Today we’d like to introduce you to Angie Petty.
Hi Angie, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born into a huge musical family. My mom is a singer and music teacher and my dad started his own music production company when he was 18. My aunts are singers, I have a cousin in a touring band, my brothers are professional musicians (and also in my band) so it’s hard to imagine a life where music isn’t a core part of my upbringing. I started out in a little singing group called The Music Connection. We would sing and dance with little Britney Spears style headsets to Disney songs. I did that throughout my childhood and eventually moved into the competitive dance circuit which is huge in Utah. I did that clear through high school and upon getting burnt out from it, I went back to music. I enrolled in an after-school program called The School Of Rock. There, I took everything I learned from my time dancing on the stage and paired it with my newfound power in belting rock songs. I really broke out of my shell here and found my voice and also started learning guitar. After high school, I auditioned to sing in the evening shows at Lagoon Amusement Park and this would become my first paying gig. I did that for 4 years and this is where I came to the conclusion that I could do this for a living. I decided to pursue a degree in music at Snow College. At Snow, I studied everything from classical music, jazz, songwriting, production and business. When I graduated, I was a little lost with where I should take my career next. I sang with a few wedding bands and played at a bunch of bars to make my rent but it wasn’t until the pandemic that I realized I can’t rely on anyone but myself in music. That’s when I decided to record some of the songs I had written. The following year, I released my debut album called Timing, a 7 track project spanning very human topics of patience, self-love, deep emotional acceptance and unbounded love. While continuing on this path of being self sufficient in my journey, I decided to finally buy my first guitar and work up to playing solo shows. Guitar has been a big part of my musical growth in the last year and I believe it opened up a new part of my voice.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It hasn’t been a super smooth road. My album “Timing” was a huge lesson in patience for me. The main riff in the title track is “trust the timing,” which is something I didn’t do for a very long time. My biggest struggle in that sense has been patience. There was a time I was expecting big things to be happening in my career but in hindsight, I know those expectations weren’t met because I wasn’t ready for it. Another bit of struggle was my own self-doubt. When I graduated college, I thought “now I’ve gotten some experience and really tuned up my voice, now I can sing other artists music at weddings forever and that’s fine.” But it wasn’t fine because it wasn’t full-filling for me. I had this idea that being a recording artist or songwriter just wasn’t in the books for me. It seemed like something so out of reach. It wasn’t until I wasn’t getting those wedding gigs booked that I realized it was time to create my own opportunities but to do that, I needed to have music to sing.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m a singer. In my local scene, I might be known for my ability to adapt and act as a sort of chameleon of a vocalist. I can sing jazz, classical, rock, pop, country and bluegrass. In my personal artistry, I’m known for the Neo-soul/pop fusion and have been told by MANY people that I sound like Nora Jones. I’m always so flattered when people think I sound like an artist I admire. I think what sets me apart from other artists is my self-sufficient nature. By that, I mean acting as my own bandleader, agent, manager, booker, graphic designer, videographer, photographer, etc. I don’t like to wait for things to happen so I typically make it happen myself.
Links to my music:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7DNasRbH23UhGQvJZ3B9Lx
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/angie-petty/1492572036
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXA0bR91fwSrjOtaaWcs40Q
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
For me, risk taking is doing the thing that scares you. Releasing my own music initially felt like a risk and the risk was what other people would think of me and what my music has to say. I used to worry that people might think my music was cheesy, too pop or not jazz enough. I used to really put a value on what other people thought of me and how they viewed me. But through music (and therapy), I’ve gotten better at ignoring that part in my brain that says I have to worry about what other people think. My favorite mantra I’ve learned through this process is “what other people think of me is none of my business” and it couldn’t be more true. It’s none of my business. My business is creating music because it feels so good to me and I have no other choice. I have to make music.
Contact Info:
- Website: angiepetty.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apettymusic/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apettymusic/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/apettymusic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXA0bR91fwSrjOtaaWcs40Q?view_as=subscriber
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/angie-petty-777423608
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7DNasRbH23UhGQvJZ3B9Lx
Image Credits
Jacob Moniz
Omar Castanon
