`Ghosts' buster: Loebe works on letting go
Almost eight years after she appeared on the initial season of “The Voice” to compete for a record deal, Rebecca Loebe is signed to a label for the first time and releasing Friday “Give Up Your Ghosts,” her debut album on Blue Corn Music.
“I wasn't even necessarily looking for a record label deal, but Denby Auble, the owner of this fantastic little indie label in Houston, saw me play live, and said he was really interested in helping me release my next record. I was a little suspicious at first, honestly ... but he was really nice, he was really persistent and eventually we came up with a deal that we both felt great about and got started working on the new album,” Loebe said in a phone interview.
A frequent performer at Oklahoma City's Blue Door and Norman's The Depot, the Austin, Texas-based folk singer-songwriter, 35, is bringing a full band to the OKC listening room for the first time Sunday to celebrate her new album. Written over a few especially prolific months in 2017, the timely 10-song album is inspired by current events, in our world but also in her own life.
“I feel like sort of where things are culturally right now … there's just like a lot of sort of darkness,” Loebe said. “I really had to work to sort of bolster myself up and find ways to be happy and get through the day and not internalize all that stress. And that's kind of where a lot of these songs came from.”
For her new album, the singer-songwriter reunited with producer Will Robertson, whom she started working with years before 12 million people saw her on “The Voice” in 2011 playing her folky cover of Nirvana's “Come as You Are,” which charted worldwide and ended up on the show's first compilation release.
“The songs that are sort of the core of the record for me — really `Growing Up' and `Ghosts' and `Popular' probably — are really about letting go of what holds you back, of what keeps you from pursuing your own happiness or allowing yourself to be happy. … My message to myself and anybody who wants to sing along is, `You can find what you need where you are, when you sort of let go of this belief that you can't get there without external approval.'”