A few years ago when I started Farm Girl With Curls, I got a follow on Twitter from the Steel Blossoms. With my love for country music and their creative name, I decided to check out their music. I was instantly inspired with their brand and my heart felt warmth and empowerment while listening to their music. Sara Zebley and Hayley Prosser have a traditional yet unique style. They have a personal touch and take every effort possible to make their dream in music come true. They use their talent to touch many lives and build lasting relationships. What meant the most to me was the time they took to write me a Happy Birthday song for my 26th birthday in 2015. From their I was Steel Blossom fan for life.
These Pennsylvania natives made the move to Nashville in 2014. They spend their time there and on tour doing personal house concerts for fans. I have been waiting a long time to see them and was so excited for them to come to the Ohio State Fair. I figured they had long forgot about Farm Girl With Curls, but as soon as I introduced myself their faces lit up with excitement. To know they remembered and cared about me personally meant so much. I watched their concert and sat down afterwards for a quick interview. I hope you enjoy their story, inspirational words and uplifting music.
Q. Can you tell me more about how the Steel Blossoms got their start and made the decision to move to Nashville?
A. “We have been singing for a little over six years together. We used to be in a country rock band back in Pennsylvania. We weren’t called Steel Blossoms at first. We did about three years of singing without the Steel Blossoms name. We realized we were the two in the band that wanted this to be a career, not just a hobby. So we made the trip to Nashville and although it sounds easy, it wasn’t. It was a long process that took some convincing on our parts and we moved in 2014. We thought of the name Steel Blossoms because we wanted to represent Pittsburgh, ‘Steel City’, and that’s where both of us blossomed as people and musicians.”
Q. Can you tell me more about your style and musical influences?
A. “Right now we are into Ashley Monroe and Kacey Musgraves. We like the comedy aspects of our songs and it’s hard to pick a genre because we are not the country that’s on the radio right now. Haley tells me very often she aspires to be the country folk version of Bo Burnham, a comedian who plays music. We like to make people laugh and cry in the same show, feel all the emotions.”
Q. How did you build a following on social media and decide to go on tour?
A. When we first moved to Nashville we played seven days a week, four hours a day. We played in a really crowed Nashville bar that was constantly packed with people so we were meeting volumes of people everyday. We used that to our benefit and asked people to sign up for our email list and gave them four free songs for signing up. We remind them over and over again to please follow us on social media. Also I think our show is really personal that might make it different from a lot of people’s. We make it more intimate and personal because we like to get to know our fans, so we even show that through social media by asking questions all the time to get to know people.
Q. What has been an impactful experience for you?
A. Being out on the road has been the most impactful experience. Doing home concerts, you get to be apart of somebody’s family for a night. They accept you and welcome you into their group and you feel cultured from that. You see all different walks of life and ways of doing things. We are able to see parts of the country we would never be able to see before. Getting to touch somebody through a song, and the experience of having somebody say that song relates to me because I feel this and went though this, that just makes it all worth it.
Q. What advice would you give to other aspiring artists that are struggling with taking the steps to get their voice heard or have confidence in their music?
A. I would say learn as much as you can about the music business. Social media is so huge right now and you can use it to your advantage. There is no one-way to get there. Everybody has a completely different path. What my strength might be, someone else has a completely different one I don’t have. So you need to get to know yourself and be aware of the things that are going to help you get ahead. Learn and be open to talking to people about your craft. Understand you can do it on your own; you don’t need record labels or booking agencies. There are many layers of the goal to peel back and you can pick which one you want.
Q. What goals or plans do you have for the future?
A. Our big goal with these house concerts is that we want to target certain areas so that we can then go back to that area and instead of doing five small shows, do one big show in a theater with three or four hundred people in the next few years. We always want to do the house concerts and of course we love fairs and festivals where we can meet families. We are realistic about our future as individuals to know we want to be married and have kids. So we want to take what we’re doing now and tailor it to be able to make the most of it when we do have families. So that we aren’t super far from them all the time, but can still make a living doing this. We want the best of both worlds.
Visit https://www.steelblossoms.com to learn more and sign up for their email list to get four free songs! Their new album ‘Country Enough’ is available. Be sure to check them on social media to see their music videos and find out what they are up to!
https://www.youtube.com/user/steelblossoms
https://www.facebook.com/steelblossoms
https://www.twitter.com/Steel_Blossoms
https://www.instagram.com/steelblossoms
Photo credit to Steel Blossoms Social Media
Country music artist, 
Young told a story about attending his first “Number One” party in Nashville. Country music is the only genre in which the performing rights organizations, the companies that make sure songwriters are paid for the usage of their music, regularly have parties to celebrate songwriters and their number one songs. In Nashville these parties happen almost weekly.
While at the party, Young heard a man tell a story of how he started in songwriting. Him and his wife were 18 years old with an 18 month old child. They didn’t have much money, but moved to Nashville so he could be a songwriter. Young went on to tell the story to the festival audience, “On that day he was telling that story, he was accepting an award for his 11th number one as a song writer. He gave her all the credit and called her his beautiful believer. When I heard that story I thought, I don’t know the rules in this town. I don’t know if I have to give him song writing credit for stealing his story and writing a song about it, but if we’re going to write a song about it we are going to tell the story exactly the way we heard it. This song is called Beautiful Believer.”
Young went on to share how it’s been 20 years now since the man started songwriting and he wrote a song about his wife. Young said to the audience, “Now men, if we’re being honest, we know we’re really bad at expressing our feelings. Here’s the thing, it’s not because we don’t want to say how we feel, we are wired very differently. The best way we’ve come up with to make our women feel sexy, unfortunately, is saying ‘Baby, you look so sexy.’ Cause we’re smooth like that (laughter). So I heard this song, and I knew their relationship. He found a way to tell her that everything she does all day, from putting her makeup on in the mirror to walking down the hallway is sexy to him.” Makin Me Say is the only song on Young’s record he didn’t write, but recorded for this reason.
Later at the concert we confirmed it was him at the restaurant. I saw him by the stage listening to his opening act and pointed out my “We can blame it on the wine” t-shirt. He smiled at me, but that was the extent of our connection. I was so mad at myself for not talking to him at the restaurant. As the night went on, despite the drunken college age people bumping into me, I came to realize I am still blessed to be here enjoying the night with Ryan. I am so thankful he came with me.
When I hear a song before I watch the music video the artist has made for it, I create my own music video in my mind. When I first heard “Dirt On My Boots” by Jon Pardi, I imagined myself working hard all day on the farm. Covered in dirt, dust and pig poop. Despite having a rough day, I rush into the house and get cleaned up then glammed up real quick so I can hit the town. I imagine dancing the night away in a honky tonk, having worked hard and ready to play hard.
When I watched Jon Pardi’s music video to the song, I found myself lost in trying to figure out the story. I expected him to show a guy working hard in the field, picking up a hot girl in his pickup truck and whisking her away to a honky tonk for some “dirty dancing and blue collar romancing.” Instead he showed himself getting cleaned up ready to sing to a rowdy crowd interchanging with a beautiful girl riding on her horse. 
I felt lost in the video trying to figure out the connection with the girl. It didn’t make sense to me until the end of the video when she got cleaned up and glammed up then made her way into the same scene as Jon. She walked away with him when he finished the song. It was a good twist to the story and now I will probably imagine this scene when I hear the song.
An artist should take their music videos seriously. They are powerful in storytelling and creating the scenes that play in a person’s imagination when they hear the song. There have been times, I like a song more after seeing the music video and times I don’t. Your imagination is a wonderful thing. It can take you away and show you a preview of life’s coming attractions if you choose to believe in it. Music can be an escape and while life isn’t always as glamours as a music video, you can find happiness being lost in your imagination and then experiencing the artist perform in real life.
