Happy New Year!

Hello again friends, and Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Years. My Christmas was great. Seeing family is always something I look forward to! I spent a week at my mom and dad's in Byrdstown and had some good time to enjoy some time off the road. On New Years, I went downtown here in Nashville to see the music note drop. Lynyrd Skynyrd was the headline act, and it was CRAZY downtown! 55, 000 people crammed together on broadway to bring in the new year! It was a fun experience, but I will probably NEVER do that again! (A little too wild and rowdy for this gal! ;)

So here we are - 2012! I'm already very excited about this year. Lots of exciting things happening for the band. We fly out tomorrow to Portland, Oregon to play our first show of the year! I was able to play this festival about 2 or 3 years ago and it was a lot of fun. This year should be no exception! Can't wait to play again! A month off the road is great, but I'm always ready to get back at it.

Talk to you soon!

Sierra

The Queen of Procrastination = ME

Hey friends, It's been a while since my last post! Sorry I've been so distant. It's been a busy last few months and I am the Queen of Procrastination.

So many amazing things have happened this year and it's that time of year where I begin to look back and reflect on my many blessings. As with any year, it's been full of ups and down - lots of smiles and plenty of tears. There is such great joy in being able to do what you love for a living. As a result, it's easy to be emotionally connected to it at times. Music can be the very thing that keeps me going, pushing ahead with excitement to see what lies ahead, and then it is sometimes the thing that can be the center of my fears and disappointments. I think any musician striving to get better goes through similar times. For me at my age, it's a very confusing yet exciting time trying to discover just who I am as an artist. As frustrating as it can be sometimes, I wouldn't have it any other way! I know it's all part of a growing process and I'll be thankful for times such as these in the long run. I guess the beauty of being an artist is that you are ever growing and changing. Contentment is where I never hope to find myself. Hopefully I'll still be discovering myself as an artist my whole career! - All in all, it's been an amazing year and I'm so thankful for all that God has blessed me with. I certainly don't deserve it.

I'm very excited about the coming year. I'm already looking at the tour schedule as new dates are added and starting to anticipate another year of being on the road with great joy. Hopefully I will get better about blogging. (I always say that and usually don't! :-) BUT.. I do enjoy it and I appreciate all of you who take time to read!

Hope to write again soon... :)

Sierra

The 3 B's

So I've had the last 6 days off the road to enjoy some time with my family back in Byrdstown and also some time to get more settled at my new townhouse in Brentwood. I really like living here and I feel so happy to be back in Tennessee. (Seems like I can only live in cities/towns that start with the letter B - From Byrdstown to Boston to Brentwood, which made me think of the 3 B's) I am really excited to visit Boston again in a couple months (for a couple gigs in Sept.), but I am so happy to be within a couple hours of my family and many friends. Yesterday, I finally cooked for the first time since moving in! I had bought some really pretty Paula Dean skillets and pots for the place and finally got to try 'em out! With any job that travels a lot, you have to eat out so much you eventually just grow tired of it. I feel like the guys and I have ate at every standard place you can think of on the road about 50+ times. Just to be home long enough to cook feels nice! We're headed to Dayton, Ohio this weekend to play at the City Folk Festival. Last week we spent in California. Christian was SO happy to be back in his home state, his first time since moving out to Tennessee. We had beautiful weather and a great time at Live Oak Folk Festival in Santa Barbara, Huck Finn Bluegrass Festival in Victorville, and The Hotel Cafe in L.A. While out in Beverly Hills we go to visit Concord Music Group the label that now owns Rounder Records. Concord has some amazing artists under their label and I feel so lucky to just be associated with such nice people. They hooked us up with some of their latest releases which I've been mostly listening to since that trip - James Taylor, James Taylor & Carol King, Paul McCartney, John Mellencamp, Paul Simon, The Cars, Esperanza Spalding and a few others!

Anyways - just wanted to drop a quick line. I better get to work! Lots to do before heading out again.

More soon... :)

Sierra

Winding Down The Days

Hey Friends and Neighbors.. Hope this post finds you all doing well, enjoying Spring and the wonderful weather it brings!  Today I was able to actually get outside here in Boston without a jacket on! (First time this year).  It's so lovely to be seeing flowers in bloom and enjoying some beautiful sunshine!  Even with the good spirit that Spring seems to bring along I must say, it's been a crazy week here in college land.  It's the end of the semester, so it goes without saying that stress is also in the air as final tests and projects are becoming due.  But - we only have about a week left!

As I've mentioned before it's my last semester here at Berklee, and I must admit that it is a little bittersweet.  I can't start to explain how excited I am to move back to Tennessee and to really get focused on my career.  At the same time, I will certainly miss being here in Boston where I've made many wonderful friends.  I've learned so much in my time here at Berklee.  Even with all the touring I've been doing these past couple of years, I still feel that I've grown so very much and I am so grateful that the school gave me this special opportunity.  I will never forget this experience and I can't wait to come back and visit this great city in the future!  I've had a couple of weeks off with the band, which has been nice, but I really started thinking tonight about how much I am dying to get back out on the road!  These days, 3 weeks off is a LONG time.  It has certainly been nice to get a little break from the ruggedness of the road.  Since I've had a couple weekends in Boston, I've made a point to hang with friends, visit some churches, and I even got to do some sight seeing (something I hadn't done since being here).  Brad Paul, from Rounder and his wife and sons took me out for a fun day on the Freedom Trail.  It was SO cold out that we nearly froze to death, but hey - at least I can say I went on the Freedom Trail now! :)

This Friday, I am thrilled to say that my roommate and I are going to see the Red Sox play!  Since living up here I haven't had time to go see a game.  It will be a great way to top off my last weekend in Bean-town.  We have awesome seats thanks to Bill Nowlin at Rounder!  This weekend I also get to spend boxing up my stuff and getting it ready to ship to Nashville.  Unfortunately, I will miss my graduation ceremony because we will be on the road next weekend, BUT, Roger Brown (Berklee President) has been so kind as to work something out that will allow me to be part of the commencement ceremony next year! (More news to come as it gets closer!)

Anyways, I do hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter.  I particularly thought this year about how lovely it is to celebrate that day.  Even without being able to be with my family this year, I still found myself very thankful to remember the true meaning of Easter.

My thoughts and prayers go out to all of my friends down south who have experienced such devastating weather and those in Alabama who have lost loved ones as a result.

Thanks as always for reading!

-Sierra

2011

Well, here we are! 2011! So hard to believe how quickly this past year flew by. As I look back at all the blessing in my life, I'm always brought down to earth in a hurry. It's easy to sometimes get so busy and not realize all the amazing ways God is blessing us. My life has changed so much in the last few years. I feel like I've been hit with life right in the face! Good and bad! This age I am in can be tough in so many ways, but extremely rewarding and exciting. More responsibilities. More worries along the way at times. More searching and LOTS of praying to make the best decisions possible. BUT, with it comes true independence, which can be a very inspiring thing in itself. As most of you already know, I've spent the past year and a half mostly in Boston going to Berklee College of Music. It's been amazing. I've made so many friends and what seemed like a somewhat last minute and scary move to make in Sept. of '09 has proven to be a decision I don't at all regret. This month, I'll be going into my fourth and final semester there. I'll be graduating in May with a special Artist Diploma in Performance. I will certainly miss Boston, but I'm also looking forward to getting on with the next chapter in my life. I'm excited to be making plans to move to Nashville in May as well, something I've been dreaming of doing since I was a little girl. It will also be very nice to be back home in beautiful Tennessee as well, and closer to my family.

I'm very anxious and excited about this year for so many reasons. One big reason, is having a new album coming out. Daybreak will be released on March 8th! The band and I just spent the last 3 days in Nashville rehearsing the new material. It's very refreshing to have new songs and ideas after playing off of mostly one album for the past couple of years. I can't wait to get back on the road with those guys. I feel like we are really starting to gel as a band, but we still have SO much to work on. I couldn't ask for better friends or musicians to work with. We will play our first 2011 tour date on Jan. 22 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. which we are all looking forward to!

Well folks, more news and updates to come soon. I just wanted to share a few thoughts and wish everyone a blessed new year! Can't wait to see you guys out on the trail somewhere soon!

All the Best, Sierra