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Life & Work with Autumn Nicholas

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Autumn Nicholas.

Hi Autumn, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
North Carolina, 1989, 7lbs 6ounces. My little cocoa skin graced the world. The next few years were just the ones spent letting the universe and my soul gravitate towards my calling… which I honestly thought was to be a journalist or maybe even continue playing basketball through college. But realized that maybe journalism was just one way to reach through words, and a way to tell stories. To connect with others, by sharing things in common.

I was 12 when I started to really hold music as something more serious, maybe because my older brother was doing it. (And anything he did I followed right in line with because he was always COOLer than me). I soon jumped right in and worked 12+ years performing in bars and various venues. Got very used to being the jukebox, taking requests (top two songs most requested: Free Bird + Wagon Wheel).

I’ll honestly admit it took me a good amount of time to be brave enough to sing out what I personally wanted to say. Original Music was HARD because of all the pressure I put on myself about entertaining people with what they already knew like most are comfortable with what they already know. Introducing something new was something that left too much room for vulnerability, which for me back then was terrifying.

I’ve walked through many tough days, lots of NO’s from auditions (idol, the voice, AGT), they told me they had people who looked like me, or that I wasn’t loud enough, or just nothing at all. I once auditioned with pneumonia.(had no idea until after the audition.) To be honest, those shows/roads just weren’t my roads to ride. But I kept at it, even when music felt like it was against me, I just pressed into learning crowds, learning how to move the music to the people.

Trained my voice on how to push past the healthy amount of singing one person should do in a day. (No longer do that.) These are just the little things I had to experience along the way. I’ve crossed with lots of AMAZING humans and been SO CLOSE to the next step, or game-changing type people… but for some reason, it just wasn’t my time and that’s okay.

I am here now, to tell my stories through song, without the time in between, I wouldn’t have anything to offer you. More than ever my music is vulnerable. It leaves room for others to take what they need from it.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
If it was a smooth road, I think the music would be a bit dry. So, has it been smooth? No, not at all, but in the best worst way it molded my texture and tone, how it’s delivered, with vulnerable certainty and conviction. Because of it, I’m here for me, to share my voice unbendingly.

Part of the challenge in today’s social media, always-on, often invasive, and uncaring society, the challenge is understanding how much to share and how vulnerable I want to be. Whatever challenges I’ve faced, I faced them head-on with the love and support of my family and that’s made overcoming any of them easier and sweeter.

Some of my music is very personal, songs like “On A Sunday” and “Dealing.” Others are written more to express my point of view on a topic that matters to me like “Not Gonna Do this Anymore.” I like to view it as if I am reading in a library made up entirely of books about my life, taking down one to find something in common and then trying to deliver it with just enough details that paint the picture but also lets me keep part of it close and personal.

That lets me share little secrets, ones that leave room to give glimpses of who we truly are in that moment, where if people listen in the right way, with an open heart and mind, they might get to see me as I truly am.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a human first, then a singer-songwriter, performer, and musician. My work is a mixture of speaking up for the voiceless and shining light on tough topics. My music is centered on the idea that by embracing one another as we are, and not how we think they should be, we can better see how common our differences aren’t.

My work in music is beyond me, I don’t always know it until it hits me. Sometimes this is when I hear, for the first time, the finished track or when one of the other musicians adds something I hadn’t considered, and it subtly changes the tone and texture in a positive way and that changes how I sing it.

Most often it’s when I play a song and a member of the audience hears it for the first time and it moves, motivates, encourages, empowers, or just causes them to pause at the moment in a new way. I hope that my music, and the messages it contains, help others because it definitely has affected me.

My thought is when a song is released, like “Not Gonna Do This Anymore” which releases on April 15, it’s no longer mine but the listeners. I wrote it with Lauren Michael Sellers and it started as one thing, then moved and shifted as the song evolved and I played it at shows, and then when we got to the studio. So many amazing people were part of the song’s creation and journey. When it releases, the song starts its own journey as people listen to and share it.

I used to think that people saw me as “that girl that could sing.” Before moving to Nashville, I played bars and venues in North Carolina for about 12 years and realized that I needed more from music than just reimaging other people’s music. I needed to grow from an entertainer to an artist, where people did come to see me for a mash-up or a Whitney song, but my songs.

What I’ve come to realize is that time playing was preparing me for this next phase. Madeline Finn and I met on the Song Suffragette stage last May and at the end of March, we’re kicking off our first tour together – The Nashville Stories Tour. We’re playing at City Winery with Emma Zinck opening on April 6!

Nashville has given me so much in such a short period of time. I’ve been able to be in rooms with some of the most amazing songwriters and producers – Cooper Bascom, Matthew Morrisey, Golden West, Grady Saxman – people that have made me better at my craft and helped me in ways that I’m only beginning to fully realize.

Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
I love that at any time, anywhere you can get caught in some sort of magic. The magic from being present in a moment that harmonizes just right, or the magic of the song’s hook bringing tears to your eyes. Especially when the room goes silent and the song holds us incredibly still as if there isn’t any other place worth being.

There are moments in Nashville when a person’s life changes. It can be the artist that plays the right song and a person in the crowd signs them. Or the music exec that finds the next Brittany Carlile. But especially for that person in the audience when a song connects with them in a way no song has before.

I also love that it’s a city where musicians support each other – come to shows, invite to write, or hang out. There is a unique community feel to Nashville where we’re not competitive, just recognizing that when a person’s time comes, it’s just their moment.

Nashville holds some of the most amazing creative souls in the world which makes all of us luckier.

The Least: That Nashville is assumed to be mostly country and it holds so much more than that.

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