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A Little Bit Country … sang in local talent shows. She eventually paired with Nashville songwriter Frank Vinci, who has worked with the likes of Tim McGraw, to complete her first demo tape of three songs by her senior year of high school. “The demo was the best way to start because you have to have something to show someone,” Frechette says. “It didn’t just sound like me singing karaoke songs. They were actual studio songs.”
Nicole Frechette ’06
A born-and-bred Connecticut girl with a talent for country music may seem like an enigma in the tri-state area, but as Nicole Frechette ’06 sings on her latest album, Life Had Other Plans. Her 2006 self-titled country pop album debuts eight tracks of upbeat songs in tune with a crescendo of bass, piano, banjo and fiddle. Recorded in Nashville, Tenn., Frechette’s robust vocals belie her age — she’s only 21 — as she sings of love, life and struggle. “You have to be comfortable with what you want to sing,” says Frechette, whose grandmother exposed her to “real music” by Patsy Cline. “I wanted to sing country. That was the first decision I made.” Not that she shuns country’s present stars. Frechette says she developed her country twang from listening to the likes of the Dixie Chicks, Shania Twain and Leanne Womack. While country music may have been like a second skin for Frechette, the process of making the CD prodded her out of her comfort zone. Starting out, she
With a successful demo under her belt, Frechette entered Manhattan College. She majored in communications, which she says helped her as she transitioned from the demo to making the CD. “I learned about packaging and promotions, marketing, public relations,” she says. “So I realized that if you could hand people a product that they’re impressed with, they’ll actually put more attention into it, and they’ll gravitate more toward it because it’s finished.” Frechette turned to Paul Scialabba, owner of Total Traxx studio in Connecticut, who she had worked with on and off since she was 13. The demo had captured his interest, and he introduced her to his college friend David Northrup, the road drummer for country star Travis Tritt. The two men would co-produce Frechette’s album. At Manhattan, Frechette juggled music and classes. She says, in many ways, she was able to get credit for the CD due to the things she was doing on the side, such as an internship at Sony. “I decided to really incorporate my music into my schooling,” Frechette says. “I took the cooperative internship and my regular internship and my senior seminar — all of them had to do with my music.” She also went to Nashville to immerse herself in the country scene and record the album at the highly respected studio Sound Emporium. “It is important to go down and meet people and rub elbows,” Frechette says
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of her trips to Nashville. Previously, she traveled mostly in or near Connecticut. On one such trip, she met the writer Kris Bergsnes through a contact at BMI Publishing, a company that licenses the music of artists and protects their copyrights. He wrote some of the songs on her CD and introduced her to other writers. Because Frechette doesn’t write her own lyrics yet, she combed through nearly 1,000 songs in search of just the right ones to record for her CD. The songs are befitting to both her voice and life experiences. To promote her CD, she created a MySpace page and started her own Web site and company. High on her agenda is a permanent move to Tennessee, but for now, Frechette keeps one foot planted in the Northeast and the other in Nashville. This May, she started singing with a band nearly every other Sunday night in Nashville bars and recently got together her own band to perform East Coast gigs. She plans to take advantage of popular festivals and fairs to show her talent, always with an eye on her ultimate goal, a self-sponsored showcase in Nashville. “I want to be able to sing every day because it’s a blessing to be able to sing at all,” she says. “It’s a blessing to be able to do what I want for a living…Plus, the glamour isn’t all that bad.” Ever the realist, Frechette knows she has a lot ahead of her. To pay the bills, she works as a hostess at a local restaurant. She says she realizes that she may have to starve as an artist to get where she wants to be, but no matter, she is in it for the long haul. “It’s a road, and I am going down it,” she says. “There have been lots of bumps, and it’s going to get bumpier, but it’s really all I can do. You kind of just stick with it and see what happens, but I am really excited. I am looking forward to every process and every aspect of it.”
Check out Nicole Frechette at www.nicolefrechette.com or www.myspace.com/nicolefrechette.