The proud ‘Swiftie’ followed in the first footsteps of the superstar, but now she is bravely blazing her own path: ‘The only thing worth chasing is the most authentic version of yourself’
Alana Springsteen speaks passionately about her recent skydiving experience, her first. “It was a thrill,” she tells PEOPLE. “I’ve never felt more alive.”
So that was more exciting than performing in front of thousands of people?
Springsteen thought about it for a split second and laughed. “Actually, less!” she says.
That reaction explains a lot about how the 23-year-old artist got to this point so quickly — a headlining tour just launched, a debut full-length (featuring collaborations with Chris Stapleton and Mitchell Tenpenny), a Billboard chart appearance, a tour with Luke Bryan, featured on CMA Fest’s stadium lineup, nearly half a million TikTok followers.
Alana Springsteen performs.
Lily Nelson
Since she jumped headlong into a professional career, at the ripe old age of 14, she no longer needs a parachute. Everything about her says she was made for this wild, breathless – and, yes, high-risk – life as an artist.
Springsteen may not have been born into the spotlight, but she got there as soon as she could. Her dad likes to tell the story, she says, of the two of them walking down the church aisle, when she was no more than 5 or 6, to perform a duet for Sunday service. In the middle of a step, she turned to him and said: “Daddy, you go sit down.” Today I will sing it myself.”
“So I already wanted all the attention,” Springsteen says, laughing to himself.
But she didn’t truly focus on the startup ambition until she attended her first concert at the age of 9. The artist was Taylor Swift.
“That night changed me, watching her connect with every one of those people in the audience, including me,” recalls Springsteen, who grew up in the Virginia Beach, Virginia, area. “It was simply the most beautiful experience I’ve ever had, and the connection that music can bring is what made me want to get into this. She’s been singing about my life since day one.”
What seemed unequivocally obvious to Springsteen was that if Taylor Swift could do it, so could she. No doubt, at that moment she joined thousands – if not millions – of girls who also wanted to write, record and perform songs just as the global superstar had been doing since her teenage years. Except, unlike those other girls, Springsteen actually went out and followed Swift’s first steps to a significant extent.
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Swift first visited Nashville’s Music Row when she was 11; Springsteen did the same when she was 10 years old. At the age of 14, Swift persuaded her family to move from their home in Pennsylvania to Nashville so that she could begin her career; Springsteen’s parents (who are in the real estate business) moved the family from Virginia to help her follow her dream when she was 14 years old. Both Swift and Springsteen signed their first publishing deals at the age of 14. Springsteen also wrote several songs with Swift’s early influencer, Liz Rose.
So how much of this is coincidence and how much is inspired by Swift?
“Oh, I mean both at the same time, if that’s possible,” says Springsteen, who unabashedly calls herself Swiftie. “I definitely wouldn’t be the songwriter, artist that I am without Taylor.”
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Alana Springsteen.
Lily Nelson
She pays tribute to her hero with “taylor did,” track (13, of course) on her debut album, Twenty something. The lyrics perfectly express the influence that Swift’s songs have on Springsteen’s generation: “They’re like home, they’re almost a part of me / Hit just when it was hard to be a girl trying to make sense of the world / When no man knew what I went through growing up / Taylor knew.”
Like Swift’s lyrics, Springsteen’s are intensely personal. And like Swift, Springsteen is driven by a passion to inspire. But Springsteen demands that the comparisons stop there. Perhaps more than anything, she understands the Swiftian paradox: if she is to follow her hero’s model, she must make her own way, find her own path, write her own life.
“The only thing worth pursuing,” she says, “is the most authentic version of yourself.”
This authenticity also extends to her attention-grabbing last name. Yes, it’s really hers. And no, she is not related. For a brief moment, she says, she considered changing it, at least to avoid the questions (of which, she admits, she is now tired).
“I feel like if he used any other name, it would be completely counter to what I’m trying to do with my music,” says Springsteen, who also has a problematic first name (it’s “ah-LAH-na,” not a rhyme with “banana” ). “My music is based on that honesty – nothing between me and the fans.”
Springsteen takes that commitment literally during live performances. At the start of her tour in Nashville, she lingered over fans’ handcuffs at the edge of the stage, entered the audience several times for hugs and selfies, and stayed to talk and hug fans until the club closed.
That incredible confidence and attitude is surely what gave Springsteen the right to title his album Twenty something although she is not even a quarter of her third decade. But then, she’s in a career that requires growing up fast. Like any artist on a major record label, she must manage both on and off stage while managing an ever-growing support staff.
“It’s a lot,” Springsteen allows. “It’s crazy. But I am grateful to say that my team feels like my backbone. I trust them so much that I can just focus on speaking my truth and doing what I’ve always felt I was meant to do and hope to do, which is writing, co-producing, focusing on being there for the fans — really really be there.”
It’s no surprise that Springsteen “introduced” her “word of the year.” The support also allowed her the freedom to live a true twenty-something life, which—as her lyrics can attest—offered its own learning curve.
The 18-song album, all written by Springsteen, is thematically divided into three life stages: “messing up,” “getting it right,” and “getting it right.”
Alana Springsteen Wants to ‘Get It Right’ on Part 1 of Debut Album ‘Twenty Something: Messing It Up’
The six “mess up” tracks — including the lead single “You don’t deserve a country song” — are a litany of heartbreaking truths, chronicling Springsteen’s first romantic forays between the ages of 18 and 20.
“I just love love,” she says. “I like feelings. I’m even a person who would go so far as to say that sadness is beautiful — like experiencing only raw, deep emotions.”
Her first boyfriends, she admits, gave her a lot to feel, maybe too much. “I was in pretty bad relationships, I just fell for the wrong people,” he admits. “I tend to fall in love with people very quickly. I’m an all-or-nothing person, so when I feel something, I go all in.”
She entered her “realization” phase when she realized, “I didn’t know myself well enough to know that I didn’t need validation from anyone else. I got lost in that.”
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Alana Springsteen performs in Nashville.
David Bradley
The counselor helped her make important self-discoveries, she says, but the songwriting collaborations offered another kind of therapy that proved just as powerful. “I’m grateful to the people who made me feel safe enough to be so vulnerable and share that part of me,” she says. “I go in and write about things that are heavy on my heart, so writing these songs is how I get it out.”
Writing the song “Chameleon,” a searing self-confession, helped her, she says, to overcome “this tendency to change shape to please people.”
“It was hard to get that song out there,” she says. “Sometimes it really hurts to sing, because it’s not something you’re proud of. But oh my god, the fans were screaming the lyrics to me so loud, and it’s so healing.”
Another song, “when we were friends”, deals with a common heartbreak that rarely appears in lyrics – the end of a friendship. “The past few years I’ve had a new kind of break,” Springsteen says. “As you get to know yourself and change, sometimes it makes you move away from people who meant a lot to you before. It’s easy to feel guilty about that.”
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More revelations came when she wrote “The Hypocrite”, a lyrical wrestling match with life’s contradictions. “You realize there’s not just one way of seeing things, and none of us are just one way,” she says. “Your twenties—and life itself, in general—are really messy.”
The last song, “amen,” offers a rousing blessing to that realization. She sings in the chorus: “And I’m sorry for my mom/ but I’ll live how I want/ so I know this life was mine in the end.”
Springsteen says, “I give myself permission to be completely me, to make mistakes, to mess things up, to not have it all figured out, and to live on my own terms. I wrote this song as a promise to myself that I will always have the courage to live the life I was meant to live.”
However, she’s quick to clarify that the lyrics aren’t intended to dismiss her parents’ influence. She considers her mother among her “best friends”, and she is close to her father and three younger brothers. “There’s nothing more important than making mom and dad proud and staying true to my roots,” she says. “But at the end of the day, I don’t have to answer to them. I have to answer to myself and to God.”
Last year, Springsteen finally took the adult step of moving out of his family home (still only 15 minutes away) and experiencing newfound independence… and stress. “I remember the first night when I was just sitting alone, I drank a bottle of champagne and I asked myself, what should I do now?” she says with an ironic laugh. “Now I have bills to pay. Where do I put all this stuff? How do I move my bed into the bedroom?”
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Alana Springsteen and her mother Shannon.
Lily Nelson
Obviously, the “figuring out” phase is still ongoing, but Springsteen radiates determination – to live it, write it down and perform it.
It currently does so untethered. She says she’s grateful that the current pace of her career limits her going out. “The timing was so perfect because I just needed to get to know myself,” she says. “I had to not jump into another relationship, and just for the first time, really get to know who Alana is when she’s not in a relationship. Who am I?”
In relationships — and in life — one thing she’s learned is that “I’m not a chaser. The things meant for you will find you when you’re the most authentic version of yourself. One of my mantras through this season of life is ‘We don’t chase. We attract.'” (She dropped that nugget into another track on the album, “I seem to like it.”)
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Looking back on his career in progress, Springsteen says he’s certain I’m “exactly where I’m meant to be,” yet admits to restlessness.
“I have it in me to just keep going,” she says, “I always push because I have that vision in my head.” I’ve always wanted to get my music out to as many people as possible and just have that connection, build this community. When I’m on tour and playing shows, I think about the 9- and 10-year-olds in that audience. That was me. That’s me watching Taylor. The idea that a song or a show or a moment can inspire someone to follow their dreams — and to believe that anything is possible — is why I do what I do.”
Springsteen’s 15-show Twenty Something tour runs through Dec. 10; also travels to Australia in November for two shows at the Ridin’ Hearts Festival.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education