Help Alana Create An Album

Hello,

My name is Alana Hayes and today I'm asking you to help fund me in fulfilling my dream to release an album. I'm currently a singer-songwriter and poet who's been struggling a bit due to recent global events that we all have shared in these last few years. If you're interested in seeing more of my writing and getting to know more about me I strongly encourage you to check out my websites and YouTube linked below:

Alana Hayes:

On the link above you can access my website. There you will find links to my recently released song, Jump In The Fire. This song is available on multiple streaming platforms including: Deezer, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube.

WomanAsRiot

On the link above you can gain access to some of my writing including poetry, short stories, and blog entries. I'm constantly working to update and create more content for my site. Through my website you can also find access/links to My Hanukkah spoof of Ariana Grande's 'Thank U, Next' (which I released on SoundCloud), interviews I've done relating to my work, and links to other websites my work has been published. 

My YouTube Channel

Here on my YouTube you can find videos of me performing covers of songs by other artists as well as original pieces I wrote myself (both songs and poetry).

My Story:

It's hard to know where or exactly how to begin, but I'm going to say this stage of my story started back in 2019. I know 2020 was rough for everyone, but 2019 was already a rough year for me before the whole world went to hell. I was struggling a lot with some changes that took place in my life and all of these things really took a toll on my mental health and my sense of self. Looking back now - just a few years later - I feel like this was the beginning of me letting go of the person I thought I was and really learning for the first time who I am. Learning about this person in me who exists outside of those expectations I had placed on myself and the path I thought my life was supposed to take. 

It was really hard and messy to go through everything back then. I spent a long time feeling like a failure and like I was unworthy of my place in the world. Unfortunately, I think this is an all to common feeling amongst many of us. It's a hard thing to fight through and overcome, but we all have to keep trying anyway. Even now, I'm only a few years of working my way out of one of the lowest points of my life and I'm still not where I want to be, but I AM somewhere better than I was. I hope I'll continue to get somewhere even better with each passing year. 

Since 2019 I've completed and released a poetry book on Kindle, I've released one song (with plans to release more soon), and I signed with management. I'm incredibly proud of all these achievements and, with your help, I hope to be able to do even more!

I have stacks of notebooks and audio files full of songs waiting for a chance to get produced and released out into the world. I'm working hard to make my dreams a reality. Unfortunately I don't really have the funds to complete an album or ep right now, but that's why I need your help. I love singing and writing so much. It's such an important piece of me that whether I make money off of it or not it's something I'll always do because I can't help it. I need it. Writing a song or a poem is like creating a puzzle and then figuring out how to solve it all by yourself. It's honestly the BEST feeling in the entire world. If you would be willing to help me fund this project then I would be able to share with the world all these things that I create that I'm SO INCREDIBLY proud of.

I've always been taught that truly great art is made first and foremost for the person who creates it and secondly for everyone else. I've always taken that to mean that FIRST - before anything else - I as the writer or artist or whatever I am - I should make something because I just love making it. I've always felt that if I lost sight of that I would lose the soul of what I'm creating. So, I never give it up. When I write I'm my loudest, craziest, happiest, saddest, wildest, most authentic self. I never feel more like me than I do when I write and I think it shows. I think you can see it in my blogs, my poems, my short stories, and ESPECIALLY my songs. So, now that I've done that. Now, that I've created for ME. I'm DYING to share it with YOU. But, I need your help to do that. So PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE go read some of my stories, go listen to me sing and perform poems on my YouTube, go follow me on Instagram (@iamalanahayes) and if you feel like my voice and my words are something you want to support and help put out into the world consider donating here to help me complete this album.

My Album: 

Being as my album isn't currently in production I can only give you a basic outline of what you'd be funding. So, the name of my album is going to be Sleepless In The Dark which is a line from one a my favorite songs that I wrote for the album. This album/ep will most likely be around 7 songs long. The style of my album/ep is very much Indie Pop with some hints of rock, soft rock, and folk/country sound.

Some of the themes this album deals with include loss, grief, anger, and heartbreak. Essentially they are the things that make us "sleepless in the night". They aren't a resolution to a problem, but rather a recognition of both the fact that we experience different types of pain in this life (and that suck), but, also, that we can find our way through those things.

The hardest times offer us a chance to grow. They offer us the opportunity to learn to understand how we feel and why we feel the way we do. They help teach us who we are, who and what we want, and possibly, most importantly, who and what we don't want. They teach us what to fight for and how to say goodbye.

I don't know much about Reinhold Niebuhr outside of this quote: "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Most of us know this quote or some variation of it, even if we weren't aware of the source, but I think my album, or the album I hope to make with your help, embodies this quote. We can't make someone love us if they don't, but we can control how we let that affect the way we love ourselves. We can't stop death and loss from happening, but we can decide if and how we spend those final moments with them. We can also chose how we remember those people and honor that love. We can't undo mistakes made in the past, but we can fight for a better future. This is what my album is supposed to be. An ode to the things we can change and the things we can't and how all of that makes us who we are.

And that's really all I can think to say right now. I want to make this album a reality SO MUCH and hopefully you'll want to help me with that. I believe I've started the process of creating something that could be amazing and I'm hoping, with your help, that together we can finish creating this amazing thing that we can all be proud of having been a part of.

Thank you so much for your help.

Much Love, Alana 

My Book:

Eat. (Poems & Essays)