Recent grad pursues dream of music, launches first album
online
Cally Nunes knew she wanted to be a musician when she was a
5-year-old living in Oklahoma.
”
My first vivid memory is of when I was 5 and a song came on the
radio, ‘Shut Up and Kiss Me,’
”
she said.
”
I don’t remember who it was by, but it was country and I knew
then there was nothing else I wanted to do.
”
Recent grad pursues dream of music, launches first album online
Cally Nunes knew she wanted to be a musician when she was a 5-year-old living in Oklahoma.
“My first vivid memory is of when I was 5 and a song came on the radio, ‘Shut Up and Kiss Me,'” she said. “I don’t remember who it was by, but it was country and I knew then there was nothing else I wanted to do.”
The song was a pop country one by Mary Chapin Carpenter, and the artist is one of many who has influenced Nunes, now 18.
A 2009 graduate of San Benito High School, she’s like a lot of kids her age. She is short, with a small frame and shock of dark hair that is sometimes curly, sometimes straight. She looks as comfortable in jeans and sneakers as in a pair of cowboy boots. She isn’t sure what she wants to do this fall, except find a job.
“I made a lot of plans, but life is crazy,” she said, adding that her father was moving out of the area. “I’m just trying to get a job.”
She’s taking a semester off school, but plans to enroll at a local community college next spring.
Unlike other kids her age, though, Nunes has posted her first album online for sale at sites such as Nimbit.com and Cdbaby.com. The album, “Sadly Wrong,” will soon be on iTunes. She has a MySpace music page, where a few of her songs can be played. The album contains five original songs by Nunes, and five songs by other writers that she selected with the help of a music developer.
She wanted to show she could do “other people’s stuff like it was my own,” she said. “I wanted to get at least one song that was more fun, traditional.”
For locals, they have a chance to hear Nunes live and buy a CD in person at one of her upcoming gigs. A few weeks ago, she played at Sue’s Coffee House in Gilroy, and tomorrow night she will perform at Mars Hill Coffee House in Downtown Hollister.
Nunes describes her music to be a bit like Taylor Swift – the bubblegum country singer who sings about boys a lot – “but darker.” Her influences include Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Keith Urban and Sarah Buxton.
As for her songwriting, she said sometimes a line in conversation will really stick out for her and she will have to write it down. But her songs are inspired by “mostly experiences – bad encounters with boyfriends.”
But some of her writing comes not from breakups, but other types of heartache.
“[With] the song ‘Angel,’ I thought, ‘Will people know how to relate to this?'” she said. “It’s not a standard hurt. It’s about my brother being in jail. The song had a really big impact. I’ve found the more honest you are in your music, the more people like it.”
Nunes first got serious about her music when she was 14, shortly after she moved to Hollister. She started taking guitar lessons at Hollister Music. By 15, she was playing gigs wherever she could get them at coffee shops, outside of Starbucks and at fairs or other festivals. She prefers to play at larger venues, because she finds it hard not to look out at the audience and pick out people she knows at smaller shows.
“The first time [I performed] for the first couple of seconds, everything slows down and you start to see people,” she said. “Since I’ve been performing, I’ve found I don’t get nervous. I just mostly get excited about it. The body speeds up and you gotta slow down.”
The biggest challenge to launching her career in Hollister is “probably building a fan base,” she said. “Around Hollister, there are not a whole lot of shows.”
During high school, she got involved with any talent shows or other chances to perform at San Benito High.
“I got involved in every show,” she said. “Cabaret, talent shows, even Battle of the Bands. That was kind of awkward since there were all these metal boy bands.”
Nunes described her nervousness at getting on stage, sandwiched between acts that screamed out their lyrics.
“People were really respectful,” she said. “And it was good for building my confidence.”
Her father, who she said is the primary person with whom she has lived, has been supportive of her dream to be a working musician.
“He bought me my first guitar and my last guitar,” she said. “He’s not afraid to tell me the honest truth of how I am doing.”
Country music remains a strong influence for Nunes she said because she grew up around it.
“My mom moved around all over the South and I would visit,” she said. “The radio was my best friend and I could sing every song that came on. I love country because it can be so personal and so funny. But coming to California brought out the Sheryl Crow stuff, so it’s not so traditionally country.”
Though Nunes tried out for “American Idol” in San Francisco one year, she said she is content to try her luck as an independent musician.
“There were so many talented, gifted people, but then there were people who stunk,” she said. “Sometimes a good artist gets passed up for a gimmick that makes good TV.”
Through the years, Nunes has learned to be skeptical of offers she’s received, since she has encountered people who offered her help in her career, only to find they were after money.
“I’ve met so many industry people and so many scammers,” she said.
Within the next five years, she wants to finish up her general education at a community college and transfer to the University of Belmont, in Nashville. The school has a strong music business program, and she wants to know the ins and outs of the business so she can make good choices in her career. She also said that having a strong fan base can be important to making a go of it in Nashville.
“Austin, Texas is better for someone who is more amateurish,” she said. She said she may tour there next summer.
“I’m at a crossroads,” she said. “I’m just out of high school, but I’m finding a lot of material.
