Today we’d like to introduce you to Julia Kate Snow.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Julia Kate. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I was born and raised about 45 minutes south of Dallas in a small town called Ovilla. In the first 12 years of my life, I lived on a 50-acre farm with my four older sisters and two older brothers. Music was a large part of our upbringing, my parents both sang and my mom played piano and my dad played guitar. I was homeschooled as a young child which allowed me to spend hours a day practicing piano and singing. I competed in piano competitions almost every weekend from the age of 5 to 12. At the age of 12, I traded in piano for guitar and starting writing songs and performing small shows with friends in high school.
Although I loved music, as a child and young adult I never considered it to be a viable career option. I moved away from home shortly after I turned 17 to be closer to my sisters who lived in Austin. I finished out high school as a dual credit student at Austin Community College and then went on to graduate from The University of Texas at Austin with a degree in International Relations and Business and minors in Special Education and Spanish. Following graduation in May of 2015, I accepted a job at Dell in Sales and Project Management. This was a particularly difficult season of life as I was completely unsatisfied and unfulfilled in my professional life while simultaneously enduring difficulties in my personal life. I started picking up my guitar and writing songs again for the first time in 5 years. I asked for a transfer from my office in Austin to the Nashville office to begin pursuing songwriting at the next level.
In April of 2016, I made the move to Nashville with no contacts or friends, only a dream to be able to eventually make a living writing song. It didn’t take me long to realize that having a full-time corporate job while trying to make contacts and break into the songwriting bubble just wasn’t possible. I quit my job and started bartending to give me more freedom to write and meet people. I slowly but surely started making m way into the songwriting community, but still didn’t have the skills or knowledge needed to be successful. A combination of feeling inadequate and unprepared, as well as some difficulties that were happening with my family back home, led me back to Texas, this time in Forth Worth.
In June of 2017, I made the move and in a short time, got plugged into the Texas music community mostly through spending a lot of time at music venue/bar called Magnolia Motor Lounge. I worked on becoming a better writer, musician and performer and then had the opportunity to be sponsored for the Texas Music Fest in Steamboat, CO. I was able to bring a friend, so I invited a girl from Nashville who was also a fan of the Red Dirt scene and a co-writer of mine from when I was living there and on my visits back. We ended up playing several shows together and realized there was something special about the way we performed together. Over the next year, we started going back and forth between Fort Worth and Nashville several times a month to write and perform together. In May of 2018, we officially began our duo as Sweet Leah.
We split our time between touring the Texas circuit and writing in Nashville. We recorded our first single with Jude Dyllan in Arlington, TX and released the self-titled single, Sweet Leah, in August 2018. Although we loved that time cutting our teeth and learning as much as we could, we eventually realized it was not sustainable long term and start making plans for me to move back to Nashville. That happened in February 2019 and since that time, we have been focused on writing as much as possible, building our brand and business, all while playing 4+ shows a week in Nashville on lower Broadway to pay our bills.
It has been an incredibly rewarding and exhausting a few years full of highs and lows, achievements and doubts, wins and losses. The best part of it all has been becoming the most confident, secure and steady version of myself that only comes through relentlessly pursuing what makes me the happiest in the world. My greatest hope is that one day, my music will make an impact on the world – whether that be to make people feel happy and light-hearted or to be a salve for wounds that helps them understand and work through the difficult things in their life.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has definitely been a road of struggles for me. It took me a long time to feel settled and understand where I wanted to be and what I wanted my career to look like. It took going from Austin to Nashville back to Forth Worth and finally back to Nashville again to find where I really belong. There have been many moments of doubt and uncertainty as well as times when I wasn’t sure how I was going to pay my bills or what the next step would be, but every struggle and tear I shed has led me where I am now, and I wouldn’t change that for the world.
Sweet Leah Music – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Sweet Leah consists of myself and Haley Stevens. We are artists, songwriters and musicians. We are known for our incredibly high energy performances, our unique female southern rock sound and what is known as “blood harmonies” even though we aren’t related. The things I am most proud of are being able to make a living solely from music, playing over 250 shows in the last year, having people tell us that our songs made some kind of impact on their life, and of course, playing in the round at the iconic Bluebird Cafe in Nashville. We were also honored to record our second single, RedNekkid with David Huff (Thomas Rhett, Brantley Gilbert, Old Dominion, Brooks & Dunn, Kid Rock, Kenny Chesney, Brett Young, Rascal Flatts, Midland, etc.) as well as some of the best, A-list players in the business.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success to me, first and foremost, is building a loyal fan base and being able to tour the country playing original music to people who show up just to hear it. Our dream is to one day, have Sweet Leah be a household name and be on a stadium tour playing our songs to thousands of people as well as being award-winning songwriters.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sweetleahmusic.com
- Email: sweetleahmusic@gmail.com
- Instagram: @sweetleahmusic
- Facebook: facebook.com/sweetleahmusic
- Twitter: @sweetleahmusic
Image Credit:
Wales Tony, Tyler Landon, Russ Harrington
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