Honorary Brit but born and raised in Tennessee, US, Alyssa Bonagura has made the UK her second home fire the last few years. Having recently gone on tour with UK country duo The Shires and also her first headline tour in June, Bonagura is making quite the name for herself amongst UK country fans.

Recently, Alyssa released her 5 track EP Love Wins which has been met by much critical acclaim. A fantastic EP full of anthems and important topics, the EP shows how much of a well established and highly talented writer she is as well as a sensational singer.

We caught up with Alyssa to talk about the EP! This was so much fun as she dug deep into the EP and we even hear about the first song that she ever wrote!

Enjoy!

Tell us about the Love Wins EP because it is lovely! Now I didn’t know this until I saw you with The Shires but you actually wrote it in a day?

It’s crazy! Nashville is such a creative town that people go in every day and they write songs with producers and writers but five songs in a day was part of a writers camp that was put together by a company that I am working with called ‘extreme music’ and they are a sync company. They are fantastic, they work with Hans Zimmer and they do amazing producttion music for a ton of shows and films and everything. I have been working with them for the last couple of years because they are correlated with Sony/ATV who are my publishing company. They were like “hey, we’re going to do a little workshop in Nashville, would you be able to do it?”

I said it sounded like so much fun! I had never met any of these guys before, I had heard of one of them and just went in super open and I love days like that. I have done a little of writing camps for other artists where you go in and write with different artists for their project but we have never done it for me. It was really cool because they showed up and they were like “today is all about Alyssa” and we got three studios set up and they wanted us to tell our story and it was just so fun because the whole day was so creative. We started at 10am and worked all the way till 11pm and just created. I love days like that because I just pour out music all the time, I always come up with melodies and lyric ideas and so for a day like that to just kind of zone in and all the way to the end of the day was so much fun, it was awesome.

When you go into a writing session and you haven’t met the people before like you were just saying, are you now at that point in your life and career that you are comfortable to open up with anyone about your story or do you prefer to get to know people first?

I think because I have done it so much now it’s a different process. I think that being open to new people knowledge a writing session is actually really important to process it as an artist and a writer because everyone has their own story and i own journey, it makes them who they are as a writer and a producer. It was so fun and everyone was so lovely. Sometimes you go in a writing session and you don’t get any songs but there was just something really special about this day and those people that were involved. It was a great energy. The day before, there was a terrible school shooting in Nashville and so we cane in and that was the one thing that I was talking about because I had Love Wins in my head! “Through all the sadness and all the madness Love wins”. I just truly believe that as much as evil tried to stop the world, I believe that good wins in the end! I think that is a powerful message of hope to people that are struggling. We stayed with that song and it was so uplifting for us to write it and then the rest of the day just poured out songs. Two writers were in another room and then we had another writer and they were starting songs and then I would pop in and be like “oh! What if we did this in the bridge and what if we did this in the chorus?’ and it was just kind of, if you can 4 all these different painters in a room just painting and collaborating, that is kind of what it was like, it was really fun!

If you started off with a more sad topic instead of love wins which was sad but had an inspirational theme, do you think that would have changed the mood for the day differently?

Yeah absolutely! When the creativity comes I like to grab at whatever it is. I think that songwriters, we’re messengers and if I don’t write it, someone else is going to write it. It’s happened before haha.

What was the most enjoyable one to write on the day?

Oh man! ‘No Stoppin’ this Train’ was probably the most fun for me because my dad had this really cool record. My mum and dad met in the 70’s and so they met in their 20’s and my dad was going into New York a lot to work with Ed Stasium – He worked on the Ramones records, he worked on Talking Heads, he was a rock n roll engineer/producer/mixer. My dad and him went to school together and so they were recording a lot of songs. There is this really cool song of my dads and its on Spotify and its called ‘Full Moon’ and it is so cool and 60’s and almost like Crosby Stills and Nash meets Fleetwood Mac, it’s so bad ass. He was playing me all these songs and you can hear my mum and dad stacking all these harmonies and there’s a part in that song that goes (sings) and it’s a really cool musical motif and so I kind of borrowed that from my dad haha. I had this thought when we were all sitting together because I was talking about my relationship with Steve and it’s so loving and fun and uplifting and no drama and calming. When you are with the right person, I think you can achieve anything. I think I am also just a sensitive soul, I’m such an empath and I feel everything all the time. If I am around the wrong kind of people, I start to think less of myself or I start to think I am not good enough or not pretty enough. With him, he constantly uplifts me and so I wanted to write that song about not stopping this train. “I started dancing again the day I left everything behind and when I met you, you lift me up, you help me to win and you let me be me in my own skin. Full steam ahead when I am with him”. I loved that whole concept and I wanted it to be a fun, uptempo rocker because that’s how it makes me feel. So that was probably the most fun for me. Johnny Coggins who was the producer was really fun because I had this solo in my head that I really wanted to play so we really created all those things on the day and they would program the drums, play the bass or get someone else to play some guitar parts and stuff . It’s amazing what we were able to accomplish between all us musicians.

That’s probably my favourite off the EP!

Thanks!

I know it’s only a 5 EP so may not be a difficult question but how did you decide on the bookends?

I love how records flow and I am still that old school mindset that when you put out projects, I love the ebb and flow of it. I know it’s a single world that we live in now, everyone loves singles but it’s cool to put out a cohesive piece of work. The ‘Never Alone’ song was really special because Jay and I, one of the guys, he owns the studio in Nashville that we were recording in. At the end of the day we started playing on this piano and I was talking to him about my friend Roman who passed away a couple of years ago. He was my best friend and he moved in next door to me when I was ten years old and we were the same age. We both were only children so we grew up as siblings living next door to each other. He tragically passed away a few years ago from a brain aneurysm and it was just awful. The worst thing that has ever happened to me in my life was losing someone that close to me. I believe we go somewhere when we die and I believe in heaven and that god and roman are up there together just fishing or doing something fun! I feel like when our loved ones are gone, they’re really not that far from us. I wanted to write a song from Romans perspective of what he would say to me and I don’t think I told Jay this but right before we had that writing session, I found a letter that was from my college graduation that Roman had written on. It said “Next stop, the big time, love Roman”. He was always encouraging me to live my dreams and so I wanted to write what I thought he was saying to me in heaven and also it helps to let his mum and dad know that too and people that loved him feel that sentiment. So I thought that was a really good closer to the ep because it’s a really sweet message.

I agree and I am so sorry about your friend. How lucky to have had him in your life and someone that is so encouraging because not all friends are. Not everyone wants you to succeed. I even lost friends because I had children

Oh yeah! It’s crazy. The ebb and flow of life with friends and just people you work with, I’ve really lived that in the last five years. So many changed and so many losses but then god really restores that in big and better ways and you just keep being a good person and you keep trying to be good in the world and i believe that good comes back at you! When I lost Roman, I then met Steve and Steve came into my life and it was this amazing, uplifting person that I felt like was such a gift and I felt like Roman was involved in that magical meeting somehow from the sky!

Do you think Roman and Steve would have been friends?

Oh yeah 100 per cent!! Steve acts and Roman wanted to film, he was producing films in L.A and acting. They would have been besties

Oh that’s nice!

Was it just five songs that were written that day or were there more that didn’t make the EP?

No it was literally all the songs that we wrote. What was really cool was that Jenn Bostic had started ‘I’m Done’ in the other room, they pretty much had all of that written and I just came and then sculpted it a little to where I thought it was more me you know? I changed the bridge and then there was another song ‘There Was You’ that was started as well. ‘There Was You’ wasn’t actually in the hook line yet and so they had had a lot of the song written and I was like “what if we said “and then there was you”. It’s just really cool how when songs are started and someone comes in and can see it from a different perspective. I love that, I love doing that! Literally all those y were written that day, nothing was left out!

Tell us about the art work on the EP?

I kind of do a lot of DIY work as an independent artist. One of my best friends Ash Newell, he’s a photographer in Nashivlle, he is amazing! He has taken pictures of Taylor Swift, rock and rollers, he is fantastic. He has been a really good friend to me and he was like “Lys come over, let’s do some pictures” and I am so grateful for people like Ash in my life because as an independent artist it’s really hard to hire incredible photographers because a lot of them are really expensive. Ash has always helped me out and we did that cover together. I just loved the way he captured me with my guitar and then I had this app called prequel which is so cool and it’s like a photo editing app and art app. It can create graphics and stuff and I wanted flowers to be blooming out of me because when I think about Love Wins that is what I think about. I have seem some photos of instead of guns shooting bullets their shooting flowers and I just think that is such a beautiful concept of what happens if every bad things was replaced with love and flowers and peace. So I wanted that! I was grateful that I got to use my little app and I kind of created the art work myself and my friend Kate did the little Love Wins for me and I put it on the EP

Who do you play your new songs to first for an a honest opinion?

My mum and dad always! My dad always has ideas and I know if he doesn’t have any idea then it’s probably really good! If he has ideas it means maybe its not right yet haha. They are a great feedback committee

Do you have any unfinished songs that you really like but haven’t finished yet? but you plan to complete?

I actually have a full length album that I’m working on right now! I have been working on this album for about three years and then I canned all the stuff I had and now I went back in (the studio) in January. I was so excited that I got to record all these songs live. I don’t know what it is about recording in a day but I just like getting them all out. I went in with some amazing musicans in Nashville in sound emporium and we cut one songs in a day. Then I went back in April to finish it, we did another five songs. So I have got a full length record that I am finishing right now. It’s in the mixing phases. I am really excited about those!

Oh can’t wait!

Can you remember the very first song that you write and is it out there for the world to hear?

The very first song? Yeah! I was obsessed with Ballerinas and me and my dad wrote this song called Dream about Dancers Lives hahaah. (Starts singing it)

Aww beautiful ! How old were you?

I think I was five? Haha

Aww. Please sing it live one day

Maybe, maybe haha. I used to dance and I wanted to be a ballerina but my feet were too flat and I was told to go to tap dancing and hip hop so I ended up being a really good tap dancer haha

We did like hip hop, tap and it was almost like stomp. I took some classes in New York -I was really into dancing growing up.

Awww!