Renee has a lot to say.
Her parents divorced when she was two. She moved around from town to town, always feeling like a black sheep. She saw the world through the eyes of a misfit teenager who, while everyone else was picking out boyfriends and prom dresses, just wanted to sing and play music. Math class was spent scribbling lyrics in notebooks and dreaming of singing on stage with her idols. She recorded her first demo with stars in her eyes in Nashville at the age of 15. Her first relationship at the age of 19 was tumultuous at best, and led to a slew of songs following the messy breakup. And in early 2009 after deciding to take her career to the next level, she was diagnosed with a genetic progressive hearing loss, requiring surgery to restore the hearing she was already quickly losing. Renee has a lot to say….but she doesn’t dwell.
“I have been very, very fortunate. Every single moment of my life, every choice that I made, every experience that I have lived through I learned a great deal from and it’s led me to my little spot in the universe at present, and I love that. I love where I am in all its wonder and joy and excitement and messiness and mistakes. I love it all.”
Renee attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA with 4,000 other former teenage misfits, finally discovering her niche. The studio became her second home and her eyes were opened to new music through her friends from all over the world. She’s spent years crafting her songwriting and has finally gotten to a place of confidence in what she has to say. The ability to travel, to experience different cultures, has influenced her writing, and she met a great guy that has inspired her to write a few less gut wrenchingly melancholy songs.
Renee’s many musical inspirations span from the songwriting of Sarah McLachlan and Billy Joel to the vocal styling of Bonnie Raitt and early blues/soul artists. She is also inspired by her family: Grandma and Grandpa were professors of music for 30 years, Dad is a songwriter, guitarist, and trumpet player, and Mom filled her life with all different kinds of music from folk to Celtic to classical and taught her to sing harmonies at a young age. Renee writes with an empathy for the world, seen through her own experiences and through the eyes of others.
After graduating from Berklee in 2004, Renee moved to Los Angeles where she has done a bit of everything – fronted a cover band, sang backing vocals for other artists, and has been co-writing with artists and producers in all genres. She is thankful for her family, thankful for her musical inspirations, and thankful to her surgeon who gave her the ability to hear in stereo once again. She is a collector of experiences, writing and traveling and collaborating and hoping, knowing, that one day the love and joy and focus she has put into her music for so many years will all be worth it…even if that means just affecting the lives of those closest to her. She believes in music to help, to inspire, and gets the most satisfaction from being able to lend her voice to various causes and projects. Her debut album “Float Away” will be released in 2010.
