Latest / The Scene Projects / Luana Sandoval: From Brooklyn to Nashville, Musical Evolution and Future Plans

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Luana Sandoval: From Brooklyn to Nashville, Musical Evolution and Future Plans · The Scene Projects

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  Today, we're joined by singer songwriter and actress Luanna Sandoval.
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  She's a five lingual artist based in Brooklyn who's appeared on American Idol, worked on
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  Dolly Parton's Mountain Magic Christmas, and released powerful songs like La Sole Dad and
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  award nominated music videos like Sent From Heaven.
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  Stay tuned.
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  This is gonna be a good one.
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  This program is part of the Scene Projects podcast network.
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  Scene Project features interviews with independent musicians, comedians, and artists
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  from across the Midwest.
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  Become part of our community and support local art wherever you are.
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  Well, welcome in to another exciting episode of the scene.
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  I am your host, Bubba Starts, and with me today is Luana Sandoval.
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  Welcome to the show.
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  Hello.
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  Thank you for having me.
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  Yeah.
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  Well, it's probably a little bit warmer than it was the last time we got to talk.
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  That's very true.
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  Yes.
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  It's like an extended summer.
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  Yeah.
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  Well and I just saw they announced the dates for next year's Josie music awards where we
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  obviously met on the red carpet, and it's in September.
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  So I was very grateful for that.
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  That's wonderful.
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  That's even better.
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  Yeah.
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  So before we get into all the stuff that you're doing now, which I'm sure you're very busy, I'd
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  love to just give you the floor here and let you give us a little bit of your backstory.
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  Okay.
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  Go ahead.
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  Go ahead and tell us a little bit about, you know, where where you come from and and, kinda
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  how you got into music.
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  Alright.
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  So I, started writing music when I was 14 years old, and I all I had was a notebook and a
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  guitar.
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  I I taught myself how to play the guitar.
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  And then from there, my parents, they always brought me to opera opera shows and ballet
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  shows at the theater where we lived in Germany.
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  And I just fell in love with the music, and then I decided to study opera singing.
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  That was between 2012 and 2016.
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  And from there, I felt like, okay.
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  I I don't live where I wanna be, and I just explored New York.
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  And that's when I decided to move to The States.
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  And then from there, I also recorded my first EP.
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  I have it right here in front of me.
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  Right here.
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  And yes.
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  And then I also lived in Nashville for a while, and I also had my own TV show, a talk show for
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  songwriters called songs of my life.
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  And it's also named by my latest album, songs of my life.
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  And this this album was nominated for wavy music award for album of the year.
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  And, also, the song La Salidad is included, and that's a song I wrote with Madonna's former
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  percussionist, and he's playing the guitar on the track.
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  Incredible.
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  So many things to get into.
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  I hope I can keep this to a twenty minute interview.
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  So, obviously, you know, born in Germany and kinda raised there until you moved to The
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  States?
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  That's correct.
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  Yes.
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  In in a multilingual house, I'm assuming.
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  Is it is it your dad who's German and mom's Nicaraguan or the other way around?
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  It's the other way around.
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  So mom's
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  German, dad's Nicaraguan, raised in Germany, lover of opera at an early age, which I don't
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  think happens to a lot of people.
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  But talk a little bit about that.
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  We don't get a lot of people on the show, at least currently, that were, you know, raised in
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  Europe.
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  So talk about, like, the music scene and especially, like, the opera scene in in
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  Germany.
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  Where at in Germany did you did you grow up?
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  I grew up in a small town called Sarburg.
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  It's in the South.
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  It's close to Trier, which is the oldest city in Germany.
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  We have a lot of history, Roman Empire, and it's also close to Luxembourg.
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  It's our neighbor country.
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  So I was already, you know, on the right spot.
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  Like, a lot of culture, and we every city, every town has a theater.
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  So there's a lot of culture.
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  I was exposed to a lot of culture at an early age.
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  And, also, since I grew up in Europe, it was easy for me to learn different languages in
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  school, and we had a lot of exchange programs with other schools from other countries and
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  exchange for with culture.
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  And so it was easy for me.
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  Well and and you were growing so did you learn Spanish in the home as you're learning German
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  growing up as well?
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  Yes.
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  I I luckily, I was raised bilingual because of my parents.
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  No.
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  I I'm jealous.
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  In The United States, obviously, and you've probably learned this, that there's not a lot
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  of us that learn any other language besides English.
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  I was fortunate to take a couple years of Spanish, and then I actually lived in Mexico
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  for a year.
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  And I wish I had taken more Spanish before I had moved there.
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  But once I got there, everyone just wanted to speak English, so it didn't do me a lot.
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  Not done pointing.
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  Yeah.
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  Very basic.
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  Yeah.
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  It's easy it's easy to get a lot of stuff done with a small vocabulary, but I I that's also a
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  very foreign, experience to a lot of people, especially from, you know, the state that I
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  grew up.
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  And I grew up in South Dakota.
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  So not a lot of people are are really getting out of South Dakota period, much less going to
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  a foreign country and living as I did there for almost a year and not as, like, a foreign
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  exchange student or anything like that.
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  I'd landed there in a, I will say, in a precarious situation to say the least.
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  Envy the European cultures.
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  And because you're surrounded by so many different languages and, you know, you crossed
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  the bar.
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  You said you're close to Luxembourg, so that's Switzerland?
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  No.
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  That's so that that will be well, Luxembourg, that's the country, and then they speak
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  Luxembourgish, which sounds like a very strange German accent or German dialect, I would say,
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  and they also speak French.
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  Yeah.
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  Right.
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  So, yeah, you're you're going just across the border, and you have to know two other
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  languages.
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  Like, it's just a different it's just such a different upbringing.
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  So exactly why you would need to know five languages fluently just to be able to to move
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  around and and to be comfortable when you do cross over those borders.
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  Now moving to New York City, obviously, when you came to The States, you landed in Brooklyn
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  then?
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  So I landed in Brooklyn.
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  I spent I first came as a tourist in December 2016.
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  I spent three months in this in New York to explore the city and to make a decision if I
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  wanna move here and, you know, to find to figure out how to get a work visa and so forth.
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  Because it's hard when, you know, when you don't know anyone, and how am I gonna get a
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  work visa without having professional connections?
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  So so I figured that out.
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  I found somebody who sponsored my artist visa.
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  And, also, yeah, he happened to be my music producer of my first record.
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  So I ended up leaving US with with this record in my hands.
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  And so, yeah, it was quite an experience to to go to Times Square for the very first time
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  coming from a small town in Germany, and I felt like, okay.
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  This is the city I wanna live in.
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  It's so energetic.
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  And, yeah, it's just everything fell into place.
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  Yeah.
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  It almost seems like you were you were born to go there and to do these things and to live
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  this beautiful, magical life that you've led since then.
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  What did people think like, when you come back to your small town from The United States and
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  you have your record now and, like, what's the reaction from your your friends and family that
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  are that are close to you in your little town in Germany?
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  They were blown away by what I have accomplished within three months.
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  And I'm always, somebody who thinks outside the box and make the impossible possible.
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  So a lot of people in my small town, they they think, like, in the box, and they feel like
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  everything is impossible.
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  So I I already had, at an early age, a different mindset, probably also because my dad
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  is from Nicaragua, so I was already exposed to a different culture.
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  And I'd say that definitely helps.
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  And for your dad, I mean, it doesn't seem like it's a very easy thing to come from Nicaragua
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  and end up in Germany married to a beautiful German woman and building a life in a foreign
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  country.
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  Right?
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  So I think that probably inspires you a little bit to know that nothing is impossible, and the
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  only limits that there are truly in this world are the ones that we put on ourselves in our
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  minds.
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  Right?
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  When you tell yourself that you can't do something, well, then I will almost be assured
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  that you will not do that thing.
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  But if you come to every situation with the mentality that you can succeed and you can
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  conquer whatever situation is in front of you, then you will do exactly that.
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  Absolutely.
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  Yes.
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  So from Brooklyn so when you come back to The States, you're you're back in Brooklyn.
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  That that's where your visa was sponsored.
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  How did you end up in Nashville then?
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  Okay.
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  So I've so my move was in May 2018 from Germany to to New York, and then I was doing pretty
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  well until COVID hit like anyone else.
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  So I was already planning on going to Nashville anyways for a whole month in October 2020.
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  I was supposed to go a to a songwriting retreat with Judy Stakey.
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  She was she used to work for Warnock Chapel, and she also was Katy Perry's songwriting
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  mentor and for so many other artists.
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  So I'd already took a couple lessons with her over Zoom, and she was supposed to do an in
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  person retreat in Nashville.
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  Obviously, she had to cancel because of COVID.
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  I already had my my flight booked, my everything, and I was like, I'm going anyways
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  to just see I was already thinking of moving there anyways because the situation in New York
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  was not pretty with everything being shut down.
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  And so I spent the whole month of October in Nashville.
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  Also, I spent a couple weeks, a couple days in Memphis and in the Smoky Mountains.
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  I went to the Dollywood theme parks, and I was inspired.
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  I wrote a couple songs.
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  I ended up getting an apartment in Downtown Nashville.
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  I found work, and I was like, okay.
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  It makes sense to move to Nashville for a while.
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  And then in December 2020, after my audition in California for American Idol, I moved to
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  Nashville.
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  Fantastic.
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  So I'd love to talk about I was actually born in Tennessee, in the Southern part of Tennessee
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  down by Chattanooga.
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  I'm curious what the was it comfortable for you to, like because, obviously, New York is just,
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  like, its own country.
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  Right?
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  Like, it it's its own entity.
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  It's this massive city, this huge metropolitan area, not a lot of trees and mountains and
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  those things.
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  Did it feel a little bit like home kinda coming from Southern Germany, which I'm sure is more
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  forested land and and maybe not like big mountains, but is it similar in look and feel
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  more so than, obviously, New York City to back home?
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  So it's very interesting.
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  The feeling of being in Nashville I'm right now in Nashville as well.
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  I have a show tonight.
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  I feel like I'm back home in in the small town in Germany, but still, Nashville is a big city
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  as well.
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  And in New York, it's very European, so it's, like, traveling in within different European
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  countries.
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  So it's I I like the combination of both both both cities, New York and Nashville.
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  Yeah.
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  How amazing.
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  And were you at the CMAs last night?
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  No.
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  I had a show yesterday, and then I went to Downtown Nashville.
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  I saw all the people dressed up.
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  And so tonight, I'm performing at the Wedge at 2026 Linden Avenue.
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  It's my first ticketed event in Nashville.
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  Amazing.
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  Well, I'm so happy for you.
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  I I hope that it goes so well tonight, and, we can't wait to follow your career.
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  It's just such a incredible story.
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  Now as you're performing, obviously, you studied opera early on.
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  I'm assuming that you're not doing just opera music any longer, you know, performing.
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  So what is your sound like?
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  I mean, you have so many different influences that you could pull from.
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  So what is the music that you're writing and performing currently?
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  What's that like?
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  So my music is a mix of kind of musical theater, Gloria, Stefa, Madonna, Americana
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  music, to put it into one thing to describe it.
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  So it sounds very much like very melodic, very strong in storytelling.
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  But still, the way I'm singing it, it's more like not ex not exactly musical theater, but
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  very lyrical.
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  And people also ask me all the time, are you do you have a background in opera singing?
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  So it's like pop opera kind of.
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  Yeah.
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  Opera.
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  It's easier for people to listen to my music rather than me describing it.
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  Yeah.
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  Well, we can't wait to do that.
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  I I I can't wait to find it and have you send them in.
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  We'll play them on our scene projects radio station and get those.
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  And I love having an eclectic mix.
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  People ask me, like, oh, what's your music station like?
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  And I was like, you can't put that in a box either because it's really the soundtrack of my
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  of my life and of all of these beautiful, amazing, inspiring individuals that I've met,
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  it it's very much like the world's on shuffle.
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  Right?
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  Here.
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  Here's the music of the whole world and and take it in and and just appreciate it.
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  I'm not someone who has ever just been about, like, one thing.
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  I kinda fell into the country music world.
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  I've always been more on, like, the rock or reggae side of things.
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  Right?
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  I've had a lot of the new album I just released, a lot of people comparing it to,
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  like, Sublime or Slightly Stupid or some of these bands that kinda rode that rock reggae
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  line.
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  But because of where I live in the in the middle of the Midwest, I had to start playing a
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  little bit more country music.
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  And not that some of my music doesn't have a little bit of that turn, that it just I feel
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  like country music and and especially a place like Nashville, that's where the songwriting
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  lives.
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  And the storytellers, that's kind of where we fall into now because there's not a lot of room
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  for that in pop music anymore or in rock music.
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  There it's just that.
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  Do you feel the same way that country music in Nashville is very accepting to you because of
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  that songwriting and storytelling that you're doing with your music?
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  Yes.
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  Definitely.
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  It has changed over the years.
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  Like, when I when I look back to, like, Donnie Pott and Johnny Cash back back in the old days
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  and now nowadays how the country music has developed, now it's like there's another genre
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  called contemporary country music and country pop, country rock.
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  So it has changed a lot.
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  And I feel like what you hear on the radio from country music is so much different than people
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  like you or I would be exposed to.
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  Obviously, you were at the Josie Music Awards, and you're part of these other, you know,
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  songwriting groups and different things that you're really meeting artists that aren't in on
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  that radio ready kind of popular country music side, which is very much different from the
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  music that we're hearing from our friends.
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  Very true.
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  Yes.
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  So new album, ticketed shows, you're it seems like things are moving really fast.
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  You're, you know, winning awards and hanging out at award shows now.
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  Is this everything that you wanted when you left Germany in 2016 to pursue this dream of
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  music?
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  Yes.
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  It was always my dream, and I feel like I'm living the dream.
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  But I always feel like I I can do so much more.
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  There's there's more out there.
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  So right now, I'm working.
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  I have I started my own band project in New York last year and aiming to go on tour pretty
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  soon.
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  So that's my next milestone.
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  Luanna, are you independent, or do you have, like, a management and booking agent and those
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  kind of things that are helping you along, or is this all you just making things happen?
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  This is all me making things happen.
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  Incredible.
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  At some point, obviously, I want to have a team.
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  Yeah.
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  I have a small team.
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  I have my music producers, and that's but that's pretty much it.
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  I have one PR person that I hire from time to time for different things, but, yeah, the rest,
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  that's all on me here.
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  Yeah.
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  You are very much in control of your own destiny, and I think that is just so incredible
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  how you've grabbed the bull by the horns from a small town in Germany and said, I want to
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  pursue this.
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  I want this life.
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  And then you just went out there and got it.
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  That is so inspiring.
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  It is.
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  I feel like a lot of people feel like because it is challenging it is a challenging industry.
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  They tell themselves, I will never try it because, obviously, there's a lot of money
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  involved that you put into it first until you make it back at some point.
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  So a lot of people step back from it and say, oh, I can't do this.
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  So I want to be an inspiration for other people who are pursuing this career.
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  Fantastic.
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  Well, you're inspiring me.
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  Over the last year and a half, this podcast has really taken more of my time than the my music
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  career has.
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  But releasing this new album and seeing it, you know, charting on Internet radio stations in
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  The UK right now and getting some play in France and different things, and it's only been
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  out for just over a week.
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  It's it's reinvigorating me as an artist and as a songwriter to get out there.
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  And really seeing everyone at the Josie's inspired me.
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  I had a 150 artists.
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  I just counted up all my autographs yesterday.
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  So we did a 150 interviews on the red carpet, and I'm just so incredibly motivated by seeing
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  everyone else chasing this dream and knowing that I'm not the only one.
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  Because I live in a very small town in South Dakota still, and and I have no intentions of
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  ever, like, moving to Nashville or Brooklyn or or any of these big music centers.
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  I kinda did that.
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  Right?
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  I I'm it's just not that part of my life.
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  My my wife loves her small town.
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  My kids do very well in the school here, so I don't want to uproot their lives.
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  But I feel like in this day and age that you don't need to necessarily live in these places
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  to have influence.
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  Right?
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  Like, you you don't live in Nashville.
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  Obviously, you have a very comfortable you know, having lived there before, you're very
• 20:57
  comfortable.
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  But you can move in and move out of the city, still feel at home, but not have to put down
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  your residence there.
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  That's very true.
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  And with the technology nowadays, you can collaborate with musicians from around the
• 21:13
  globe, literally.
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  I have somebody said that they collaborated with somebody in Portugal on and this album was
• 21:23
  now nominated for a Grammy award.
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  So, you know, it's out there.
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  Incredible.
• 21:31
  Well, Luana, tell everyone where they can find your music online, and I'll let you get out of
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  here so you can prepare for your show tonight.
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  You can find me at luanasandoval.official on all social media or on my website,
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  luanasandoval.com.
• 21:48
  Luana, so much.
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  Thank you for your time today, and I I appreciate you.
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  Good luck to you and all that you do.
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  And I hope to catch up to you in Nashville or on the road somewhere on tour or maybe if I
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  ever make it to New York City, which is now kinda one of the last items on the bucket list
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  of my music career, and I'll come see you there.
• 22:12
  Wonderful.
• 22:12
  It was a pleasure.
• 22:14
  Thanks for having me.
• 22:15
  Thank you for being part of the scene.