Tiny blonde firecracker Adriene Smith calls her songwriting style “smart country.” Confident that her lyrics are “as visually stimulating as they are sing-a-long-able” she is a vital member of the Alabama based Rockit City Writers. She “sings out accolades” to Rockit City Writers, Phil Smith, Alabama’s premier musician and melody master, along with Katherine Smith the group’s English major, and Clayton Ross’ young country style. They also happen to be her dad, mom and little brother respectively.

“I believe in fate, and Rockit City Writers came together in a natural way. Not to say it's always a pleas-ant session. Sometimes we fight over lines and notes and style, and sometimes it pours out like melted butter. I wake up at the crack of dawn with a blinding hook-line and even a partial song. And crank out a complete lyric, then it goes to Katherine to tweak its form, then it goes to Phil to lay down a basic melody, and then we listen and feel the love or hate or adventure in it. Finally it goes to Clayton Ross for an innate sense of what is current and what country music fans are hungry for.”

Regarding the discovery of talent within her Adriene says, “I have had two light bulb moments in my life” The first of those “light bulb” moments took place in high school when Adriene took up portraiture on a whim, “I never had an art class previous and it landed me a full college scholarship” and then she found songwriting, “I picked myself up from a devastating divorce and poured my broken heart into song.”

“I grew up with the "you can be anything you want to be" liberated theme. I was tomboy that grew up surrounded by men. We helped raise 4 boy cousins, and I am very close to my brother. I've done every kind of fishing, but I especially like jug fishing and shark deep-sea fishing and I ride my 250 Honda 4-wheeler in the summer. But 6 years of advanced point ballet gave me balance and the appreciation of classical music.” Being surrounded by men continues over to her adult life, she is the proud mother of two sons Bleau and Beau aged 7 and 5.

”I am a sensory person.” She says in reflection of herself, “I want to see it in Technicolor, feel it to my very core, touch it when I shouldn't, taste it, enjoy the summer jasmine, and hear an orchestra of whippoorwill, croaking bullfrog, the sound of toes tapping, singing to a guitar on the back porch. That's nirvana to me.”

Everyone craves a Cinderella story and Adriene has, as she puts it, just been kissed by Nashville, her Prince, full on the lips. “I’m living it all, the pain of divorce, the search for love, the worry of unpaid bills, and the abandon of cutting loose in Nashville’s hottest spots. Cadillac Ranch, Elevation, Tin Roof, 3rd and Lindsley!” Adriene says with a contagious laugh.

This feisty ‘Alabamian’ feels she’s finding her own place in Tennessee after, “cutting my teeth at the famous Blue Bird with Barbara Cloyd.” She is grateful to have co-written with some of Country Music’s greats, namely Walt Aldridge, and attributes much of her Nashville success to, “invaluable help from ASCAP’s Dan Keen and juicy tidbits I’ve garnered from Steve Dorff, Henry Murphy, Clay Mills, Charlie Craig, Lance, Joe Hrasna, and Dave Berg.”

Fueled by her deep-seated faith which she says is, “softened with a ‘live and let live attitude’ and a ‘live like you are dying’ drive.” Adriene is raring and ready to take the songwriting world by storm. “It's not the desire for money,” she says, “it is the desire to succeed.”

The quote from her song co-written with Brian White rings true “She’s Chasin’ A Dream Across the Rocky Top!”