In my 30s … for those of you meeting me for the first time, it’s a significant phrase for me. I’m Emma and I’m a singer/songwriter based in Nashville, TN. I wrote a song called “30s” - a coming-of-age song I’d never heard before, so I decided to write one with my friends (two other 30-something songwriters). Entering this particular decade came with a bit more anxiety and expectations (self/society imposed), and I wanted to try to change the way I felt about it. I’ve never been ‘where I thought I should be by now’ and with every year that goes by I'm met with some new insecurity about that. We’re all bombarded with messages about what life should look like, at what point and if it doesn’t resemble that you wonder if you’re doing it wrong. So instead of letting it define me, I’ve tried to redefine how I feel about it.
The year I turned 30, after not being able to find a record deal or publishing deal and pursuing a music career for over a decade at that point, I decided to start my own label. Fairly quickly, I found a business partner and investor just a few months after my 30th birthday. It was what felt like a dream come true. It was a dream come true. I was a full-time owner of a company with funding and an owner of my own music (not the norm for most record deals). I had been waiting tables, driving Lyft, not knowing where my rent would come from each month, to hiring people, firing people and being the boss. It was quite a transition.
In just a few months, we were off to the races - releasing high end music videos (the kind I used to dream of), securing press in outlets like Billboard and Rolling Stone, playing shows in the UK, while working on finding a major label partner to go to radio.
Just a year into this new startup, COVID hit. Our in-person team meetings turned to Zooms, plans for live performances were cancelled, and any other filming/productions was put on hold for 6 months. To be honest, 2 weeks into it, I thought for sure the company would be no more, and I would be out of work.
I was incredibly fortunate that my partners decided to keep going and all of our efforts turned to the digital space. Right as TikTok was taking off, we had a bit of a viral track on our hands called “30s.” We saw premieres in People Magazine, Forbes, and 30-somethings from all over the US and even Kenya making videos singing along to the song. Despite having traction, we still had barriers at radio and it wasn’t enough for labels, managers or agents to want to partner with us.
In May of last year, after grinding it out through the pandemic, my business partners decided to exit. Without going into too much detail, I had about 20 days to find new work and find a way to stay in Nashville. With the intense isolation of those years, losing that partnership, and my team felt like losing my whole world. At the same time, I was losing weight rapidly from the the stress of it all and shrunk to 98 pounds. I went through a breakup soon after. It was the strangest time trying to figure out why all at once I was losing these significant parts of my life. With the help of a friend, I booked as many gigs as I could and found a job writing songs on the side. I wasn’t ready to let anyone know, so I just decided I’d work as hard as I could to not let there be any gap in releasing music or performing. It took me a year to figure out how to talk about it because on one hand, I felt like it didn’t matter, people have their own problems. But on the other, it’s been a huge part of my story so I wanted to eventually give an update on what happened to my little label startup.
My story is not unique. So many people, all over the world, embarked on their dreams and had to face the pandemic, and challenges they never could’ve imagined. I was lucky. Who knows what I would have been doing during that time if I hadn’t had that opportunity? I have to remember that all the time. If you don’t reach your end goal, at least you made progress. At least you had the chance to get that much closer to it. We definitely made mistakes, but I learned so much and we made incredible progress considering the cards we were dealt.
Although the last year has been challenging, I also know that one day, the year I turned 30, unexpectedly, my life changed overnight and someone took a chance on me. After over a decade in a town, never once being offered any type of deal, one coffee at Starbucks changed all of that. I didn’t even go into that meeting with the idea of pitching anything - I was honestly just looking for advice. Those odds aren’t great necessarily, but there’s something magical about the idea that all it takes is one day for everything to change. And the day-to-day of your life can change little by little so that every day you’re making small, consistent progress that prepares you for a day when everything can change the way you want it to. So although it didn’t end up the way we all wanted, I was fortunate to realize some dreams along the way. I can honestly say I gave it everything I had and I know that. So I don’t have regrets.
Today, I’m the sole owner of my label, and its only investor. I kept it alive because I wasn’t ready to let it go and that’s reason enough for me. I’ve thought about a new name which I’m toying with right now (@WLabelNash on IG) - more on that later.
I was recording songs for my album at that time and didn’t know what would happen with that project. Over the last year, I’ve continued to record new songs, and still plan on releasing an album. I don’t have any big plans for the label necessarily, although I still have a feeling there’s a big idea in there somewhere. For now though, I’m just trying to take one step at a time, play more shows and release new songs.
This is the first time I’ve shared this anywhere but I guess I felt like I needed to.
And if you’re going through something hard, I hope you find some brights spots and that eventually the pieces fall into place.