Guitarist and songwriter Lanae' Hale is performing with Shane and Shane at Mount Vernon Nazarene University Saturday. I spoke with the newcomer one morning before the show, about her music and faith and how her faith has helped her overcome and succeed. Look for her new album this spring!

Tell me about your background. How'd you get into music?

I actually grew up in a real musical family. My dad wrote songs and he was in bands growing up and he sang. And my brother played drums and just the whole family was musical so I can honestly remember loving singing ever since I was like five or six. I have pictures of me with a plastic microphone singing. So I think I just kind of grew up with it. Music was always kind of encouraged in our home.

So when I was fifteen I started writing and playing guitar. I think as long as I remember, I would just always pray, if God wanted me to do it on a larger scale, that he would open doors, because I didn't want to be that artist trying to bust doors down and make things happen. And so honestly I just sorta didn't think, I led worship different places and I'd sing my songs different places. And so I went to school, there wasn't any grand opening for anything. So I was actually in college for three years going for a nursing degree and then the Lord started kind of putting Nashville on my heart and started opening doors for that.


Tell me about your faith background. How does that play into your music?

I actually grew up in a christian home. Both my parents we're christians. I was the girl at church every time the doors were open.

But I was just a girl with a lot of insecurities. I never thought I was pretty enough, not good or worth anything really. So kind of having all of that kind of underneath the church girl phisad. I also was in a serious relationship in high school. When I was seventeen, my boyfriend gave me a diamond ring and he promised he would marry me. And actually the relationship ended totally.

And I think at that point God had taken me from and unhealthy place to more, all the insecurities that had kind of built up over the years were kind of just solidifying and I really didn't feel like I was good enough. And so from then, I think all growing up I felt the love of God and the grace of God but I didn't really get it. I just sort of believed it from everyone else, but I don't think I could wrap around what that really meant, and that I couldn't see God loving me for my imperfections.

So kind of going into my senior year of high school, I started walking down a road of really deep and terrible depression. And the spiraling depression had a lot of self-condemnation involved with this and so it kind of led me to cutting, which most people know that as self-mutilation or self-injury. I started cutting myself because I wanted to sort of be that strong girl on the outside that no one could break. But then you know, on the inside I was just absolutely falling apart. And the cutting got worse and deeper over the course of three years and I had, you know, a time when I was suicidal, just really really depressed.

So just trying to fix myself, thats when I think the Lord really started showing me that I was running so fast and hard from him because I was trying to fix my own imperfections and my own problems. But it was becoming very apparent that the more I cut, the more broken I became because on the inside, I was just a mess. I remember reading in college Psalm 147:3 that says he heals the broken hearted and he binds of their wounds. So kind of a jaw dropping verse for me. I'm like, really, he really can do that because I'm so tired of this. You know, I just knew I couldn't do it anymore.

So I kind of grabbed hold of that verse and I was like okay God and I sort of gathered all my pieces and I knew that I had to let go of things. I had to give up control and hand the pieces over to him and beg that he would heal me and he really did it. I guess like I had all these things built up and when I finally just laid them down, he just sort of kind started showing me what his love and his grace were for the first time in my life, everything that I had heard. And you know like any other addiction, because that's what cutting was for me, an addiction, that's where I turned to go to spill out my emotions basically. I had to rewire how to handle emotions basically. I had to just jump in my car and turn the radio on and just drive at 3 o'clock in the morning until the urges went away. And I had to get rid of all my knives I had in different places. There always had to be one in my car and one by my bed and things. I had to get rid of that and kind purge my life of that for the first time. And going for about two months without cutting, I was super excited about it. And then something happened to me and I was just relapsing. And normally I would hear all the voices come back to me, telling me I was a failure and I was worthless and that I should cut, and just totally thought-condemning. And for the first time they weren't there and instead I heard God just kind of, I just felt him for the first time say alright, let's try this again. So for the first time, that's when I really understood.

So through that, I think through all that healing that the Lord did with my heart, that's when he really started to open doors for me. And I started playing shows. And after the first couple of shows, getting off and just realizing that I felt the Lord say "You know you're going to have to tell your story." And I'm like no! It's difficult. But the Lord really put it on my heart that I'm supposed to because I'm supposed to help bring hope and the freedom that God offers to girls and even guys that are dealing with the same things, same issues. That there really is hope and there really is healing and freedom from all of that. And so that's kind of what I do! Sort of sharing that and sharing the songs that the Lord's allowed me and given to me.


So you didn't want to share it at first?

Oh yeah, sure, I mean it's one of those things where it's like "wow, I have to tell everyone my mistake!" And it's awkward but at the same time I'm just one of those people I really just, to me it's like hey if we're going to talk, let's just go ahead and be real. So I think the Lord giving me that personality was easier for me that if you know I'm going to talk to people, I'm going to tell them anyway. If it brings the Lord glory then I'm okay with sharing my past. But I think it's a different dynamic having to share it on stage, in front of a bunch of people, you know what I mean. But I totally felt totally led. Really, God's just given me the grace and the strength to do it. It's awesome to have girls come up and be really touched and really moved by that. And you know, they've been given hope which is what the Lord gives to people.


So you're recording your album. What's that like?

I think recording is so fun. I think because I'm just a guitar player, so it's fun to kind of fun, to, you know the producers ideas and to throw different instruments and sounds into your music and just make it come alive, it's so fun. I really enjoy the recording process.


What do you hope people take away from your music?

Ever since I can remember I just like writing about life and writing from the heart, whether it be through my own life and my own experiences. I would really hope that people would just feel real from my music. I don't want any phisad to ever to be up when listening to my music. I just want them to go yea, that's real life, I can identify with that, you know what I mean. That's kind of what I really want. And also with my testimony, just having a sense that there really is hope and there really is healing through, I think, through song and through the love that the Lord gives.


What are your career goals? Where do you want this to take you?

To be honest with you Nina, I honestly, because the Lord has miraculously opened doors for me to do this, I'm in it as long as he wants me in it. I'll keep taking doors if he keeps opening them and I don't know what means. And in that way, it's kind of exciting for me to not have these high standard expectations because I really just want to be where God has me, and so it's kind of an adventure. I'm like well, I don't know where this will go and what God wants me to do, but it's also really cool because every show that I have, wherever it is, I know that's another door opened and so I'm so excited to be there. And so I don't have goals set really, I have, I think I just have, if Lord, if he wants it to go, wherever he wants it to go, it'll go. And I don't know what that looks like yet. So yeah, it's a real adventure.