With a cute southern accent and an even more sincere demeanor, Hope
Partlow has snuck onto the music scene and is
ready to make a lot of noise.
From her humble beginnings in Drummonds, Tennessee, Hope has had her eyes
set on this moment for a long time. “I was singing before I could talk,”
says Partlow. “I was always around music, because my dad was a singer.”
It wasn’t until she felt the thrill of the stage that she realized that
she wanted to be a performer for the rest of her life. “First time I
really felt it was when I was six years old,”
explains Partlow. “Being onstage and getting that adrenaline rush.”
Although she is on the verge of becoming a pop superstar, Hope is just
your average girl -- at
least that’s what she wants you to think.
“I’m
just a normal girl who knows how to sing,” confesses Partlow. She’s in
her senior year of high
school, although she doesn’t get to experience the every day things a
normal high school senior would and is still trying to adjust.
“The hardest part about being an artist is being away from home,” says
Partlow. “I’m a homebody and leaving my friends made me realize who my
real friends were.” She also found the making of the album to be a little
tough. “All the behind the scenes work was long and hard,” says Partlow.
“It is a little nerve wracking to sit back and think that all this hard
work and preparation is for one album.”
Although she is not your typical high school senior, not many can say they
have an album out and a major tour. I mean, c’mon, she just got off the
road with scream-inducing heartthrob, Jesse McCartney. “Oh My God!” says
Partlow of the opportunity to tour with McCartney. “It was a lot of fun.
He has a great show.” She did confess that she had butterflies opening
for an artist with a predominately female fan base, but saw it as an
opportunity to prove herself. “I was kind of nervous,” explains Partlow.
“I didn’t know what to expect, with his fans being girls. I didn’t want
them to think I was competition.”
Competition
is one thing, but the many comparisons to various artists is expected in
the industry today, and Partlow is no exception. “I expect to get compared
to Hilary Duff or Britney Spears because we have blonde hair,” reveals Partlow. “But I don’t sound like anyone out there.”
With influences
ranging from country to gospel music, Partlow hopes her music reflects such
diversity. “I started listening to Patsy Cline and Deana Carter and then
as a grew older, I moved on to more pop stuff like Sheryl Crow, Alanis
Morissette, Journey, Jet, The Offspring,”
she says.
Helping her create her own diverse sound is
Virgin Records CEO and hitmaking producer Matt
Serletic. (Ed. note: soon after this interview took place, Serletic
left the company.) With credits ranging from Matchbox
Twenty to Celine Dion, Serletic brought his
magic touch to Partlow’s debut. “He is such a musical genius,” says
Partlow. “I was actually his first signing to Virgin and we really made
such an awesome album.”
One
of the songs that Serletic helmed was the lead
single, “Who We Are.” “It is just a song about my senior year and what a
normal teenager would go through,” explains Partlow.
Who
would know better than Partlow?
At
first, according to Partlow, “we did the normal process, going out and
looking for other songs by other artists.” That
approach didn’t work well for Partlow, though.
“I couldn’t relate to them or their songs because they were all older than
me,” says Partlow.
That’s
when she decided to take a different approach. “I handed my diary over to
some songwriters,
and I thought it was silly,” says Partlow. “When we met again, they had
some of the best
songs that fit with me so well. They
knew exactly how to say things, just by reading my diary.”
Listening to the album, you can tell that the content is personal yet
universal. Songs like “Let Me Try,” a jazzy plea for freedom, represents
what every teenager wants. “Crazy Summer Nights” chronicles the events
of, well, a crazy summer night; tapping into the
universal longing for fun and escape in the sultry, steamy heat.
Her
desire to just be herself will allow fans to accept her as an artist,
because they can relate. That’s all Partlow
really wants. “I’m just doing me,” says Partlow. “I want to be known as
a household name. If there’s a spotlight, I want to be in it.”
Hope, the stage is all yours.
