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A couple of months ago, we posted some excellent songs from Trisha Ivy, on the eve of the release of her Cotton Country EP.

The songs are called “Mighty Mississippi” and “Bang,” and both are very good country tunes. After hearing the tracks, we decided to get in contact with Trisha to find out more about her story.

It turns out her life has been quite the journey.

Cotton Country, the five-song EP she released in August, only came about because of a Kickstarter she did.

(She needed twelve grand to release the EP; she got that, plus some change).

During our talk we learned a lot of interesting things about the Brooklyn-based, Memphis-born country singer.

Scroll down to hear more of her story. And if you’re interested, buy the EP on iTunes.

GlobalGrind: When you started your Kickstarter, how optimistic were you?

Trisha Ivy: I was pretty much freaking out everyday. At the beginning it was great because everybody gets on board, it’s kind of the hype of beginning something exciting. So the beginning and the end were all very exciting. And that’s when most of the donations came in. So right around the middle was when I was questioning what the hell I got myself into. I would not recommend doing a Kickstarter for the faint of heart.

What would have happened if it didn’t work?

Well, before I decided to do it, I came up with a Plan B. Plan B was to basically take the bare bones.  Because twelve thousand was the total we asked for, but the bare bones of it, paying for what was already done, was eight. The rest of it was duplication and people actually designing the cover of the CD and all those extra things. But $8,000 was already owed. So it was basically coming up with the money, a plan to just come up with the $8,000, even if it meant me going back to working 90 hours a week and putting everything else on hold till it was done.

This isn’t your first project, right?

I did a project — this was before I wrote any music on my own, before I played guitar, or anything, and I just had come to the point where I been in New York for four years, and I just wanted to do music for so long, and I just flipped the switch. I had friends who were musicians and everyone knew them as musicians and I did music, too, but no one identified me as a musician. They just thought I did music. But that wasn’t my defining characteristic. And I looked at the friends I had and basically laid out the steps. What’s the difference between my life and their life? So, basically, I kind of changed everything. I don’t have songs of my own or a band of my own or a record, so I should probably get those things and move forward from there.

So I did whatever kind of music, what was around at the time: the musicians I knew, what they were playing, what was going around in my vicinity. So it was kind of a rock/pop thing.

Did you like your first EP?

Yea, there were some amazingly talented people who worked on that record with me.  But, it’s not me. I think when you get more complements on the quality of the production than the actual songs, that’s a problem. I think a lot of people like it. We played shows and it was great. But it just wasn’t me, and I didn’t know how to find me musically yet.

What are the songs on your new EP about?

Basically about the last two years of this evolution of me as an artist and a person. The last song is “Song of the Whippoorwill,” and it’s about my brother who died when I was 18. And it’s basically taken me over a decade to write that song and it’s kinda true for all of ’em, in a way. It took me a long time to stand on my own and not let the fear of failing, or if, like, what if people aren’t excited about what I’m doing and they don’t want to get on board?

For a long time a good and bad thing was that I grew up knowing people who had very successful music careers. And it was sort of like that has to be my story or it’s not going to happen. And when it didn’t happen, and I’m like old now, I’m not Taylor Swift’s age…

So how much does that worry you?

Not anymore, it doesn’t. I really like the idea of having my own story now.

What do you want to do with your music?

I would love to pay my rent (laughs). I want to learn how to really take care of the fans that I have and grow that fan base. The Kickstarter was hard but it definitely gave me a real appreciation for the army of people support me. Aside from that, right now, I pushed as much as I could push in the direction that I wanna go by myself. And I feel like I really just need help—a manager, an agent, whatever—to be able to move forward. But no matter what, I want to continue to play music every night, because there is nothing better than making someone smile and dance!

To listen to Trisha Ivy’s Cotton Country, you can download and listen here!