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Today, Montana-based Americana up-and-comer Madeline Hawthorne shared her new single “Neon Wasteland.” “The songs on my new record are about made-up characters,” says Madeline “I developed each story from my own experiences as well as from the different people I’ve met on the road. Take from this song whatever you want. It doesn’t necessarily have a message, but I expect that we can all relate to the character in Neon Wasteland. She gives up what many of us call a “normal life” so that she can pursue her dream. We meet her in a difficult moment on her journey. To be honest I don’t know how her story ends. “Neon Wasteland” is just a window into her life on a rough day…she’s got bills to pay and no money, she works all the time, her car is broken down, and all she wants to do is go to the river and forget her troubles for a few hours. It can be rough out there sometimes.”
Madeline will be playing a number of shows this fall, including AMERICANAFEST here in Nashville. “Neon Wasteland” is the first song to be released from Madeline’s forthcoming full-length due out in 2024.
After spending her younger years singing in choir, she picked up her first guitar at age 16 and never put it down. She started writing her own songs and embraced an eclectic palette. She found inspiration from folk singers like Crosby Stills Nash & Young, James Taylor and Joni Mitchell. She pulled inspiration from pop radio, underground hip hop and country classics like Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson’s ‘Poncho and Lefty’ album. “My daily playlist had seemingly little rhyme or reason. I was drawn to vocal melodies, powerful lyrics and groovy back beats. If a song made my feet tap or pulled at my heart strings then I’d listen to it over and over and over again.”
Two years later, she chased love to Bozeman, MT, settling in the Big Sky State with her eventual husband. In college, she gigged around town and cut her teeth providing back up vocals on stage and in the studio, and eventually started a band called the Hawthorne Roots. Over the years in the band, cross-country tours followed. At the onset of the Global Pandemic, the group went on an indefinite hiatus, and she launched her solo career.
