Mandolin virtuoso Sierra Hull encore

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(00:00):
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(02:14):
sit back, relax and enjoy today'sshow. Hey friends, it's Belinda
here with an unencore interview from legendarymandolin player see Eara Hull. It's going
to be very easy for you tobe impressed with all that she has achieved
at such a very young age.But what's even more impressive is the insightful

(02:38):
wisdom and the answers that she provided. And it's exciting to hear and see
all the things that she's been ableto do at such a very young age.
I think you're going to be asimpressed as I was, So I
hope you enjoy today's interview. Andas a friendly reminder, we're doing some

(03:00):
of our best artist interviews for youbecause we're running a bit short on some
of our artist interviews. We havean abundance of entrepreneurs and corporate business and
owners of businesses, inventors, allof those wonderful things in business, which
I absolutely love. But I lovehearing from my artists because they bring such

(03:23):
a different perspective which is good forall of us to learn about the creative
side of business, about nurturing relationships, building your fan base. So we
want to hear from you. Soif you are an artist of any kind,
please reach out to us at Bookingat Work from your happy place dot

(03:43):
com and we would love to getyou scheduled, so thanks so much everyone
and enjoy. Hello everyone, andwelcome to work from your happy place.
I'm your host, Belinda and thisis our edition of our artistic part portion
of show. I am so excitedabout our guest today. I have c
Era Hall with me and s Erais a singer, songwriter, multi instrumentalist,

(04:10):
and she has hit more milestones thanmany musicians accomplished in a lifetime.
After making her Grand Ole Opry debutat the age of ten, the Tennessee
bred virtuoso vandolinist played Carnegie Hall atage twelve, then landed a deal with
Rounder Records just a year later.Now twenty eight years old, Hull is
set to deliver her fourth full lengthRounder, an elegantly inventive and endlessly captivating

(04:31):
album called twenty five Trips. Revealingher profound warmth as a storyteller, twenty
five Trips finds Hull shedding light onthe beauty and chaos and sometimes sorrow of
growing up and getting older. Tothat end, the album's title nods to
a particularly momentous year of her life, including her marriage to fellow bluegrass musician
Justin Moses and the release of herwidely acclaimed album Weighted Mind, a Bella

(04:56):
Flick produced effort nominated for Best FolkAlbum at the two twenty seventeen Grammy Awards.
It is my pleasure to welcome seeEra to our show today. Hey,
Hey, how's it going. It'sgreat? Well, thanks so much
for being here. Wow, whatwhat an exciting career that you've had.

(05:16):
Why don't you just take us downthat journey for a moment and tell us
about some of those early days andthen just the journey, because that's always
an exciting piece, and especially becauseyours has been one at such a young
age. Yeah. Well, Iwas lucky to find my love for music
really early. My parents kind ofalways surrounded my brother and I in a

(05:39):
house full of music, usually kindof church music was my earliest influence,
just going to church and hearing theold hymns and you know, everybody from
my granny to my great aunt saying. And it wasn't like anybody was trying
to do it professionally or even reallybe on a stage. It was just
kind of a way of life andpart of going to church every week and

(06:00):
hearing music that way. And soI remember my mom teaching me my first
song when I was probably about fouryears old, just singing. And then
as I grew a little older,my dad, who had always really loved
music, decided he wanted to learnto play something. My parents built a
house next door to my great auntand uncle, and my uncle Junior played

(06:21):
mandolin a little bit and fiddle andguitar, and he wasn't he wasn't a
professional musician by any means, totallyjust self taught, you know, but
knew how to play some kind ofold time tunes, things like Wildwood Flower
on the guitar or you know,just kind of old country songs, things
like that. And then every timeyou'd walk in their house, you know,

(06:41):
and my brother and I spent countlesstimes, you know, with them
in the summer, just every daywe were at their house, so you'd
walk in and always hear he'd beplaying music of some sort. So the
idea of playing mandolin or fiddle orguitar or some instrument didn't seem foreign to
me, but I hadn't really thoughtabout doing it myself until my dad bought

(07:03):
well, he my uncle Junior loanedhim a guitar, and he started learning
to play just a little bit himselfwhile we'd sing in church and stuff.
And then my dad, had alwaysloved the mandolin, saved up enough money
to buy one for himself, andthen he started going to some of these
local bluegrass jams and started really kindof getting bit by the bluegrass bug.
So that was sort of my introductionwas through my dad. And you know,

(07:28):
my brother started trying to learn toplay a little bit, and I
was the annoying little sister that wantedto do everything my older brother did.
So I decided, well, Iwant to play something too, So I
got a fiddle for Christmas. Mygranny and my great aunt got one for
me, and it was just alittle too big for me to handle.
You know, you have the fullsize violins and then you have the like

(07:49):
smaller beginner violins, and so Ireally needed a smaller one. It was
just I couldn't really, you know, get my arm all even fully extended.
I couldn't reach all the way tothe end of the neck of the
instrument. So my dad, whohad been learning to play mandolin, said,
well, you know, the mandolinis tuned like the fiddle, and
that you have GDA you have thesesame string names, they're tuned, the

(08:13):
pitches are the same, except foron the mandolin you're using a pick like
you would on a guitar and notusing a bow, you know, so
there's obviously differences. And the mandolinactually has eight strings versus four like the
violin, but they're tuned in pairs, so you kind of treat them like
four, so there are similarities.So at least with the left hand.

(08:33):
He was like, I could showyou how to play a tune or two,
and hopefully you'll be able to,like get a smaller fiddle. At
some point, we'll find you asmaller one and you'll kind of already know
where to put your fingers with theleft hand. So that was kind of
the logic, which makes total sense. But I just fell in love with
the mandolin and that really became becamemy passion, and pretty much from the

(08:54):
time I started at eight years old, I knew that was what I wanted
to do with my life. Ijust absolutely fell in love with it.
So how did you land on thegrand ol opry at age ten? That's
just two years. That's an amazingstory in itself. I know, it's
crazy kind of thinking about how fasttime seems to fly by at this age.
For me. Now I'm twenty nineright now, and it feels like

(09:16):
wow, you know, time justflies already. But back then, you
know, two years would have feltlike a lifetime. You know. It
feels like when you're a kid,it feels like I've been playing mandolin forever,
you know. And I would watchthe grand Ole Opry on television.
Usually we'd be at a jam onSaturday night when it would come on television,
so they would do a repeat ona replay on CMT at the time

(09:41):
on Sunday mornings, and so wewould always catch the grand Ole Opry on
Sunday mornings, and I remember thinking, oh, it's be such a dream
to get to play on there.So I think for most musicians, when
when you take up playing bluegrass,country music, any kind of real form
of acoustic music, it's it typicallybecomes a dream to get to play on
that stage. So I literally hadpictures that I drew of myself getting to

(10:05):
play that stage. You know,when I was a little kid, I
love to do artwork, and somy mom saved them to the little scribblings
where I would like draw myself onthat stage, and I guess the way
it really happened is that my brotherand I as kind of we started getting
more into playing music. And Iwas always maybe a little bit more serious
about it than he was. Hehad tons of interests and love to play

(10:28):
baseball and all kinds of other thingsthat he was really good at, but
music was kind of the main focusfor me. And so I would go
around just about every weekend with mydad to these jams. And you know
how it is when you're a littlekid, somebody's like, oh, look
at that cute little kid playing music. You know, even if you're not
very good yet, you know,people kind of talk about the fact that
a little kid is playing. Andso it kind of just as I got

(10:50):
better and better, and we startedgoing around to different jams, and then
one person might hear us play atthis place and invite us to come play
at another place, and then somebodyhears you play there, you know,
kind of the word of mouth thing, and so somebody invited us to go
play in Crossville, Tennessee, ata show that Mike Snyder, who's a

(11:11):
longtime grand Ole Opry member and banjoplayer comedian, actually was playing at I
think the Fairgrounds and my brother andI were opening the show for Mike,
and so we got that gig andafter we finished playing, Mike gets on
stage and we got to say helloto him before he went on stage and
stuff. But he gets on stageand he says, folks, what'd you

(11:35):
think about those two little kids thatopened the show? You know, and
everybody collapsed, and he says,well, the next time you see them
play, it'll be with me onthe stage of the Grand ole Opry.
And so that was that was likehis way of inviting us to come play.
And sure enough and a few monthswe got to go join Mike on
on stage at the Grand ole Opryand that was the first time, the

(11:56):
first time getting to play there andit's was amazing. A few months later,
one of my big goals was toget to play with Alison Krause,
like she had become my biggest heroin the world. And so I literally
had been drawing these pictures of gettingto play the Randall Opry, but usually
when I would draw the pictures,it would be alongside Alison Grouse too.
It was like a double dream andgot to play this got to play with

(12:18):
her there a few months later andit's kind of another story and of itself,
but you know, it's just amazingthat my husband and I played there
last night, played the Randall Opryjust last night, and it's I still
stand in that circle on that stageand can just think back of being you
know, ten years old getting todo that, and it's just amazing to
this day. Still Yeah, absolutelya thrill to get to play there.

(12:43):
So there's two things I just wantto point out to our audience because I
always like to take the nuggets thatyou've shared and put them into sort of
an application form. But dreaming andusing vision boards and really putting it out
there what you really how you seeyourself and where you see yourself going is
such an important piece and I lovethat, you know, even as a

(13:03):
young girl drawing those things out,it's huge. And then the second thing,
as a performer, people always wantto just wait till they're perfect doing
something. It's really about getting yourselfout there and being heard, being seen,
being heard. I mean, that'show those things came to pass.

(13:24):
And I just think that it's reallyimportant for people, whether they're a musician
or another form of artist, oreven a professional speaker, you have to
just get yourself out there. Youhave to be seen so absolutely to your
story. Yeah, and I thinklike as a young person, you sometimes
you know, you don't have thesame kind of fear as you might as
an adult. You know, yourawareness is like the world is your oyster,

(13:46):
like you know. Well, atleast in my case, I had,
you know, really encouraging parents andthat never they never doubted in my
mind that my dreams would be possible. And sometimes I look back and think,
gosh, I don't know, Idon't know what it was about my
parents that really instilled that belief inme, because you know, I mean,

(14:09):
we grew up in this tiny littletown of you know, nine hundred
people, and you know, certainlynot for a wealthy family and like none
of those things, but yet justthat belief of like, you know,
if you love doing something, thenit's worth it's worth going after, and
it's worth chasing. So I thinkbecause my parents knew I loved it so
much, they really put that beliefin me that that anything was possible.

(14:31):
And sometimes I have to go backand remember that as I get older,
because it's easier to get a littlebit more cynical or worn down by just
you know, work and life andall those things, and just yeah,
that simple thing of storyboarding and drawingthings and like having that, you know,
those big dreams. I think,you know, we have to remind
ourselves that as adults sometimes just asmuch to kind of go back and try

(14:52):
to have that childlike freedom to dream. Yes, And I've been ext speaking
about that more. My whole themefor twenty twenty two is going to be
dream because I think there's a pointand it doesn't have to be but people
at a certain age quit dreaming.And I see mentors that I've had.

(15:15):
Even I have an uncle who stilllives in Tennessee who just turned ninety nine,
and he's still I'll talk about buyinga fishing boat like or what he's
going to do, and I thinkhe's still dreaming. And that's what I
believe has kept him healthy and strongand vibrant at ninety nine years old.
And I just think that people alongthe way stop dreaming, and that really

(15:37):
becomes I don't know, I thinkthat's where you become complacent and you just
settle and you're not out there goingfor it, you know what I mean.
So I think dreams are just ahuge part of for us at any
age, at any age, andit's really important to keep that alive.
So I love that. I agree. So yeah, let's talk about out.

(16:00):
So you've had so many, butwhat is one of your sort of
greatest accomplishments that stands out for youat this point in your career? Oh,
greatest accomplishment that That'd be kind ofhard to say just like one particular
thing, because you have different thingsthat are meaningful for different reasons, you
know, Like like even going backto what we talked about, being able

(16:21):
to play the Grand ol Opry forthe first time, I mean that certainly
was something that that I sort ofdreamed of being able to do. I
think, you know, just beingable to be an artist, Like playing
music is all I've ever done withmy life, Like that's and that's all
I've ever wanted to do. Andsometimes I think about just the fact that
I get to make my living playingmusic and travel and record and perform for

(16:45):
people, you know, is sortof a weird accomplishment and it's in and
of itself, you know, ifyou just said that, like that alone
is a special thing. But ifwe were to look to like more specific
things, I mean, there's uh, you know, been certain certain things
like just just having you know,Grammy nominations or things like that that would
have been you know, would wouldhave been things that I've dreamed about.

(17:08):
I've had like three now and hopefullyone day we'll actually win one. But
I got to be the first womanto win the Manlin Player of the Year
Award, which was kind of specialto me just because I grew up with
so many of my heroes being prettymuch all my mandolin heroes when I was
growing up were men, and they'rewonderful. I mean, they were absolutely

(17:32):
always treated me with such kindness andembraced me and you know, would would
teach me things and just all alongthe way, like gave me opportunities to
perform with them and all those things. But I think like being able to
to sort of like have a femaleinfluence in that area and feel like I

(17:52):
sort of by winning that award,felt like I got to represent all the
like young girls that are coming upto play now that I see coming up
in music and will come up tome after a show and you know,
talk about how they just started playingmandolin. I feel very proud of that.
But that's been you know something thatI've kind of carried with me as

(18:12):
as I guess, an accomplishment thatI'm grateful, Sure, what I got
to have happened. Oh, that'sthat's wonderful. So this is kind of
similar question, but they're they're different. So, uh, there's great accomplishments
and all those are amazing, butthere's always that, uh one of your
favorite performances or maybe one of yourmost memorable performances. Uh, so i'd

(18:37):
loved you can share a story abouteither one of those, like, uh
favorite memorable either one. Yeah,well one of the one of the ones
that for whatever reason just popped upin my mind is there's a kind of
a legendary festival in Newport, RhodeIsland, called the Newport Folk Festival,
and every year they have just allkinds of great performers and a couples ago.

(19:00):
I was invited to be part ofthis by Brandy Carlisle, who's an
amazing singer, songwriter artist, andshe was hosting this all female collaboration and
it was the first time in likethe sixty years of the festival that they
had had their headline show be anall female led cast. And so she

(19:22):
invited me and some of my fellowfriends to kind of come join, and
she sat in on a set Iwas doing at this festival called Tell You
Ride and Tell You Ride Colorado earlierthat summer, and so she was like,
oh, you guys got to comebe part of this show. And
she had said, Dolly Parton's goingto be their closing is down, but
nobody knows. It's going to bea secret, you know, that she's

(19:44):
going to She's going to kind oflike show up and surprise the entire audience.
And so I was like, andof course I'm just such a huge
Dolly fan, as I know mostall of us are, but I was
like, wow, And I hadmet her briefly before, but you know,
didn't really know. I had neverbeen on stage with her or any
thing. And so she comes tothe show, and of course no one
knows she's going to be there,and there's all these great people on the

(20:07):
schedule for this set, you know, so it's like each person is doing
like one or two songs and thenthey're like, okay, now we have
a very special guest, and soout comes Dolly, and course everybody loses
their mind that it's Dolly and shedoes a few songs and I'm just sind
inside stage watching Dolly play and thinkingthis is awesome. I'm loving this.
And then at the end she invitesall of us women to come out on

(20:30):
stage with her and sing nine tofive to kind of close things down.
And that was just kind of thismagical, fun moment of being at this
legendary festival, which if you canimagine the festivals right on the water,
so you have all the people outthere in the audience, but then you
also have people who drive their boatsup to the shoreline. So not only
do you have people you know inthe audience on land, but you have

(20:52):
people in the audience on the watertoo. So it's just this wow,
it's this beautiful thing to look outinto the audience there any way, and
then let alone like just have thisstage full of amazing women with Dolly singing
nine to five, And so thatwas just pure fun, you know,
and oh, it's unmagical to havethat happen. Also as a bit of
a surprise. I mean, Iknew she was going to be there,

(21:15):
but the audience was completely surprised.But we didn't know we were going to
get to sing with her on stage. So that was really fun. Oh
my gosh, Now it says hereyou perform for three presidents. That's pretty
incredible too. Yeah, it's,you know, definitely something I wouldn't have
ever thought I would have had theopportunity to do. So I feel,
yeah, quite fortunate. Well great, let's talk now about So this is

(21:41):
as I interview different artists, thiscan sometimes be the challenging piece of it.
But how have you navigated, especiallyas being a young girl, Like,
how have you navigated the business sideversus the artistic side or the performing
side of your career? So doyou have any for that, because you
definitely seem to be on that righttrack. But that's the hard part for

(22:04):
a lot of artists, is navigatingthe business side of things. Yeah.
Well, I think a lot ofpeople can can either you know, be
super interested in the business or superinterested in the artistic side, and then
you have some people who kind ofenjoyed both. I'm definitely one of those
people who enjoys both sides of it. Like, I really love the creative
side, but I also enjoy thebusiness side too. Sometimes I find the

(22:29):
two things to be stressful to kindof navigate simultaneously. Like I feel like
I could easily just go into oneworld or I could be interested in the
business side if I didn't have toworry about any of the other stuff even
more, you know, So Ithink more than anything, it's it's important
to like have a good team aroundyou that you know, you can trust,
that you know have your best interestsat heart. But at the same

(22:52):
time, you have to know what'sgoing on too, because I think putting
your you know your If there's onething I learned, there's nobody that's going
to be as an invested in youand your life and career than you are,
and they shouldn't be. It's yourlife, your career. So like
at the end of the day,you need to really know what's going on
as much as possible, and itcan be tricky to kind of keep up

(23:14):
with everything. But you also haveto learn to be good at like delegating
tasks. And so that's one thingI've really had to learn is to both
be very involved, understand everything that'sgoing on to the best of my ability,
but also not you know, holdthe reins so tightly that I don't
allow people to help me that becauseyou know, if you're overwhelmed and you're
stressed and you're trying to wear toomany hats, you're not going to be

(23:37):
good at anything. So I thinkit's it's important to be able to delegate
those tasks and find people that youreally trust to, you know, ask
for help in this area, likeyou know, regardless of what it is.
You know, maybe you're really goodat this one part of the business,
but this part isn't like the thingthat's your strong suit, and just
kind of figuring out what those thingsare that you enjoy doing that you can

(24:00):
be productive and doing and then tryto, you know, hand the rest
off to somebody else that can doa better job than you could do.
That is It's awesome that you've learnedthat at such a young age, because
that is something that people really strugglewith. And I think having a good
team is important and delegation, butyou should always keep a pulse on what's

(24:25):
going on. And because you're right, nobody cares as much about your career
as you and that's an important thingfor anybody to learn. And I've been
at this for a very long timein my business, and I have to
say that there's been moments where I'velet things really go to a team and

(24:45):
not just had that pulse on it, you know, like I've got one
hundred percent delegate. Then you don'treally know what's going on, and then
all of a sudden you go backand you say, how did this get
on my website? Like I couldhave not. I would have never wanted
this on my website. I don'tlike the way this was handled. Yeah,
you're like, what the heck?And So I just think that that's

(25:07):
really really great advice for anyone that'send. And it doesn't mean that it's
going to be perfect or you're goingto be perfect, or the people you
delegate will always do things the wayyou want them done. And you know,
sometimes you may be stressing over somethingkind of insignificant, like worrying about
something that maybe isn't quite as importantas something else you might be should spending

(25:30):
your focus on. So I thinkalso trying to like find your level of
priorities and importance and what is thethings that you really feel like need to
be done a certain way, andwhat are the things that are just easy
to kind of go You know what, I'm going to let that person try
to put their vision into this littlebit of this thing, and I can
steer the shift, but I don'thave to, like, you know,
hold the reins so tightly that noone has room to bring their own strengths

(25:52):
to the table. Great. Well, you mentioned the story with Alison Krause
and how that was kind of astory of itself. I'd love you to
share that I love Alison Kraus too, and I just think that that's she
I'm sure she's been an incredible mentorfor you as well. She has been.
Yeah, I was so lucky tomeet her early on, and just

(26:14):
the influence that she's been in mylife throughout my whole career and the opportunities
that she's given me, you know, at an early age especially, was
just unbelievable. Because if there couldhave been one hero that I would want
to meet or know, she wouldhave been it. And she was the
one that I've had the chance toreally spend the most time with. So

(26:34):
I'm extra grateful for that and forher. But yeah, I mean I
first got my first Allison Crass recordwhen I was nine years old, and
it just kind of blew my mind. I just loved it, fell in
love with the music, and Ithink it kind of opened up a whole
new world of that's what I wantto do. And like I said,
because especially in bluegrass music, whichis what I grew up doing, the

(26:56):
most of it is mostly men,you know at the time, especially as
like most of my heroes were males, and they were awesome, and I'm
grateful for all the people I gotto learn from. But I think really
seeing a female that also played bluegrassbut also did other things, tapped into
other genres and collaborated and kind oflike the wide span of music really opened

(27:19):
my eyes in a way that mademe go, that's what I want to
do. And so it was kindof my dream to meet her. We
had this magazine that we well wedidn't even subscribe subscribe to it. There
was a friend of ours, alocal fiddle player named Lol Logan, who
was quite the influence to me whenI was a kid, and he would
bring me his copy of Bluegrass Unlimitedto our house every month. You know,

(27:44):
he'd get his issue, look throughit and drive it over to my
house. And so I would alwaysflip through the magazine and just I was
such a nerd, being such afan of hers, that anywhere her name
was mentioned in the magazine, I'dbe like, there's Allison's name. There's
Allison's name. And so there wasa festival called Merlefest that happened still in
Wilkesboro, North Carolina, every year, and it's this big festival, and

(28:07):
her and the band were listed onthere as they were going to be performing.
And I had seen it, butthen later my dad was flipping through
the magazine and he said, hey, look at this, and I was
like, yeah, I saw that, and he said, do you want
to go? And I was likereally, you know, I couldn't believe
it. I was ten at thetime and had never got to see her
live or anything, but it waskind of my dream to get to meet
her at some point and hear herplay, and so I was like yeah.

(28:32):
And I mean at that point,I didn't really grow up with my
folks taking vacations and stuff like that, Like, we hadn't really traveled that
much, and being from the rurallittle town in Tennessee that we're from,
even going to North Carolina, whichyou know is probably like seven or eight
hours from where I grew up,was quite the trek, you know,
And so I couldn't believe that wewere going to get to go to this

(28:55):
festival in North Carolina to hear myhero Alison Krause, and so I just
assumed, well, I'm totally goingto get a meeter. Like in my
mind, I was like, I'mgoing to get a meet her. She's
going to sign my fiddle and it'sgoing to be awesome. So we drive
there and we get there and realizethe festival is huge. I mean it's
just like massive, you know,there's probably like one hundred thousand people over

(29:18):
the weekend. And so I hadbeen going to these tiny, little bluegrass
festivals around home, where like anybodythat played on stage you could just walk
up to and meet and talk toa soon that they get got off stage.
And so in my mind, Ithink, even though I knew Allison
was a big star, I waslike, I thought, well, of
course I'm going to get a meether. But then it became pretty obvious.
I think to my parents when wegot there, like, oh,

(29:40):
this is a huge festival. Andso I remember my mom saying, well,
honey, like, you know,you may not get to meet her,
So I don't want you to getyour hopes up too much. You
may not actually get to meet her, but at least you'll get to hear
or play, and someday you'll geta meet her if you don't this weekend.
So I was like, okay,well, just but please pray I
get to meet her. You know, I was like, okay, but

(30:02):
just please pray I get to meether. And so I don't know if
you ever heard of the band NickelCreek, but the mandolin player in that
band, Chris the Lee, who'skind of like one of the big mandolin
heroes in the mandolin world. Hehad just played a side stage on one
of the days, you know,we were there, and I was able
to and it was like a smallersetup, you know there, and I

(30:25):
got to get in this line andhe signed by Mandolin Strap and I had
just got to meet him, whichwas a big deal to me as well.
And I made it about probably twentyor thirty feet away and somebody stops
me. And I had been jammingthe night before when we got into the
festival. There was some jams andstuff happening around the festival side and this

(30:45):
guy stops us and he says,hey, are you that little girl that
was playing mandolin last night, andI was like yeah, and he said,
I told my daughter about you.She's with me. Now. I
hate to bother you, but wouldyou please play it two? And I
thought, okay, sure, youknow, so I got out my mandling
and I don't know my dad,in hindsight, probably you know, must

(31:08):
have been smart enough to think somethinglike this could happen, but I was
totally oblivious to it. And sohe was like, well, how about
you, Why don't you try toplay in that ode to a Butterfly?
Or maybe the fact that we hadjust met Chris Beeley it was fresh on
his mind. But that was oneof Chris's tunes off of the Nickel Creek
out that I had just kind oflearned to play, and so I played
a little bit of it. Ofcourse, we were far enough from where

(31:30):
I had just met Chris that hewouldn't have heard me, you know,
I mean, we were pretty good, pretty good ways away. But you
know, as people do what alittle kid is playing, the crowd starts
to form as I'm like playing atune for this little girl and her dad,
and and somebody says, oh,you know, that's Chris's tune,
and they go get Chris, andthey tell him and he comes over and

(31:52):
by the time I finished, Ihad no idea he was in front of
me. I was kind of likeknelt down on the ground or something playing
and by the time I was done, I look up and there's Chris in
front of me, and I wasjust like whoa. And he said,
holy cow, want to play ittogether? And I was like yes,

(32:13):
you know, and so he wentand he sat with me and we jammed
for like two hours at this festival. Now he had played this side stage
so it was accessible, but hehad a set later with Nickel Creek on
the main stage, and so wekind of told him about you know coming
and Alison being one of my bigheroes. Allison had produced the Nickel Creek
album, the first Nickel Creek album, so in realizing I was such a

(32:37):
big fan, he took me backstageto meet her, which was just like
just like unbelievable. I mean thateverything worked out that way. I mean,
it couldn't have been more perfect.And so not only did I get
to meet Chris, you know,who was like a big Mandlin hero,
but he's the one that gets totake me backstage and introduced me to my
big hero, Alison Krauss. Nowat the time, I didn't get to

(32:58):
play for her. It was avery brief meeting, but I was set.
I was happy. I was stokedI got to meet my hero.
So then fast forward a couple monthslater, I'm at this big convention called
IBMA, which is you know,I mentioned the Manlin Player of the Year
award. They host the Bluegrass Awardsthat week, and it's kind of like
this big convention and festival similar tolike the CMA Fest or something, but

(33:21):
for bluegrass music. And so Ithought, man, I wonder if anybody
from Allison's band will be here,And sure enough, Ron Block, who's
been a member of her band formany, many years, walks in and
this room backstage and I'm just like, it's Ron Block. So I got
to meet Ron and he couldn't havebeen sweeter. He jammed with me and
my brother and like kind of justhung out with us over the weekend,

(33:45):
which I was just like, Ican't believe, like, Ron Block of
my favorite band in the world,Allison Krass Newton Station, is being so
awesome and cool and like hanging outwith our family. And then fast forward,
I guess. I had just madea little instrument album with some local
musicians, and I gave it toRon, and I think, if I

(34:06):
recall, I might have signed oneto Allison, and so he took it
and gave it to her, youknow, to my hero, Alison Krause.
And it was my like little tenyear old CD of just mandolin tunes.
And I kid you not. Justa couple months later, I'd get
a call from Alison Krause inviting meto come play the Grand Ole Opry.
I'd never played with her, I'donly met her just like for a second

(34:29):
backstage. It's just it's unbelievable thatshe would take that kind of risk on
a young kid and you know,invite me to come play on national television
with her or band at the Opry. I mean, so it was,
Yeah, it was kind of anincredible way that it all kind of worked
out from that first meeting that verymuch couldn't have happened, you know,

(34:50):
may not have happened all the wayto meeting Ron, and how well I
kind of panned out. Well,I just want to point out that,
gosh, this is another really greatnugget, But there's so many times like
when that gentleman asked you to playfor his daughter. I mean a lot

(35:12):
of people would have just said,oh, we don't have time right now.
Oh I'm so sorry, like orI can't or people look at those
really sort of maybe insignificant moments aswell, I'm not going to like some
people want are like embarrassed to playlike that because you know, it does
draw a crowd in like that.So there's a lot of people that are
like, oh, I couldn't dothat, I haven't warmed up, or
I hear people always saying my voiceisn't ready, or I haven't warmed up

(35:36):
where I haven't played, or I'mnot in tune, and because they're nervous,
so that happens. But there's alsothat piece that happens of I'm not
going to just play for this guyand this little girl. But look at
what one small moment turned into probablyan influence on your entire career. Absolutely,
I mean, and that's incredible.It works a lot of times.

(36:00):
Yeahs that we kind of think don'tmatter are usually the things that matter.
And oftentimes the things that we spendso much time putting importance on maybe aren't
even the thing we should always befocusing on So I think, yeah,
that the whole thing of when preparationmeets opportunity, like they say, you
know, you kind of have tobe ready for that, and I think

(36:21):
that's hugely important absolutely. I justI love that part of the story.
So let's talk about your new album. Let's talk about what you're working on,
like right now, because that's exciting, So tell us all about it.
Well, So my latest record cameout last year in the end of
February, right before the pandemic.I got about two weeks into my album

(36:44):
release tour and then it just theworld kind of shut down, and so
we had probably forty something shows aspart of that album release tour, at
least just the first part of thealbum release tour that canceled, and so
it was really just kind of awild way to put new music into the
world. It was my first albumin like five years that I had put
out, and you know, wasinteresting to feel like the way that I've

(37:09):
shared the music thus far has mostlyjust been through the Internet and through live
streams and through getting to share itwith people that way. But I'm really
proud of that record and I feellike it was it was a joy to
get to make and quite different fromanything I had done before in that,
you know, I did grow upplaying mostly bluegrass music, but as I've

(37:30):
gotten into other styles of music andmy influences have always been really broad,
and so as a songwriter, justcontinuing to kind of expand into whatever territory
that leads me. I feel likethis record kind of is a good reflection
of where, at least where Iwas out at that particular point in time
and experimenting with some different textures andsounds and things like that. But then

(37:53):
fast forward, like I guess we'rerecording this in the end of April and
coming up in May, I'm goingto be doing my first couple band shows
and well over a year since thingsshut down, so it'll be interesting to
be able to get out there andactually, like, in some ways,
play some of this music for whatwe'll feel like the first time since we

(38:14):
got to play, you know,so little of it live for people before,
so I'm excited about that. Butit's also been a wonderful year of
being able to be creative in away that I haven't before. I mean,
I've not had this kind of timeoff since I was a kid.
I mean, I've not had timeoff from traveling. I've just always done
it and I love it. Butit's been really just wonderful and beautiful to

(38:38):
be able to be home. Andmy husband's a touring musician as well,
so we've just we've just been togetherthis whole time, and it's been really
special in a lot of ways becausewe've always had, you know, a
kind of situation where one of usis traveling. Sometimes we travel together,
but it's not uncommon for one ofus to have to leave for a week
to three weeks sometimes, you know. And so to be able to have

(39:00):
that kind of time at home,I've done a lot of songwriting. I've
been able to get more into recordingin my home studio and that's been wonderful
too, to just kind of diveinto that and learn more. So I
think, yeah, this period oftime is in some ways, it's going
to be good for a lot ofus musicians, I think because it's gave
us an opportunity to kind of reset, refocus, to be creative in new

(39:23):
ways, and learn a lot ofnew skill sets just as a result of
the time off from traveling. Soyeah, that is great. It's just
so awesome and it's exciting. Weare starting to see different shows and different
things are starting to happen, soit's getting kind of exciting and hopeful for

(39:45):
a lot of performers. We're startingto see theaters talking about reopening and so
it's been a tough year for performersand so I'm super super excited about that.
So our signature question of the showis what does working from your happy
place mean to you? Oh?Gosh, I think truly, I think
this past year has really taught meabout like working from a happy place.

(40:08):
I think there's something to be said, like for me, recording creating,
when you really get in that zone. And I think we all know what
that feels like from time to timeto just be able to get in a
focused state that's so exciting that youjust like you don't even want to take
time to eat, you know,because you're just working on something that you're
so excited by and you're driven by, and so you know, those moments

(40:30):
of focus like that can be kindof far and fewed between and kind of
hard to find sometimes, But I'vebeen able to experience that a little bit
more over this past year, justhaving quiet time, And yeah, I
think I think that's when I reallyfeel like I'm in My happiest place is
when I'm growing, when I'm learning, when I'm creating something and really feeling

(40:52):
like I'm sort of doing what I'mmeant to do, you know. And
I think we all have those momentswhere it's like we have tasks and things
that you know, we have laundryto do, we have you know,
a dishes to wash, and thingsthat we all have to do that are
all, you know, part ofour lives. But when we do have
those moments to really dive in inour creative way, whether it's your business

(41:15):
or your music or art form orwhatever you're doing, it's just really fulfilling
when you can get in that space. Absolutely. So what advice would you
give to other young musicians that arekind of starting out in this path or
even even any musician really, butespecially with your experience of starting out so

(41:39):
young and I'm sure you've you're ahero to a lot of these young girls
and even young boys. So whatadvice would you give to them and starting
out in this journey? Well,I think that talent is one thing,
and there's a lot of people thatI know that have a lot of talent,
like every bit of talent as Iwould have, as the next person

(41:59):
would have, but maybe they haven'tput in the work that's necessary to really
be able to have it. SoI think, you know, if you're
not passionate about it, you're notgoing to put in the work to begin
with. So you've got to findsomething you're really passionate about that drives you.
And then I think take that passionatefeeling that you have and turn it

(42:20):
into a work ethic, because Ithink without that, it would be truly
hard to be very successful in anythingyou're doing, because nothing, nothing comes
easy for very long. You know, we're all handed things from time to
time that we didn't feel like wedid anything for. You know, there's
things that like show up in ourlives and kind of work out all these
moments. But I think, youknow I said earlier, when preparation meets

(42:43):
opportunity, I think you have tobe ready to seize those moments when they
do appear and be able to meetthem in a strong way. And so
yeah, just take whatever you're passionateabout, nurture that, and work hard
for it. And that is thekey in putting yourself out there, especially
as a performer get heard. Absolutelywell, this has been an absolutely delightful

(43:06):
interview. Thank you so much.And I know we're gonna take things out
with the song, but before wedo that, can you tell our listeners
where's the best place for them tofollow you find you listen to your music.
Yeah, we'll have a website serewhole dot com. My music's available
on all the various streaming platforms.You can purchase it on my website as

(43:28):
well. Of course I'm on Instagramat Sierra don Hole and Facebook's your Whole
Music, and Twitter at all thoseall those places. So fantastic, you
too, great, well those thatone think to look. Yeah, this
has just been so amazing and Ithink nothing can be more appropriate than you

(43:52):
taking us out with a song.Absolutely Yeah. Well i'll play since I
talked about the twenty five Trips albuma little bit, I'll play the first
off that album. And this probablygoes a little bit hand in hand with
some of the things we've been talkingabout. Like sometimes you know, when
you're a young person, you justkind of go straight into it, and

(44:12):
as we get older, sometimes youallow the doubts and believing, well,
you know, maybe I'm not cutout for this or I'm not cut out
for that to kind of like popin. And I think I was going
through a period of time where Iwas like, you know, kind of
struggling to figure out what my nextthing needed to be musically, And I
was kind of having a conversation withmy husband one day as he was getting
ready to walk out the door,and I was like, you know,

(44:35):
I don't know. I'm just frustratedand don't feel like I, you know,
know what I'm doing anymore. Andhe just said, you know,
Sarah, I mean, I believein you so much, but at some
point, you know, you reallyhave to learn to believe in yourself and
you know know that you're meant todo it. So that's where the song
came from. But I could say, why, you see, how long

(45:02):
is it gonna take me to trustmyself? I haven't stuck here so long.
Gotta find a way on. Igotta get on out here. I
gotta let go off this field.Oh I swear I never let it go

(45:29):
this far. Now another I'm stuckhere around then maybe beautifully up place like

(45:50):
an hats out in the Sunday,and Morne comes out to be afraid.
Maybe a beautifully outlakes you won't theygo to the fun undily. At least
that's what you said you belaving.I can't see why you see how long

(47:12):
is it gonna take me to trustme? That was beautiful. Thank you
so much for this great interview intoall our listeners. Thank you so much
for tuning in today. Don't forgetto subscribe so you don't miss a single
one of these inspiring interviews, andwe'll see you next time on work from

(47:37):
your happy place

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