Alissa Moreno has a richer life story than most songwriters. She was born on a small Navajo reservation and grew up in Albuquerque. She started writing songs in Hawaii, then moved to L.A. to pursue music and educate meditation. She later made her method to Nashville, the place she co-wrote a High 5 tune for Rascal Flatts. That gave her loads of cash to finance a household journey to Rishikesh, India, the previous residence of Beatles guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Nearly precisely one 12 months in the past, Moreno’s Nashville residence was destroyed in a devastating fireplace. Regardless of the loss, she continued to work on a brand new EP. It’s known as “Wildfires”, and the title tune was written lengthy earlier than the hearth.

Alissa Moreno is clearly on the trail of the True Artist, similar to Caroline Polachek, Aimee Mann and Australia’s Laura Jean. Wildfires is a testomony to her braveness and extraordinary musical items. 

“Wildfires” is a stupendous tune, with the very best bridge I’ve heard in ages! What’s the backstory on that tune?

You listened all the best way to the bridge! You might be merely superior. I really like that one. I wrote this once I was dwelling in Hollywood. My bed room was additionally my music studio, so I had entry to a piano always. That piano melody stored coming to me, and eventually, one evening round 3 am, I lastly sat right down to play and work with it. The lyrics simply began falling out. It was a stupendous and really therapeutic second. I used to be a younger, broke artist simply beginning to actually work in LA and it was a scary time as a result of my mother was recognized with most cancers and I used to be questioning my life away from household and the house I knew. Humorous sufficient, we have been simply beginning to document some songs for my upcoming album Cuts and Covers when our home caught fireplace whereas we have been all sleeping. The hearth took all the pieces and three weeks later I recorded this model of “Wildfires”, which was extremely cathartic. 

Did you produce all of the tracks in your new EP or did you have got a co-producer?

I’m delighted to say that Neilson Hubbard produced the entire songs on the brand new Wildfires EP, which is a part of the upcoming album. He and I had been desirous to work collectively for years and now that is our second challenge collectively. I belief him utterly, so I keep out of the best way in terms of my opinions (until I hear a cool riff or concord I believe we’d like.). He’s an incredible Grammy-nominated producer, singer/songwriter and photographer, so it’s very straightforward to let him run with an thought understanding that he has a imaginative and prescient. 

I nonetheless hear some nice songs on nation radio, however they’re outnumbered by the formulaic ones about vehicles, whiskey and backroads, for my part. What’s your tackle the present state of nation songwriting?

I don’t actually separate out my writing as of late. It was once that I had pop classes and nation classes on my writer’s calendar. However once I consider it, my greatest lower got here from nation artists and it was a pop tune for certain. A couple of years later, a trop-rock nation tune I wrote that by no means made it on Music Row turned a global reggae hit. I believe this actually speaks to the blurring of strains and I’m excited by that. There’s not as deep a way of “keep in your lane.”  Recently, it’s extra about making music that speaks a fact and resonates in lots of codecs. 

Lots of your songs sound tailored for films and TV. Are you actively pitching songs to the sync market?

I used to put in writing fairly a bit for movie and television. I didn’t intend to, per se. It simply naturally developed that approach. I’ve all the time had a little bit of composer-mind in terms of preparations and emotion. There was a time once I would write and document a tune and it might magically be positioned in a manufacturing inside the month. Lately, I’m not in LA operating into present producers at Starbucks or assembly filmmakers at a buddy’s dinner, so it’s a lot slower for me in that sense. For the primary time, I’m actively engaged on a take care of a sync firm run by a pricey buddy of mine and the considered somebody on the market pitching my songs for particular tasks is so inspiring!  It may be fairly heartbreaking when artwork simply sits on a shelf unnoticed. 

You’re an incredible pianist who has studied Rachmaninoff and others. Was your piano broken in the home fireplace that you simply lately skilled?

My goodness, thanks! I completely love little motifs and so they typically hang-out me till I’m prepared to rearrange them right into a tune. I’m very unhappy to say that my first-ever grand piano (which Kip Winger was variety sufficient to share with me) was destroyed within the fireplace. Nearly one 12 months later, it’s nonetheless sitting within the shell of our home burned and rusted and filled with glass. So…as part of my therapeutic course of, I began capturing photographs of it and of me enjoying it. The brand new video for Wildfires is a powerful image for us as we rejoice escaping the devastating fireplace precisely one 12 months in the past. It actually speaks to me within the lyric “we survive, we get by, we take the hit and we be taught to battle. We collide, however we don’t die attempting to place out wildfires.”