Find out how the Charleston native's sound came to life
Country music singer Lauren Hall is poised to make it big. Her singles are getting radio play, and she’s releasing her new Nashville-produced EP, Broke My Heart Just Enough, next month.
At 24 years old, you could assume that country singer-songwriter Lauren Hall’s career is just beginning. And it might be—her new EP, Broke My Heart Just Enough (April 9, 2021), has everything it needs to catapult her to stardom. But she’s already a seasoned onstage veteran, performing more than 60 shows a year since releasing her first EP seven years ago.
After building a following at The Windjammer and through opening gigs for stars such as Travis Tritt and Tracy Lawrence, Hall is ready to put her own name on the marquee. Her seven-track EP, recorded in Nashville with established producers Dan Frizsell and Phillip Lammonds (a South Carolina native and cofounder of the Blue Dogs), opens with the blazing dual guitars of “Just Like I Knew” before quickly getting to the immediate sing-along chorus: “Should have run, run, run away/save myself the heartache.” The rolling acoustic guitar of “Ain’t Gonna Lie,” in the album’s second spot, gives way to another made-for-radio anthemic chorus.
Hall wrote most of the songs in 2017 and 2018, honing each into a pop-worthy earworm. Hearing her songs with Nashville studio musicians solidified her vision. “I wasn’t sure I had a sound that was mine,” Hall admits. “But standing in the control room hearing these songs come together, I had this big, stupid smile on my face. It was surreal—I knew that my sound had come to life in that moment.”
On an album with lyrics that lean mostly toward joyful expressions of love, “Gone” is a fiery track that would be right at home on a Miranda Lambert album. The song warns a suitor that she’s “not gonna be your on the side for a lonely night/your just in case if there’s a rainy day/I’m not your midnight text, second best/waiting on the shelf behind someone else.” “If that’s all you want from me,” she sings in the powerful chorus, “then all I’m gonna be is…gone.”
“The song gets a little feisty, but it always gets a cool response,” laughs Hall, recalling stories of fans who have reached out to say they’ve found comfort in her lyrics. “When a song resonates like that, it becomes bigger than me.”
Since completing recording in late 2019, she’s released singles, and the closing track, “Backwards,” was picked up by Spotify’s “New Music Nashville” playlist while “Gone” has received airplay on 92.5 Kickin’ Country. The dream she’s pursued for a decade—forgoing college to focus on music—may be on the cusp of materializing. “The key is to just keep creating and getting music out to people,” says Hall. “It only takes one song. When the right person at the right time hears the right song, that’s how it happens.”
