My name is Eleanor Brentsen
and I am a creator, musician and songwriter.
I grew up in Des Moines, Iowa, for the most part.
And as a child, I was a serial hobbyist.
I just bounced from one thing to the next,
and they were always creative hobbies.
I was 11 years old when I wrote my first song.
My mom took me to a Taylor Swift concert for my birthday.
Seeing her perform was not something
that I had ever witnessed before.
Just general performance like that, where it's a show,
they're there to entertain.
They're there to,
you know, not just sing for you, but to tell you a story.
I mean, within the time of watching
that two hour performance,
I think the trajectory of my life was completely changed.
And that was what I knew I wanted to do.
I started performing when I was 12.
I started performing as Eleanor Grace when I was 14.
So sixth to eighth grade were
some incredibly challenging years for me.
I think my best advice when things don't go
your way or things are stagnant or there's, you know,
a little push and pull is could be good luck.
Could be bad luck.
You never know whatever situation you're in,
what that's going to do for you later on.
I am 19 years old now
and music is my number one priority still.
I'm also a student at Berklee School of Music
Online.
Performing is
my favorite thing about being a musician.
It's like a form of enrichment, you know?
You read about things to put yourself
in a different character.
You are trying to figure out how to put yourself in the mind
of another person, or you're just
sitting in your emotions and you're figuring out,
How do I feel about this?
When I started
making music, I define myself as indie pop
and the first song I ever released was called Lighthouse
when I was 15 years old.
And it's gone on to now
reach over a million streams on Spotify,
which I think is a crazy achievement
and something that I'm very proud of.
I actually missed my first homecoming dance
because I was in this studio recording Lighthouse all day.
I think it was worth it, though.
I decided to record another version of Lighthouse
just to say Thank you for listening.
Thank you for supporting that song.
I am ready to go.
So I had a gut feeling that
this version of Lighthouse was supposed to be recorded
at Golden Bear Studios with Brian Vanderpool.
It was done within 5 hours, which and I was like,
is incredibly fast to record a song.
And we started working on
another demo immediately after
and it just kind of snowballed into a whole record.
Some of the songs that we ended up recording were
Dream About a Cowboy. There's a song called Outlaw.
That was the first real country song that I wrote,
and I kept bringing these songs to Brian, and he kept saying,
I think we have a country record here.
I think we can make a country record.
And at first I kind of thought he was
crazy for saying that.
I was like, I'm an indie pop artist.
I'm a pop artist. I don't know about country.
We decided that this is the direction to go.
Something that I think
I've gotten better with not only in my songwriting, but also in
just being in the studio and recording, is being able
to say exactly what I want and what I mean.
And I think it's
beautiful how we all can find
common ground with words through songs and lyrics.
And I'm honored
that I get to have a life path or that's something that I do.
What can I do for myself and what can I end up doing for
others with my music is my greatest inspiration
and motivation.