I have been working hard in the studio (i.e. my bedroom) to get these new songs recorded.  It's going very well and I can't wait to share the songs with you!

Please get in touch through my website (www.aldenmusic.com) or here on MySpace so I can update you on what's going on.  I don't mean to be so quiet lately, but please trust me that there is a good reason for the silence.  I will be updating my site and releasing new music very, very soon.

Thank you so much for the kind words and for letting people know who I am.  I'm not sure how people have discovered it is my song in the Harley Davidson commercial, but I am so glad you have found me.  :)

Lots of love from Los Angeles!!!
XOXO,
Nichole ALDEN

i'm not one of those Hollywood types to blah blah blah constantly about the process, but i'm so excited about these tracks i can't keep my mouth completely shut. so, there you have it...

lots of love to those who have sent good vibes and kind words as of late.

XOXO,
:) Nichole ALDEN

...you create a profile on ORKUT to try to connect with fans in Brazil, only to receive angry messages of people accusing you of being an impostor. It's a little frustrating... but quite funny actually if I really think about it.

One guy chastised me challenging me to speak German (which I guess he assumed I knew since my bio says I was born there). Well, to remove all of the exoticism from my background, I was born in a little town called Augsburg in Bavaria. I only lived there for 6 months and moved to the U.S. as an infant. So, aside from the little bit of French I learned in high school, I don't speak any languages other than English. (I wish I were fluent in every language! That would be a much more interesting life!)

Anyway, I figured I'd post a message here so people who were challenging the legitimacy of my ORKUT profile could have a way of knowing it was legit. Brazil: I love you! Add me! :)

XOXO,
Nichole ALDEN

BTW, I'm seriously tongue in cheek with the "famous" bit. My bank account doesn't look like that of anyone I'd consider to be "famous." If only... (haha)

What is the craziest thing you've ever done for music?
quit graduate school after 3 days to move to L.A. sight unseen with a suitcase and my guitar


What's the strangest thing you've ever done to make money?
taught elementary school in South Central and East L.A.


Who are your favorite bands, musicians?
Jeff Buckley, Trent Reznor, Massive Attack, Damien Rice, Nina Simone, Sebastian Bach... (There will always be a special place in my heart for obscure 80's hair bands.)


If you could change anything about your life, what would it be?
I would have a team of people working with me on all of the b.s. so I could focus on writing and recording music.


Other than music, what else are you passionate about? Do you have any hobbies?
I'm a big nerd. I love neuroscience and philosophy. I go to bookstores and museums. One day, I'd like to start a "School of Rock" type of summer camp for young girls.


What is the most common first impression people have of you?
I can only wonder. I feel like I come across as a very different person to different people. At the gym or the market I try my best to blend into the surroundings and enjoy watching other people. With my friends, I'm very outgoing. When I've taught in elementary schools, I've done my best to come off as conservative as possible, although I don't typically do too great job of that. It's always managed to leak out that I'm a singer and before long the kids have downloaded my songs on their iPods.


Have you ever had a run in with a celebrity you admire?
Many times. One of my favorites was several years ago when I arrived to the rehearsal studio in Reseda where my band was scheduled to practice for an upcoming show. My drummer had gotten there first and had set up his kit and you could hear a Poison cover band rehearsing next door. Being one of my favorite hair bands, I plugged in my guitar and we started jamming along with them to "Talk Dirty to Me" (the first song I had ever learned on guitar). The music coming from the next room stopped. I kept playing and singing as loud as I could. My bass player barged in laughing hysterically. He told me to come outside. There they were: all four original members of Poison grinning from ear to ear. They had been listening to me butcher their songs. Luckily, I had the opportunity to explain that I had been a huge fan. They were super cool guys and we arranged to rehearse at the same time in the room next to theirs the following week. They ended up inviting us backstage to their L.A. show, but unfortunately we couldn't attend because we had an important gig that same night. Great fun to meet them though. To this day, I think of Rikki Rocket each time I eat Morningstar Veggie Bacon. (He turned me onto it.) :)


Have you ever been on television or have you ever auditioned to be on a television show? When and why?
Aside from my music being used in film and TV, I did extra work a bit when I first arrived in L.A.. In you squint at the right moment and press pause on your TiVo you might be able to find me.


Tell us about the hardest times in your life. How did you get through it?
The hardest time in my life was my childhood. I was the product of a very short marriage between an rock and roll drummer dad and an academic genius mom. They divorced when I was just 6 months old. My mom and I were on welfare and food stamps for several years until my mom and I moved in with her new (alcoholic) boyfriend. We lived with him until I was about 14. Once she finally left him, we moved into a small apartment where we lived for my high school years. Those were rocky times. Music has always been my refuge.

--Was digging around tonight and found a bunch of old recordings. One is a cover of "The Battle of El Goodo" I did 8 or 9 years ago at the end of another recording session (because I had 10 minutes or so of studio time left that I wanted to use). It's very rough and there's nothing polished or anywhere near perfect about it, but on a whim I went ahead and posted it here on MySpace anyway. :)

We recorded it live, which means we threw two mics up and recorded me playing guitar and singing at the same time. (For those non-musicians reading, this is rarely done in the studio because then you can't separate the tracks at all and have no chance to make any tweaks or edits later. You just have to deal with what happens live and learn to love your mistakes.)

After that take, I rolled it back through a pair of headphones and put down one more vocal track of simple vocal harmonies. That's it. No studio tricks. No auto tune. --Just me messing around at the end of another session. But, there was something about this recording that gave me chills when I heard it tonight. Like I said, it was recorded about 8 or 9 years ago... and musicians, maybe you know what I'm talking about when I say that some of the lyrics feel like they've gained meaning over time.

They aren't my lyrics, of course, since I didn't write the song. (For one, I'd never put the word "god" into a song. Anyway, I digress...) There's something oddly transcendent for me in hearing my naive-new-to-Los-Angeles-self singing lines like "I've been trying hard against strong odds" just a short bit into the near decade I've spent in this city. It's strangely funny, and at the same time I'm touched by the magical ability music has to transcend space and time just to deliver a sentiment.

I typically steer clear of self-indulgent blogs, but I just had a moment of clarity and it felt right to put this out there for anyone who might be able to get something from it. If you took the time to read this, I hope that someone is you. :)

On a different note, it may have seemed a little slow around here lately. Rest assured it's just the quiet before the storm... and the clouds have already begun moving in.

Love you!
Nichole

Been out of touch a little over the past month.  The good news is... the new song is almost ready. (It's called "Rope." I think you'll like it.) ;)  I brought a mix home tonight that I thought I'd be posting, but it seems like we need to add one more vocal part. The producer I'm working with on it is out of the country for the next week... but as soon as he returns I'll get in there and knock it out... and I'll have it up here for you to check out just moments later.

Thanks again for the incredible support.

Love,
Nichole (ALDEN)

Wow!  I can hardly believe that two months has come and gone so quickly.  Eleven countries later, here I am back in Lovely Los Angeles.  I haven't yet decided if I'm really happy to be back.  Although there were definitely some things I missed... --Sleeping in my own bed being the first of those. --A long, hot shower running a close second. --Knowing that pretty much anything I could possibly need or want (in that physical/superficial sense) is just a delivery phone call or a short drive away coming in at a close third.

I haven't really had the time or the energy yet to digest everything I've seen and done over the last couple of months.  I came back with nothing --more specifically: negative seven dollars and forty-three cents in my bank account, lungs still not yet recovered from the severe respiratory illness I managed to acquire in the Greek Islands, body and mind consecutively both empty and full simultaneously. 

So, daily life doesn't seem real yet.  In fact, part of me feels happy to be "home" while another part is now even less sure where home is.  (Ahh... Another case of this strange phenomenon where lyrics I wrote months ago are somehow talking to me across the perceived barriers of time.  Does that sound completely bizarre?  I can’t be the only songwriter who has had this experience... Can I?  Hmm...)

As I write this, sirens sing around me, car horns blare, and my neighbors are in some kind of wall-banging argument --Or maybe they’re fucking... or just rearranging some furniture.  In any case, it's not yet 10:00 pm and I've been ready for bed already for several hours, still swimming in jet lag, but enjoying the side effect of waking up each morning in time to see the sunrise, which I've seen little of before now in these last six and a half years in L.A..

I'm really not sure if I'm glad to be back, but I can be certain I am glad to be alive... I promise more music soon.  There are even talks begun of putting the live band together (soon).  I’ll keep you posted.

Hope everyone is well.

Love, love, love,

Nichole (ALDEN)

 

PS) The new EP "Lost Into Experience" is now available for download on iTunes.  Just type "ALDEN" into the search box in your iTunes store and take what you want for just 99 cents a track.