Alana Grace

Whenever you see names like Don Gilmore and John Fields involved in the production you know the result will be nothing but impressive and that's the case with 20 year old female bomb Alana Grace. She's an American actress and singer who is best known for her song "Black Roses Red" on the soundtrack of the movie "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants." Those who remember the unreleased Aimee Allen record from 2003 that also Don Gilmore produced knows what to expect because "Break the Silence' is just as good, in fact-this is one of the best female fronted modern rock albums I've heard lately. It's good to see that Sony still have people that sings amazingly talented artists like Alana Grace these days. The killer chorus on "Paranoid" (no it's not the Black Sabbbath song) belongs on every mixtape on earth while "The Tunnel" is the mother of all powerballads this side of the century! And Amy Lee of Evanescence can only dream of writing a monster track like "Where Are You Now?" and then we have "Sanctuary"... goddamn what a song. - Melodic.net

For one so young (she's only 19), Alana Grace has amassed an impressive resume, including a number of high-profile performance, songwriting, and acting credits. That's reason she sounds so assured- she's a dynamo of a diva, with bold, brash vocals that bring to mind Pat Benetar, Gwen Stefani and Martha Davis of the Motels.
No wonder then that songs like "Break the Silence" and "Domino" find Grace ready to wail- defiant, assertive and operating in overdrive. However, she does let her guard down with contemplative ballads like "Cynical Girl" and "The Tunnel" revealing her tender soul. There's obvious commercial potential here, and if the material sometimes seems formula-fed, it's all the more reason to believe Break the Silence will accomplish all its title promises. - Performing Songwriter

"I broke up with my boyfriend and I've written two songs about it."says Alana Grace, whose pop tinged debut CD, Break the Silence, recalls her angsty idol, Alanis Morissette. But the 19 year old from Nashville doesn't only look to her own romantic trauma for inspiration. "A lot of my songs are about my friends' breakups, " she says. At least the romantic agita is paying off. Alana has signed with Bruce Springstein's manager, her music can be heard on the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants soundtrack and she recently performed on the Today show. Wonder if her ex is wishing they hadn't parted. - Teen People

It's 2007 and in my whole career as a reviewer I have never seen so many female fronted releases as in this year. I remember in the mid 1990's when there was almost no female fronted act around a wonderful band like DANTE FOX was stuggling big time, but see times changing rapidly as nowadays female fronted acts are unstoppable. The latest act is a singer/songwriter from New York called ALANA GRACE, who has released a very strong album titled "Break the Silence". At first sight, this is the typical young girl (20 years old!) who wants to rock hard on her debut record, like we have heard them before from MARION RAVEN, KElLY CLARCKSON, AVRIL LAVIGNE, ALY AND AJ, THE VERONICAS, etc.(to name a few...). On the other hand you can hear this girl singing very well and the songs are damn catchy, especially "Paranoid" (not a BLACK SABBATH cover!). which could easily turn out into an incredible huge hitsingle worldwide! Alana is also a very good looking girl and with the help of producers Don Gilmore and John Fields her debut CD "Break the Silence" has all the ingredients desired to become a huge favorite among the rockers worldwide. Ok, a lot of semi-rockers/ballads, but not a single weak song can be found here, as all 13 tracks are very impressive, with besides "Paranoid" as other highlights "Break the Silence", "The Tunnel" and "When It all Falls Down". - Strutter Magazine

Alana Grace
Written by Jessica Rae
Monday, 01 February 2010

Catherine Asanov / Chordstruck Magazine
The single track that catapults an artist into mainstream recognition is usually a well-thought out, precisely calculated song that the label or artist feels will perfectly portray their vision, sound and image to the masses. It’s contemplated and debated and it’s a back and forth movement until the song is a flawless depiction for the artist to say hello to the world. It’s not supposed to be a “C-List” song that was never even intended to go on any album rather than be the recognizable song that will constantly associated with the singer’s name – Yet that’s exactly what happened with Alana Grace’s “Black Roses Red.”
Born in Los Angeles, Calif. but raised in Nashville, Tenn. from the time she was five, Grace was destined for the big time from a young age. She began playing piano when she was six, realized her dream to be a singer at 11 and got signed to Columbia Records at 15. After graduating from high school early to pursue her record deal, Grace took on the Big Apple solo and worked diligently with her label on her debut album, recording songs all around the world. But the unlikely track of “Black Roses Red” is the only single to ever see the light from behind the Columbia Records’ clouds for Grace.
While in New York, Grace attended a screening for the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants movie when they were looking for music to fill several scenes of the film. She submitted six songs and “Black Roses Red” was put in as a temporary song or place-filler until they found the right song, but it took some time before the movie execs realized they already had the perfect song they were looking for.
“When the director heard it he like fell in love with it, he called me, he did the whole thing,” says Grace about the song being chosen. “He was like ‘I love this song, it has to be on here’ all this stuff, so really because of the director it stayed in the movie because it was supposed to be switched it. They were like this is the idea of the song we want, but not the actual one.”
After the song earning its rightful place in the film, Grace began to see national recognition for the track and five years later, it’s still a predominant part of her career.
“That song continuously surprises me. I mean, even to this day people just randomly find it. We’ve actually had over 350,000 downloads of that song so it’s done really well which is surprising to me because I’m always like, ‘ugh, who likes that song?’” Grace says laughing. “Everyone except me obviously. I’ve learned to like it at this point.”
Even though “Black Roses Red” thrust her into the spotlight, Grace fell victim to the Sony/BMG merger controversy in 2006. “My release date kept getting pushed back and back, and then I had been signed by Donny Ienner so when he resigned my project did as well,” explains Grace. The next seven months that followed was a tug-of-war with the label to get out of her contract and get back her entire album that was finished and ready to be released, while also deciding if she was going to continue living in New York City.
“At that point I was like I’m going to apply to [New York University] and if I get in, then I’m going to stay here and go to school and just keep working on music, of course, and just kind of do that for awhile and switch gears, and if I don’t I’m going to move to L.A. and I’m going to do both singing and acting, and I didn’t get in, so I’m here,” says Grace.
Then Grace independently released her anticipated debut album Break the Silence in 2007, which fans of “Black Roses Red” had been waiting to hear. Grace herself was also anxious to release that material since she had been holding onto it for so long.
“’I Told You So’ on there is actually the second song I ever wrote in my life, so that song was pretty old but then most of them were written between 15 and 17 just because I got signed when I was about to turn 16 and that whole year was spent going around the world and writing,” says Grace, who was 19 at the time the album was finally released.
Filled with upbeat tracks that make listeners want to rock, like “Domino” and “Where Are You Now” the album is juxtaposed with slower melodies that really showcase Grace’s amazing vocal range, such as “The Tunnel” and “Black Roses Red,” which is written like a conversation about how she feels she has never truly fallen in love. With her mix between pop and rock, Grace creates empathy in her writing and vocal performance that has fans on iTunes describing her album as “worth every penny you spend on it” and “her songs are so addicting… definitely worth buying.”
Subsequently after getting that material out to the public, Grace was eager to begin recording a follow up the next year.
“It had been a year and I continuously write. I don’t ever have like ‘oh I’m going to write for this album’ like some people do and I can understand why they do that… So yeah, I had been continuously writing and that was actually a really sad time. If you listen to the lyrics a lot of them are actually not happy,” Grace says laughing, ironically. “It was like, the loss of confidence from losing a deal. I was finally on the Sony calendar for the end of January [2007] and I got dropped mid-December [2006] so it was kind of like, it was all actually happening – the press kits had come in, the album had gone out to radio, the next year had really been planned – and then the rug was just like wiped out from under me.”
That mindset of losing her dream was where Grace was, along with her still reeling from the shock of losing her deal and the deaths of several people close to her, when she began to write for the second album. “I’d always heard about it, you know my family’s in the music industry so I’d seen a lot of people go through it, but when it really happens to you, that’s shocking. I mean, that’s your whole dream and your whole life and it just goes away because some guy crosses your name off a list.”
Grace did not let the label determine her fate though, and she began recording her follow-up EP. Shortly thereafter, she was approached to be a part of that summer’s entire Warped Tour and was persuaded to release another full-length instead of just an EP, which is a large reason why some of the songs from her debut reappeared on her sophomore album With One Word.
With this release, Grace also entered into a new territory of fully writing songs on her own. When she was younger, she initially resisted songwriting but she says she “finally got frustrated that no one would send me the type of songs that I wanted so I started writing when I was 13, but I didn’t really get into it until I was 14.” But while writing her first album, she mainly wrote with her friend and co-writer Michael Ochs, and for With One Word she decided to explore writing a song completely on her own after she was challenged by a record executive who thought she wouldn’t be able to do it.
“Anyone tells me I can’t do something, immediately I say ‘F you,’ I’m going to do it,” says Grace. “So literally that night I went home and I wrote it and sent it to him the next morning.”
Grace explains that she prefers co-writing so that she can write her own lyrics and then have someone scale them back since she says, “A lot of times I am too honest. It’s like too much, it’s like too direct.” That honestly is what gives Grace’s lyrics and music a character that is like an abrupt breath of fresh air, reminiscent of legendary female rocker Alanis Morrissette, who Grace has been rightfully compared to many times, and she says grew with being inspired by Morrissette’s 1993 release Jagged Little Pill.
“I identify with the honesty of her sound… I write very directly, I don’t really have metaphors, obviously you need some,” says Grace. “I consider myself a blunt writer like her and you know, for our generation she really was the chick rocker so while I love pop, I’m kind of going a little bit more in the rock zone and I’m focusing on that for this next album.”
With her third album, which she hopes to release sometime this fall or next year pending another record deal that is in the works, Grace is going to take a much different approach.
“I’m basing it off actually a cartoon character that my first boyfriend ever drew for me because he was an artist and I was going through my pictures trying to find something one day and I found it and I was like, ‘oh my God, this character, I can write through this character and write the type of songs that I’m missing from my show.’”
The sound will also be a slight variation from her previous albums and will include songs that are more up-tempo and fit into the dance–type trend of popular music without being techno by using real instruments to create the unique sound. Lyrically, she says the songs will be in the same vein since she is the same person of course, but also says it’s a bit lighter since she is in a much better place.
Although the album will not be released for awhile, fans at the Coachella Music Festival in April will get a sneak peek of some of the new songs that she is going to include in her hour-long set, and Grace says with this performance she’s “really going for it this time.” There has already been anticipating buzz about her performance for Grace to be one of the rising stars of the mega line-up including MUTEMATH (one of Grace’s personal obsessions), Jay-Z and Muse.
In between show rehearsals and recording her new album, Grace also makes the time to pursue her other passion – acting. She began doing musical theater and various acting gigs when she was younger in Tennessee, but just recently she got back into auditioning in L.A. and she’s currently filming her first major feature film part in “Love Don’t Let Me Down,” starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim McGraw and Leighton Meester. Now that it’s also pilot season, Grace is exploring television and says with a laugh that she’s “cool with any acting job as long as it’s not porn.”
Although her first love might be music, she balances both music and acting and doesn’t want to pick just one. “[Acting’s] fun, it kind of gets me in the mind of other characters all the time and that really actually does help me write and make me think about other things, I don’t know, really I can’t decide… I just consider throwing music, acting, hosting, everything I can onto this wall and you know what, everything helps build to the next step, and that’s what I’ve learned, so I don’t want to decide between acting and singing.”
During this year, Grace says that her career might not have too much for the public, but it’s a quiet attack she is planning on the mainstream world and pretty soon she’s going to be taking over not only your radio waves, but movie and television screens too.
For more information on Alana Grace’s new album, tour dates and acting appearances, check out her official website at www.alanagrace.com or her MySpace page at www.myspace.com/alanagrace, or follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/alanagracemusic .
- Chordstruck Magazine