Tennessee
107 Years Old
Singer-Songwriter

writer profile >

BIOGRAPHY

Erin McCarley calls the music on her debut album, Love, Save the Empty, a document of her search for authenticity in herself and in others. If that sounds heavy, there's a reason why: According to McCarley, "Loving You" is about being honest at the beginning of a new relationship and saying, I have nothing left to give to this amazing person standing right in front of me. "Sleepwalking" profiles a cynic that can't hear it come back his own way. For the title track, McCarley was inspired to write a song about the effects stemming from a lack of role models in a parentless world. And yet the 11 songs collected here (songs that ignited an industry-wide frenzy when McCarley performed them at SXSW earlier this year) pull off the trick that all great pop performs: They do heavy philosophical lifting with a lightness that boosts the spirit. This is elegantly crafted, deeply melodic music that resounds with echoes of the Beatles and Aimee Mann, Alanis Morissette and Amy Winehouse.

McCarley grew up in the Dallas suburb of Garland, where she says her parents couldn't have done a better job raising her and her older sister. It was a very happy home with very little pain to deal with, as she explains, describing days filled with dance class and choir rehearsal. In a way, though, her ideal childhood led to an unexpected wake-up call later in life. It kind of gave me an unrealistic view of everything, McCarley notes with a laugh. That's not how the world is, you know? In McCarley's music you can hear her charting the distance between fantasy and reality, as well as the heartbreak that inevitably accompanies its discovery.

McCarley's brand of honesty doesn't come without the occasional flash of regret. I've looked back at some of these songs recently and thought to myself, Are you serious? I can't believe I put that out there!

Near the top of the list of McCarley's favorite artists are names like Fiona Apple, Patty Griffin and Greg Laswell (the latter of whom co-wrote "Bobblehead"). "I just love how true and raw their lyrics are". Listening to records by these musicians is more than enjoyable for McCarley - it's inspiring. I get one line into one of their songs and I have to stop and write my own, she says. McCarley singles out her favorites unique phrasing, the way they've taught her to concentrate not only on her words but on her delivery. Their lyrics are that much more powerful because of the way they sing them.

McCarley currently calls Nashville home, but she cut her musical teeth in San Diego, where she'd moved after college to pursue a life that didn't feature music at its center. During her undergraduate days she'd spend weekends singing with a country cover band for extra cash, yet in San Diego, selling clothes in a boutique and hanging out on the beach, she began thinking not just like a singer, but as a songwriter, which satisfied a different artistic jones. Once I discovered songwriting it became an addiction, she says now, remembering countless days she spent holed up in her house from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., doing writing exercises (and staring at the wall) while wearing the same pair of linen pants. "Most nights I'd end up with an unfinished song. But when the day would come when all the pieces would align, and I'd know this is a song for people to hear, there is no better release in the world. Those are some of the only times that I can go out at night or sit on the couch next to my loved ones and feel at peace like, "Job well done". I can rest, at least for a second."It was during this bout of creativity that McCarley met producer/writer/keyboardist Jamie Kenney (the rare partner she felt 100 percent comfortable with), and the two began honing the songs that would make up Love, Save the Empty.

It's hard for me to write about being happy, McCarley admits. I don't prefer being sad, but it's a real spot for me. If you met me, I'm not this dark, sulking person, though I'm not bubbly by any means, either. I guess it comes down to the fact that I'm not afraid of being sad. Love, Save the Empty arrives this fall on Universal Republic Records. McCarley will spend the summer laying the groundwork for the album's release with a pair of tours. Her goal an artist is as simple and as profound as they come. "When I'm onstage," she says, "I'm trying to communicate with every single person out there."

LEVEL

professional

GENRES

Alternative Pop, Singer/Songwriter, Rock

PUBLISHING COMPANY

TBA, major publishing company

Contact

Management: Mick Management - Michael McDonald & Justin Eshak
Publishing: TBA
Label: Universal Republic Records - Tom Mackay
Booking: Creative Artists Agency - Scott Clayton

P.R.O.

BMI

INSTRUMENTS

acoustic guitar / electric guitar / keyboard / vocals

INFLUENCES

fiona apple, beck, metric, greg laswell, classical music

DAY JOB

Artist with Universal Republic

I AM INTERESTED IN

in co writing in person
in networking with songwriters
in pitching songs to artist
in pitching songs to tv

I WRITE:

For a living

I Prefer To Write:
lyrics
melody
music

experience >

SONG PLACEMENTS

For TV: Pony - "One Tree Hill" "Kyle XY" "Las Vegas DVD" "Privileged" Pitter-Pat - "One Tree Hill"

>>

Legends: Bobby Braddock

In Nashville, most successful songwriters have a fairly short run. On hit, one year, two years, five years. Occasionally, we get one whose career approaches the length of a real career or, more often, one who has a few years success, then slips into oblivion, only to emerge again for another brief era of hit-making.

>>

Legends: Rickie Lee Jones

She speaks softly, not unlike the way she sings --soft, soulful passages, almost like secrets to the closest of friends --punctuated by bursts of exaltation. It's much like the span of emotion in her work, and in her new record, Balm in Gilead, which veers from the pure, naked heartbreak of "Bonfires" to the elation of "Old Enough," to the beautiful "Wild Girl," which celebrates the 21st birthday of her daughter, while simultaneously reflecting on the unchained fervor of her own wild days.

>>

Legends: Robert Earl Keen

As singer/songwriters go, Robert Earl Keen doesn't seem like the kind of artist who could honestly be accused of sloth. But despite a catalog choked with characters and conversations pulled from a colorful life, he makes that very claim on "Something That I Do," a track where he brags of his ability to not let work get in the way of an otherwise pleasant afternoon.

>>

Townes Van Zandt: Facets, Faults & Fractures

It's 10 o'clock at night on an abandoned Music Row. The year is 1985. In a third-floor office in an old house that serves as the offices for the Oak Ridge Boys' Silverline/Goldline Music Publishing, Steve Earle brings the chair he's leaning back in down hard, flipping his hair out of his eyes for emphasis.