Celebrate life and experiences with sounds of the soul...more music on its way this year! <3 
Photography by Benjamin Boldt 2016

Great night at the Big Dipper! Thank you to such an amazing team of musicians! Matt Bednarsky was such a wonderful addition. So much appreciation for the beautiful artwork by Melinda Melvin and Aryn Fields as well as photography by Benjamin Boldt. Looking forward to more fun times and starting on my next album! Thanks for the love and laughter! 

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Photo by Benjamin Boldt 2016

Nathan Weinbender The Spokesman-Review

June 12, 2015

Stevie Lynne wants her music to have a transformative impact on anyone who listens to it. The Spokane-based singer-songwriter, who performs at the Bing Crosby Theater tonight, writes openly about her feelings, and listening to her lyrics is akin to peering into someone’s diary.

“I want it to touch people and promote an atmosphere of vulnerability,” Lynne said of her music. “People are too afraid to be vulnerable nowadays.”

Raised in southwestern Montana, Lynne, 24, has been writing songs for nearly half her life. When she was a child, she was surrounded by music – her mother worked as a school music director – and she recalls her first original song was completed when she was about 12. She settled in Spokane about two years ago and works as a registered nurse at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center.

Lynne’s debut album, “Liars,” was recorded at the local studio Amplified Wax. Because of her hectic work schedule, the recording process took a little more than a year.

“It was all done at my expense,” Lynne said. “I worked extra hours at the hospital – three 16-hour shifts at a time – then I’d go to the studio the next day and spend 10 hours there. It was a long and exhausting process, but it was worth it.”

She’s constantly writing, too, and she estimates that she has well over 80 new songs in various stages of completion. Lynne’s lyrics are often cutting and obviously personal, and she says she’s most inspired and creative when she lets her emotional guard down and explores her feelings.

“A lot of it is inspiration from my daily life, or something that’s been brooding and I haven’t figured out why I’m feeling a certain way,” Lynne said. “It really just depends on the moment or the day or the hour as to what kind of song gets written. … There’s nothing really methodical about it. I’ll be in a car and all of a sudden some lyrics will come in my head, and I’ll start singing it into my phone and recording it. I have thousands of recordings on this phone.”

The 12 songs that make up “Liars” are soulful, melodic ballads, spare in their arrangements – the only primary instruments you hear are Lynne’s tender vocals, her lilting piano and the occasional bit of percussion. Some of Lynne’s lyrics are wounded. Others are cathartic. They’re all, in their own ways, quiet but inspirational anthems. The album’s title track, for instance, advises, “Don’t become the bitter one / Someday the darkness will meet the sun.”

“All the songs are my personal story, and they emphasize parts of my life I wouldn’t normally expose,” Lynne said. “The album is really a letter to everyone I know. But I wanted it to be that kind of expression for others as well, so when they hear a song, they’re encouraged to keep moving. They see themselves in it, and they identify.”

And while Lynne will be backed by a full band at tonight’s show, it’s the intimacy of her words that give her music its power: It’s not enough for her to move people; she wants them to seriously consider what she’s singing about and to let it change something inside them.

“When the show ends, I don’t want people to just say, ‘Oh, that was a nice show,’ ” she said. “I want them to say, ‘How did that change me, or how did it help me to perceive something differently about my life?’ ”

Stevie Lynne won't let anyone keep her down — not even herself
by Laura Johnson June 10, 2015

The melodies come without warning. Sometimes they arrive when she's wrapped in nothing but a towel at her Browne's Addition apartment, other times when she's out with friends. Once Stephenie "Stevie Lynne" Saunders hears the music, it's a scramble to find a piano and get it out.

"Liars," the title track off of her album released in March, hit her particularly hard one morning last year. She played two chords on her keyboard and the chorus flowed without thought: "Liars / They can't keep you down." It was so automatic, she had a full, entirely catchy song within the hour.

The tune came after a particularly painful breakup with a boyfriend who cheated. This after a divorce from an abusive husband the year prior. But the point wasn't to bash them; she isn't like Taylor Swift in that regard, Saunders says. She explains that she doesn't want to write about problems, but rather brokenness.

"There comes a point where you believe the lies they told you," Saunders says. "I believed that I wasn't worthy of love."

Last week, the Sacred Heart Medical Center nurse sits at Bistango Martini Lounge, telling her life story between sips of a purple huckleberry martini, her long blonde hair often falling into her face. Saunders, 24, says people perceive her as bubbly and carefree. But one listen to the indie-soul album, and it's clear there's a darker side.

"I watched my kingdom crumble around me and the only things I had were my keys and voice," says the self-taught pianist.

Her singing voice sounds a lot like her actual speaking voice. As she describes it, her vocals are the combination of what comes from the heart and the brain; there's no trying to emulate songwriters she admires.

Growing up in Montana's Bitterroot Valley in a self-described country home complete with horses, Saunders gave her first public performance at 2 (singing theBarney & Friends theme song dressed as the plush dinosaur) and wrote her first song at 11. She wanted to be like her songwriter mother. Getting married at 18 and later moving to Florida, writing came in short bursts only when there was time.

Saunders recalls her mother's first reaction to Liars.

"She called me on the phone and asked, 'How could you do this to me?'" Saunders says. "I got nervous that she thought my songs were too personal, but then she said, 'You made me cry.'"

There were a lot of her own tears shed in the writing and recording of these songs at Amplified Wax Recording Studios (which is set to move its Garland District headquarters downtown next month). Tears come even now when she thinks about how far she's come — with the help of friends and family — as a musician and adult since moving to Spokane two years ago.

The original plan, starting last February, was to lay down a couple of tracks, never a full record. Working with producer/engineer Jimmy Hill, she soon saw potential for more. She'd work a 15-hour day at the hospital, then with two days off, cram in a 10-hour recording session. Then repeat.

"It made it so I didn't have to think," Saunders explained. "Singing has always been easier than thinking about things."

Hill recalls the progression Saunders has made, and that while she was talented from the beginning, he was pleasantly surprised with the passionate end product. He says Saunders is one of a handful of local artists he's worked with who he'd gladly promote to outside markets.

"There's no filler on this album," he says. "Everything here is incredibly heartfelt."

Saunders is the first to admit her piano accompaniment isn't full of complexity. But she says the thing she does extremely well, the thing you can't take away, is her honesty.

"That's what people relate with," Saunders says. "I've had people come up to me after shows and talk about drug addictions and alcoholism because they feel comfortable with me."

Now, after only playing a handful of gigs in the past year, Saunders plans to perform more. She even has a full band — cellist, drummer and backup singer — that she says just fell into place. Her group takes on the Bing Crosby Theater on Friday, armed with a newly written song she intends to play last.

"I hope when people hear it, they won't want to move in their seats at first, that they'll want to let it sit," Saunders says. "I don't want people to leave and say 'That was nice.' I want them to feel like a different person."♦

Stevie Lynne • Fri, June 12, at 8 pm • $20 • All-ages • Bing Crosby Theater • 901 W. Sprague • bingcrosbytheater.com • 227-7638


Retrieved from: http://m.inlander.com/spokane/naked-ambition/Content?oid=2478984 

Beautiful beginnings with the release of the Liars album on March 30th. I would like to thank musical artist Luke Yates for his performance as well as the crew who made the music come to life: singers Alyssa Prime and Emily Ridler, cellist Sean Lamont and drummer Jim Brickey. Special thank you to Jimmy and Mandy Hill of Amplified Wax Recording Studio, Mark Anthony of Anthony Productions and the Ridler Piano Bar for their hard work! 


 Looking forward to our next show at the Bing Theater on June 12th! 

Why is there heartbreak? Because sometimes, when people lie...we feel as if we've been burned by fire. But it doesn't have to hold us down...we don't have to stay in the ashes. We just keep rising...rising higher than the liars. Keep moving forward...live strong.