blast, piecing together music gigs and production gigs along our away, but when we wound up back in NYC broke, he flew back to Australia, homesick and not up to the survival challenges we were faced with. Once again in my New York groove, I set to work editing the documentary I had shot a couple years back, and wondering if I should head home to Iowa for reset.

I finally recorded my first song with a producer OTHER than myself, a song I had written and played at band camp a decade previous at the age of 13. The song “Don’t Know” became immortalized at last, and I worked with a friend from film school to make a music video for it.

Burnt out and broke, I took a trip to Iowa to see my dad, and immediately got a call for an audio gig in Georgia. I did a whirlwind visit to friends in MN and my mother in WI before driving 15 hours to Atlanta and starting a months-long job mixing on a reality show there. I had nothing with me but the clothes I had taken with me for my short trip to my dad’s, and an acoustic guitar I snagged from my sister.

It was on my drive back to NYC after this gig ended that I happened upon a music producer and a friend working on an album in Nashville. I stayed a few days and witnessed their work. Back in New York, I struck up with that same producer in Nashville and made two trips down to start the process of recording my own first album. I then found myself back in Atlanta, supervising audio on another reality show. I was onto something, I could feel it, and I was finally ready to work HARD and give music a shot. My heart wouldn’t allow otherwise. I would work audio all day, gig almost every night, and drive to Nashville on weekends to work on the album. I felt the fierce determination to get better, to do music “for real” swelling up within me. I was ready.

Unfortunately that producer conned me out of $12K and then ghosted me – leaving me with a hard drive of our unfinished work. It was a very tough go for my very first attempt at working on recording an album with a producer. I had no other basis for comparison on “how it should work”, so the warning signs of paying him up front should have been clearer. But, I licked my wounds, and wound up starting fresh with a new producer friend – Tom Tapley – with whom I re-recorded half of the songs, and which became my debut ‘album’ “Creatures of Habit”. The work was extremely nourishing, as we worked out of Christian Bush’s (Sugarland) studio in Decatur, squeezing raw heart and rock and blues out of the instruments and into the mics. It was a renaissance. I had transformed the lump of coal I received into a diamond.

It was also during this time that I caught wind of a reality show being filmed in Nashville about musicians. I was determined to be considered for the show – and this time IN FRONT of the camera, instead of behind it.

I drove to Nashville and did an audition tape for production. I was told to “country it up”, so I wore my only shirt with little lapel embroidery, and my Harley Davidson boots – the closest I had to cowboy boots. I played an original song, and Lucinda Williams’ “Fruits of My Labor”. I received word that I was cast on the show.

During the lead up to moving to Nashville, I did some odd audio gigs back in New York, and between then and moving to Nashville, I was largely living out of my minivan (which I called “Clark”, as in Clark W. Griswald from the “Vacation” series).

On the show – which was called “Crazy Hearts”, I was cast as “the new girl in town” and “the heartbreaker”. We filmed September until December of 2013, and I had officially moved to Nashville and took up residence in a humble room in an apartment on the south side of town. I didn’t have much – all my belongings had been in my minivan, so I was grateful the place was furnished, with a brand new bed and mattress in the room I would be renting. Perfect.

I did audio for other reality shows to get by while we filmed. They did NOT pay us to film Crazy Hearts, only per episode after each aired, something I would never contractually agree to now. But you live and learn. I finished up the recording, mixing, and art for “Creatures of Habit” so I could release it in conjunction with the airing of the TV show. I also set to work finding a BAND and other musicians to collaborate with in Nashville, as this was a real-life move for me and not just “for the show”. And I could sense this move to Nashville might be a semi-permanent one.

I was filled with elation at what I witnessed my first months living in Nashville – people playing music everywhere, in all different forms, for the joy of it. People collaborating, playing residencies and tribute shows. The talent was off the charts, but it only served to motivate me, not intimidate. I felt drawn to it all. It felt like a positive space I could glean and learn from the best. Artists big and small were playing albums, start to finish, or were organizing tributes to different bands or artists, just for the love of it, just because they wanted to. Not to get a leg up, or advance in the industry; just BECAUSE. There was a camaraderie and a celebration of music I had never witnessed, certainly not in New York, not to this degree. I felt drawn for the first time in all my travels and adventures to something I didn’t realize I had been craving: community.

The reality show Crazy Hearts was to air on A&E, with Duck Dynasty – a smash hit at the time – as the lead-in. Millions of viewers would see the me and this cast of musician misfits in Nashville – all people I had only just met.

I told myself I wasn’t going to date or see anyone seriously while I worked on the show, I would keep a low profile, as this whole “other side of the camera” thing was an experiment and risk for me. I wanted to do it alone. But the universe had other plans for me. I met the man I would marry three weeks after moving to Nashville, introduced to me through another cast member one the show.

Jeremy (my now husband) wouldn’t come within fifty feet of the show. His only involvement wound up being as a member of my band. So I started leading a double life – one riddled with fake messy TV romance and plot lines, and one filled with real-life romance and budding new roots.

The show aired one full season and died a fairly quick death. The plot lines focused too much on the fake “love triangles” and not nearly enough on the music or substance of the real lives of those involved, in my humble opinion. I had been mixing audio for years on shows like this, and I could see it and feel it early on. It was a risk I had decided to take, as I had developed quite a track record for risk-taking in my life story. It was exposure I was hoping for, and I did gain that – good and bad. But as the old adage goes, “any exposure is good exposure”. My perspective on it now is, I got true love, and the chance to record a Joan Jett song at Ocean Way studio here in Nashville, put out by Universal Music/Big Machine. Apart from these shining successes I gained from the show, I cut my losses and moved on.

I also made myself a promise. I vowed to never work on a show again unless it was scripted, or I was entirely in control.

Much to my delight, this promise would manifest in only three years’ time.

The following year Jeremy and I received the exciting news that we were expecting our first child. Incidentally this news came during the recording of my second album, “Bright Future”. I had been approached by major rock producer Michael Wagener about working together, and we were on day two in the studio. The rest of the recording week was injected with certain euphoria as I held the secret of what Jeremy and I had discovered.

I put out Bright Future in July of 2015, two months before Rory was born. I performed my album release show at The Basement East here in Nashville, in a denim jumpsuit with a swelling belly.

With Rory in utero, Jeremy and I attended many incredible concerts including The Rolling Stones, The Who, and Van Halen.

We welcomed Rory that September and got married 6 weeks later in a beautiful little ceremony in our backyard. We held the reception at The Basement East.

Jeremy and I continued to gig, and brought Rory everywhere with us. Baby Rory became a staple at all the local venues, from Exit/In to the Basement and The 5 Spot. Jeremy had started “Thee Rock n Roll Residency” the year before, a weekly rock residency that attracted all of rock’s famed greats as guest players and singers, and Rory was a regular at every show. He grew into the toddler with sound-canceling headphones, running through a sea of 70s-dressed rock attendees, being held by various friends while mom and dad performed on stage. These were wonderful, hectic, beautiful times.

In January 2017, I received a short message from a lawyer I had worked with during Crazy Hearts. It said simply, “I have been following your career and have a project I would like to put your name in the hat for”. I enthusiastically agreed, not grasping fully what the “project” was yet. It would come to be one of the biggest, if not THE biggest opportunity of my career yet.

I was contacted by production to come meet the director of the new Pitch Perfect film – Pitch Perfect 3. I drove to Atlanta to meet Trish Sie, and brought a bass guitar, as the part I was auditioning for was a bassist. We chatted easily, got along like a wildfire, I gave her a Bright Future CD, and I drove back to Nashville. The next day I received word that I had gotten the part. “Veracity” – bassist and Joan Jett-style rabble rouser in a fake rock band later to be named Evermoist. My co-stars were Ruby Rose, Andy Allo, and Venzella Joy (Beyonce’s drummer). Holy shit. Holy shit!!!! I couldn’t believe it, but in many ways, I could. I was ready, I was just right for this. I was made for this! I was given the shot that all my globe-trotting, music-making, performing, and manifesting had led up to.

As the reality of what I had achieved started to sink in, Jer and I bit into a busy few months. Jer toured Japan and Australia with Gene Simmons and Ace Frehley from Kiss. Thee Rock and Roll Residency band had made an impact that echoed through the halls of rock and roll internationally and they had moved on to be in these icons’ solo bands. Simultaneous to this, I went to Cuba to supervise audio on a documentary starring Raul Malo of the Mavericks, and came back just in time to start filming Pitch Perfect 3. It was a delightful, whirlwind time. My amazing sister flew in to help watch little Rory while mom and dad traveled and worked.

Being on set of Pitch Perfect 3 are some of my favorite memories of all time. The cast, the crew, the director, the producers… everyone was as lovely, talented, and wonderful as you could imagine. I felt the freedom to ENJOY this moment and to stretch my creative legs. I felt proud, and honestly – I felt MADE for this. I remembered being a little girl always singing and performing for my parents and aunts and uncles and their friends. I remembered all my countless hours at the piano, making up melodies and dreaming dreams.

I wrote songs while we filmed, and I bonded with my “bandmates”, as well as the real band from Austin – Whiskey Shivers aka “Saddle Up” in the film. I even had everyone dance in my music video for the song “Bright Future”, the idea for which was just a mish/mash of various friends busting a groove – Lukas Nelson (Willie’s son), various cast members of Pitch Perfect 3 – on set to boot, and Evan Stanley (Paul Stanley’s son) being among some of the most memorable.

At the end of the year, my husband, son and I flew to Arizona to my father’s home and Jeremy and I drove to LA for the big red carpet premiere of the film at the Dolby Theater. It was very surreal, and to be honest, pretty nerve wracking! I had never experienced success at this level in the industry. We spent most of our visit running around trying to find last minute clothing and arrange for hair and makeup for the event. I had no publicist, no team, and walked the red carpet with a person assigned to me upon arrival to help me navigate the chaos of paparazzi and photographers and interviewers. It was wild. Anna Kendrick came and squeezed me and told me I was giving Elmoira vibes (my hair was teased in a beehive to the high heavens). Rebel Wilson and I both took off our shoes upon entering the theater; pretty shoes too painful to bear longer than the carpet walk. Once inside, it was just… all of us dressed up real pretty watching a movie in a theater. It was funny to experience all the glamor, but it was really just a group of friends watching a movie in a theater.

I was and am extremely proud of the film. It still supplies me with the courage and strength (and mailbox money!) to soldier forth and trust that, if I keep working, my next “Pitch Perfect” awaits me. The entertainment industry can be and IS an incredibly helterskelter landscape; unpredictable and sometimes ruthless. But it also holds the capacity to make dreams come true, to give a platform of creative and personal freedom beyond one’s wildest dreams. It is THIS that keeps me coming back.

I have released one more EP and now two additional full-length albums since PP3. We had our second beautiful son Benjamin in 2020, amidst tornados in Nashville and then the pandemic. I have done countless audio jobs and more than ever lately which align with my original attraction to documentary. I want to do work that MATTERS and positively impacts the world. I want to leave a humble legacy of work that impacts and shapes the culture positively.

As it stands, I act, I’m an audio engineer, and I’m a musical artist. I currently am represented by an acting agency BMG covering the whole of the southeast, and I regularly audition and work different projects on screen. I still mix audio and have the honor of working projects like the recent CCN flash documentary about Beyonce’s new country album. I still write and perform music, and am constantly learning, growing, and finding my voice (or find a NEW voice). My latest album Lone Wolf which came out May 24, 2024 is all about letting go, amping up, setting free, and moving forward. It’s a rock and roll album which I was very lucky to have been able to release with a distribution and marketing team, and record/print triple A – which means recorded, mixed, mastered to tape and cut from tape straight to vinyl.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Almost all my stories seem to emanate resilience. But the one that illustrates the most resilience might be my journey of being a cast member on a “reality” tv show.

The only guarantee I could see from taking part in the A&E show Crazy Hearts was exposure. And I did gain that, but not all of it was good. Quite the opposite in fact. The show had very mixed support and reviews in Nashville, as well as the US and beyond, but the Nashville part meant the most to me since I was a new transplant, and my artistic reputation mattered to me. I caught mega backlash for my role in the show as a “heartbreaker”. My artistic integrity was also challenged because one of the main cast members on the show – a musician peer and on-screen love interest – openly criticized my music, calling it bad, or characterizing me as too stylized or overly confident. This would have been easy to digest from one person alone, but we have to remember that this was a primetime network television show, with the VERY popular lead-in show Duck Dynasty (remember that? ha). Our show harbored MILLIONS of viewers, and since the broad population seems to take reality tv at face value, that cast member’s dispersions on my music and persona translated to millions of viewers questioning my artistry. It reverberated locally too, with certain venues (Exit/In, to name one) openly refusing to book anyone from that “reality show”. It was a rough introduction to Music City, to say the least.

I DID gain exposure from the show, but quite a lot of bad exposure. But you know what they say – ANY publicity is good publicity – so I took what I had to gain, cut my losses, and tried to move forward.

It took time, and a lot of healing. I didn’t have nearly the thick skin I have now, and though I didn’t fully believe the hate mail I received or social media trolls who harassed me, their comments still hurt deeply. I questioned myself a lot during this time. I was extremely lucky to have Jeremy – my then real-life boyfriend, my now husband – there by my side, to hold me and remind me what is real and what isn’t. I felt tricked and betrayed by production – the world I had been so intimately a part of for years. The meanness and exploitative nature of reality tv I had witnessed so many times behind the camera, in my little audio cans, I was now experiencing first-hand for myself as a target of it.

I reminded myself that time would wash away the memory of the failed experiment, from those around me in Nashville, and also from the internet trolls, and people would move on to the next train wreck. I would eventually stop being recognized on the streets of Nashville for “Crazy Hearts” and start being recognized for Hannah Fairlight.

I also reminded myself about the valuable gains which I was able to walk with from the show. I got to arrange and record a Joan Jett song – I Hate Myself For Loving You – at Ocean Way Studio in Nashville – in their main recording room number 1. Incredible Nashville session players played on it, including Sheryl Crow’s amazing drummer Fred Eltringham. I got to arrange the song with Jason Lehning, still one of the kindest and most talented producers I’ve ever met. I felt trusted and empowered by fighting for a ROCK song instead of the laundry list of country songs the producers handed me. And the song was put out by Universal/Big Machine – a powerhouse in its own right.

I also would be remiss without mentioning my BIGGEST win from the show…because without the show I would never have met my now husband Jeremy Asbrock, never would have fallen in love, never would have been introduced to the TRUE old guard rock scene in Nashville, never would have found “my people”, and never would have had our two beautiful boys. It was that same cast member who bad-talked me on the show who introduced me to my future husband. So it just goes to show you NEVER know what the universe has in store for you and there is ALWAYS good with the bad, and vice versa!

And lastly – my biggest career success ALSO would never have happened without the tv show. I never would have manifested “scripted only” projects from now on, and I never would have met the lawyer who was eventually my gateway to Pitch Perfect 3 and my role as Veracity. A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE! A lifetime achievement! None of the pieces would have been in place had I not taken the risk of being on the reality show. And it definitely never would have happened if I had “given up”, licked my wounds, and laid down after the reality show failed. I had to keep working, to heal, and to get back out there, get back on the horse.

Also – when I shared this question with my husband after he commented on how long this interview is taking me, his response was:

“Example of resilience? I’m FORTY-NINE and I’m still doing this. There’s your story of resilience.”

To which I laughed out loud.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

The big conundrum I was faced with in my young adult life was, I wound up WORKING – MIXING AUDIO, SERVING in bars restaurants and coffee shops etc and whatever other odd job – 80-90% of the time, and playing, recording, performing MUSIC only 10-20% of the time. It was all I could do to get by in New York City. Sometimes I felt like such a phony as an artist because I COULDN’T give myself over fully to it, 100%.

I think a really big pivot was wholly accepting that I would have to MIX AUDIO – AND – BE AN ARTIST – BOTH. Not one or the other. I toggled back and forth a lot because, let’s face it – I chose to live in a VERY expensive city, and go to a VERY expensive university. Much of it on borrowed money. When it came time to start repayment on my loans, there was no pipe dream of “living in my van” and traveling around playing music any more. I HAD to make those loan payments every month, and I HAD to make rent. And living expenses. So I got stuck several times, the burden of that was so heavy, I used to think – I HAVE to quit music. I CAN’T do music. I HAVE to work full time all the time doing audio, because there is no other way I can see that will help me get ahead enough on these loans to pay them down. Then of course I would have a total breakdown, because – as you read in my back story – music is like OXYGEN to me. So I would freak out, unable to breath without playing music, and go the other way – denying I’m an audio engineer, I’m an ARTIST goddammit! I’m no sound mixer!

Well, the big pivot and the heavy realization came one day – I’ll never forget it. I was down in Austin, TX staying with my aunt at her beautiful home on Lake Travis. I was in her big library full of books which I had made into my temporary “recording studio”, and I realized all in one fell swoop, that going forward, I would just have to do BOTH. I would have to be an AUDIO ENGINEER – AND – A MUSICAL ARTIST. I would do both. I couldn’t just do ONE and survive.

I would have to work TWICE as hard maybe, as other musicians, I would have to take the LONG way around, which I was no stranger to anyway. But I was going to DO IT godammit. I would just have to do BOTH.

It was very shortly after this decision/realization that I made my way to Atlanta for several months for an audio gig, full time, and I started gigging music almost every night, like a mad woman. Open mics, Coffee shops, bars, venues, restaurants, anyone who would have me. I wanted to PLAY. I started driving to Nashville on weekends to work on recording my first full-length album. I became completely DETERMINED, almost to the point of madness, that I MUST put in the TIME, the sweat, the energy, the PRACTICE. I remember falling asleep sometimes during interviews as I mixed audio on the show I was supervising – I was going HARD during that time, and I wasn’t about to stop. Something had turned over inside me and I knew what I had to do.

Then came the reality show opportunity in Nashville – the one I would audition for. And obviously then came my move to Nashville, which served to fulfill my need to get out of expensive rat-race NYC once and for all, and try something easier to bite off and chew, in terms of stress and cost of living. It also meant, I had officially FLIPPED THE SCRIPT.

I was now doing MUSIC 80-90% of the time, and doing audio/other work 10-20%.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://hannahfairlightmusic.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/hannahfairlight
• Facebook: https://Facebook.com/hannahfairlightmusic
• Twitter: https://x.com/hannahfairlight
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxvuRrmXwN8btkrCa4Q9MzQ

Image Credits

Monique Bonneau, Hannah Fairlight, Emily Jones, Dylan Estes, Adrienne Pacheco