Madeline Tucker had no idea Andolyn Parrish could play guitar back in the 8th grade, much less write or sing her own music. In Parrish's room, she made Tucker turn around, close her eyes and plug her ears while Parrish sang one of her original songs for her for the first time.
"For the first few years, it was like a big secret [that she wrote music]," Tucker, now a sophomore in biomedical sciences, said. "No one could know. I don't know why. I guess she just wanted to keep it personal."
Her mother and Tucker were her only confidants. But soon, anyone will be able hear her music after Parrish, sophomore in communication, releases her first single, "Young Love," on iTunes at midnight on Dec. 11 after being signed with Milltown Music.
In the backwoods of Fort Payne, Parrish pushed back the heavy soundproofed door to the studio of David Hammonds, producer and owner of Milltown Music. She contacted Hammonds for a consultation. He offers 6-month lessons to artists to help them improve.
"[It was] exactly like you see in the movies," Parrish said. A sound board, massive speakers, guitars everywhere, a grand piano in the back. It was her first time in a studio.
"I was in heaven," Parrish said. "I could have stayed there forever."
Parrish and Hammonds sat down to read over her lyrics.
They were "kinda all over the place," Hammonds said. "But some artists can write that way."
"Pick our your best song and play it for me," Hammonds said.
Parrish began performing the songs she keeps in the Mead Five Star spiral notebook she bought with her 9th grade school supplies.
Her inspiration to write may come at random times. While dozing off to sleep at 2 a.m., a chord progression, lyrics or tune will pop into her head, Parrish said.
She said she might be having a conversation and drift off into constructing a song when a phrase she hears strikes a chord, her friend chatting away and unaware she isn't listening anymore.
When inspiration hits, she scribbles her ideas down in her purple notebook.
"It's like this strange feeling I can't describe whenever I'm feeling something," Parrish said. "Some people go for a jog; some people want to talk about how they feel. If I'm feeling something like that, I walk into my room and close the door and start writing about it."
Two songs in and Parrish wasn't getting much feedback from Hammonds. She wasn't sure what to think. Hammonds said he doesn't like showing a lot of emotion for the first few songs, but Parrish didn't know that.
"Everybody can have one song that's good, but when you have three or four, or five or six, or seven or eight ... ," Hammonds said.
Then she played "Young Love."
"I don't get blown away very often, maybe three times in the past 20-something years," Hammonds said. "She played me another one and I was equally blown away. It was just one song after another, and she could sing and play well."
Hammonds said she's a natural, and "her writing is so far ahead of where she is agewise."
Delivery, along with her lyrical prowess, is something not everyone can do, according to Hammonds. The way she inflects her voice at the right moments makes it so you can hear a noticeable change in the feeling she's trying to convey through her music.
"I guess it was the way I think and the way I get things out and the way I sort through my own emotions is writing through them," Parrish said. "So it was it really not something I thought about saying, 'Hey, everyone look at this.' It was really, in the first place, for me. I guess it didn't dawn on me until I played them for people."
Parrish and Hammonds are in the process of shooting a music video to be released approximately one week after her single hits iTunes. When the song is released, they will gauge the response and release more singles.
Hammonds said she has a complete album in her back pocket.
"A lot of people want to sell a million copies [of their record]," Parrish said. "A million copies to me would not be however much money. That would be a million people who have heard something I have worked on and something that I felt. Success to me is the things I've worked so hard to make and craft being appreciated and felt by someone else.”
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