Music drew Van in early, “I started singing when I was 2-3 years old and then I started writing music when I was 9 years old.. The songs would just come to me, so I would write them down. I loved Dolly Parton, like, my Dad used to play her music all the time and I loved her songs. My Dad was very, very supportive. He was amazing. I don't know if he seriously thought this would work, but when I was a little kid he'd say, 'You need to mail that song to Dolly Parton!’ I was nine or ten years old and I'd get my song and put it in an envelope and mail it to Dolly Parton in Nashville , Tennessee . It never came back, or if it did, he never told me, so it just went somewhere. He was very supportive. My Mom was a little bit less like that, but she was still pretty supportive. She let me take music lessons and helped me when I did competitions and stuff like that.”
Traditional country was ingrained in Van from a young age, hook-driven music from Dolly Parton, Shania Twain, and EmmyLou Harris was a staple in her household,
“When I was in high school I wrote a couple of pop songs, but pretty much everything has been country, I think because of the music I heard when I was growing up. I did like talent shows and talent contests and stuff like that. One time, I won a high school talent contest that we had when I was growing up. I placed in county fair competitions.”
“I decided a few years ago to actually make the move to Nashville and try to do it for a living. When I graduated from high school I went to college in Chicago and switched to a college in Minnesota from there, but I’d been sending stuff to Nashville . Then, I suddenly realized, it's not going to help me if I’m sending it from somewhere else - I have to actually be there. So, that’s what made me decide to come. I've had a lot of people really get involved in my career and try to help me. Makes a difference.” While Van is being considered by a couple of major labels, she is still enjoying the success of her own making and enjoying every minute of it,
“My day job is real estate; I don’t want to say that I like real estate. That's what I do when I'm not doing music to earn a living. I like to decorate and see movies and go listen to other live music and traveling, I love traveling. I've been doing a whole bunch of touring, went to Sweden for two weeks in February and did some shows there. In Sweden it was amazing. I'm trying; I'm struggling to make it in Nashville , but in Sweden they'd like heard a lot of my music, so it was like I was a rock star. So, how nice everyone was there. It was really cool. It's been an adventure.”
Van’s self-titled debut album was nominated for the 2007 Country Album of the year in Europe. Her current single ‘Forever Ago’ has had radio play in major cities across the U.S and abroad.
“There are 10 songs on my CD. I wrote 6 of the songs, two are written by my producer, and friends of mine that I love their songs. I asked if I could put them on my CD. Two of the songs that I wrote on the CD, I actually wrote when I was 18 and those just got picked up by a Swedish label, they're going to put it out across like 4 different countries in Europe . And then the other song on there is getting picked up by Universal Records in France and they're sending it across Europe . I've had three songs that were charted here. ‘Forever Ago’ is best I've had so far.”
Van’s personal down-home country sound is reminiscent of the strong women she listened to as a child, “I write most of my music and I write from like real life experience and stuff that I'm going through or stuff that someone close to me has experienced. I've been told by a lot of people that they really can relate to my music. That's really important to me. When I write it's touching a chord in my heart. I want it to really inspire or reach others to.”
| written by Debbie DuBois Miller
