Brooke Eden would like to reintroduce herself. The rising singer-songwriter has been an exciting voice in country music since the release of her debut EP Welcome to the Weekend in 2016, earning devoted fans over the last several years with her exceptional songwriting, dazzling live performances and arena-worthy vocals. While that first chapter of her journey was an important one, what she shared with the world — musically and personally — didn't always line up with who Eden really is.
It's taken a lot of writing and reflection to reach this point, but Eden is ready to let the world meet her true self. She's a country artist, sure, but she's also a passionate fan of all music, as pop and soul figure just as importantly into making the music she loves. She's also a storyteller, perfectly able to craft her experiences into moving, vulnerable songs, that can be felt by all. And she's in love, proudly sharing with the world that she's met the "love of her life," her girlfriend of five years.
As part of this next chapter in her journey, Eden will share three new songs via BBR Music Group in the coming months: "No Shade," "Sunroof" and "Got No Choice." Eden wrote all three of the new tracks, which were produced by Jesse Frasure (Florida Georgia Line, Thomas Rhett, Kane Brown), in a flurry of creativity inspired by her newfound freedom and self-acceptance.
"All the songs came out very happy and up-tempo and light," she says. "I felt like if this is going to be my music and these are going to be my songs, then I need to live this life out loud and I need to live this love out loud. I talked to the label about it and they said, 'We see you. We get you. We love you. Let's do this.'"
Eden wrote the new music in the years since Welcome to the Weekend's release amongst a season of profound personal and professional growth. Originally discouraged from sharing her identity as a queer woman, Eden’s deepening relationship with her girlfriend and a newfound commitment to living authentically led her to pursue the next era of her musical career on her own terms.
"No Shade," written with Steven Lee Olsen and Brandon Day, reintroduces Eden with a clever play on a break-up song. Though more than that, it's the story of a woman rediscovering herself after spending years in a situation that stifled who she was and who she wanted to be. "Nobody going to steal my sunshine or turn my blue sky grey / All I know is at the end of the day wildflowers grow when there ain't no shade," Eden sings, and you can hear the two meanings at work in her powerhouse vocal.
"I was talking to someone the day before we wrote 'No Shade' and I said, 'There's no shade coming your way from me,'" she explains. "I wrote that down and thought there was something freeing in having no bad feelings toward someone who's done something bad to you... We originally started writing it about a friend of mine coming out of a bad relationship. She didn't see for so long what she was living in. But it's also about your own self-awareness to take responsibility for yourself and start anew. I felt that way not only in my past relationships but also in my own mental state."
"Sunroof," with its wildly infectious melody and retro, "Wall of Sound" production style, is like sunshine in a bottle, capturing the joyful feeling of the first warm day of the year. Listening to the track, you can clearly hear Eden's own joy in finally getting to be her true self, with her soulful, soaring vocal taking on a buoyant quality never before heard in her music. Eden wrote the track with Frasure and Sarah Buxton.
"We wrote 'Sunroof' about three years ago," she says. “I remembered sitting in front of a Mexican restaurant when my girlfriend was picking up some take-out for dinner. I opened my sunroof and realized it was the first warm day of the year. It just felt so freeing to finally be able to feel the warmth in the air and I remember thinking, 'This is the way this love makes me feel.' So, I had the idea for 'Sunroof' when I went into the write with Jesse and Sarah, about how good love feels like the first day of the year when you can open your sunroof again."
The hopeful, melodic anthem "Got No Choice," penned with Frasure and Cary Barlow, rounds out the trio, marking one of the first love songs Eden has ever written. Unsurprisingly, there's an extra spark in Eden's vocal on "Got No Choice," which veers effortlessly between sassy swagger and a soulful swoon.
"Before I met my girlfriend, I had never written a love song," she says. "A lot of my songs were very cynical, and dark and angsty. When I met Hilary, everything changed. Even though we were terrified of the outside world, when it was just the two of us in our bubble, nothing was easier. Nothing was lighter or happier. My whole perspective on life changed when I met her... I wanted people to feel like, 'Yeah, we may be two women, but our love is just like yours.'"
Frasure proved to be a perfect collaborator for Eden, as he was able to translate her eclectic influences — like '90s pop, retro girl-group soul, and of course, country — into a singular sound.
"He created this sound that is truly me," Eden says. "It’s my dream sound. It’s happy; it’s groovy; it’s kind of retro in the way that it’s done. It’s the way that I wanted my music to sound. It took me seven years of being in Nashville to find that sound, and seven years of writing probably 100 to 150 songs a year to find my voice."
Each of the three tracks will be accompanied by a new music video – all directed Ford Fairchild, and all featuring Eden’s own girlfriend. Together, the trio loosely accounts Brooke’s transition from her loveless and more cynical past, to her happy, authentic, and proudly romantic current self. "No Shade" is set at the Jupiter, Florida tiki bar where Eden once worked as a bartender and vocalist, before making her way to Nashville. Also filmed in Jupiter, "Sunroof" is set immediately after it’s prequel, and illustrates the excitement felt when immediate chemistry builds from flirtation into a true connection. The trilogy’s finale “Got No Choice” highlights the warmth of Eden and her girlfriend’s fully developed relationship, on display through a Summer’s boat cruise.
"I want to be an example for everyone who knows how hard it can be to be open, and the journey that you have to take," she says of crafting her video narrative. "For me a lot of it was self-acceptance and self-realization. But this video is what the other side looks like. I thought that it was important that we’re showing the other side - the sunny, happy side of what this can look like."
Eden's new music comes on the heels of her wildly successful Welcome to the Weekend single "Act Like You Don't," which has over 26.6 million on-demand streams. Since making her debut, Eden has shared stages with country’s biggest stars like Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw, Sam Hunt, Dan + Shay, Florida Georgia Line, Kane Brown, and Sugarland.
With stellar new music and lots to share in 2021, this year is already poised to be a big one for Eden, whose star is sure to rise even higher. And best of all, this time around she's doing it all on her own terms.
"What’s cool about my story is that I’ve already gotten to do this one time," Eden says. "I think it’s cool that I get to do this again with music that I love so much and music that says something that I want to say."
