Stella Prince’s October 2023 single release “Dear Future Me” is an appropriate title for a young singer-songwriter who has been future-focused for years. She knew as young as three years old that she wanted to be a singer, telling her parents she needed a manager before they were even sure how she knew what that meant. Growing up in Woodstock, New York, the folk music capital of the United States certainly had an impact on her interests. While her parents were not musicians—her father is a writer and her mother, an artist—she had access to their CD and record collection. They found her adept at games of “Name That Tune,” as she fell in love with Broadway soundtracks. She also acknowledges the influences of Karen Carpenter, Judy Garland, and Patsy Cline, her three favorite singers, whose voices she calls “healing.” She was also influenced by the female singer-songwriters of the seventies—Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Judy Colings, as well as Carole King and Linda Ronstadt, noting that she learned something every time she heard their music. Willing to nurture her dream, Stella’s parents started her in voice lessons at four and piano lessons at six.
“I was actually trained classically at a conservatory in upstate New York that I went to once a week religiously from 7 to 14. That’s where I got all my training, and I sang literally everything from 1940s songs to Broadway to classical. That was the biggest learning experience I could ever get. I found whether it’s voice or musical, the classical training can take you so many different directions,” said Prince.
She also began studying the guitar through school, but at first, she found the instrument too difficult to play with her small hands, so she left it in the corner of her room until she was fourteen. She also began writing songs early, setting the stage for her songwriting practice, which she described as “taking my experiences and my thoughts and putting them into song.” She was nine the first time she remembers writing a full song, putting down the chords, the verse, and the chorus. “That day we were putting my childhood dog to sleep. That is the single thing that got me to go to the piano to pound out that song called ‘I’m an Old Dog’ from the point of view of the dog. That was what moved me so much to start writing songs, and it’s always been that way.”
The lyrics she continues to write are also based on her experiences, resulting in songs that are age appropriate without being cliché or condescending. Her goal, she says, is to write songs that resonate with everyone. “My dream is to have a fan base from every walk of life. There’s not just one Stella Prince fan; it’s for everyone,” she said.
Prince is currently promoting her first EP project Eighteen, after releasing singles, with an eventual goal of a full-length album when she has a team or label behind her. She isn’t one to wait around for things to happen. She admits that when she first came to Nashville at fourteen, everything felt closed. She didn’t know anyone and was worried, thinking, “How in the world am I going to do this?” When she returned to New York and the pandemic occurred, she spent time planning. She calls this period “the best thing that could have happened. I started booking my own tours across the country and doing everything myself.”
She also took advantage of the time to attend the local community college, where she started taking classes at thirteen. She was able to take high school and college classes synchronously, graduating from high school at fifteen and earning her two-year degree at sixteen.
The EP explores experiences of girls her age with such song titles as “Crying on a Saturday Night” and “The Rain Might Fall,” as well as the title song “Eighteen.” Her recent single “Dear Future Me,” written after her album was put together, gives a look into her willingness to play the long game. She said she had repeatedly tried to write a letter to her future self in diaries without success until she hit on the idea of turning it into a song.
“I wrote it in like 20 minutes,” she said, “and I thought, ‘This is so easy compared to writing it down.’” When she considers what her future self will consider her best memories when looking back on this time in her life, she says it will be moving to Nashville.
She met Steve Fishell, an original member of Emmylou Harris’ band shortly after arriving in town, which she calls fate. He has become her biggest mentor. When she encountered him, she thought her current manager had reached out to him, so she spoke up.
He didn’t know who she was, she admitted, but he invited her to his studio to record, beginning what she anticipates will be a lifetime relationship. She also met Janis Ian at a folk conference this year, whose song “At Seventeen’ she considered a beautiful classic.
Part of taking charge of the direction of her career for Prince is booking shows and setting up her recent first international tour. She played about 15 shows in two and a half weeks, an intense pace with a lot of travel. This marked Prince’s first time headlining every show. She noted that these were ticketed shows, almost all sold out. She noted that the biggest challenge was a venue where she played a fully acoustic two-and-a-half-hour show—no mic, no amp.
She played one of her favorite shows on the tour at the Bedford in London, a well-known venue where UK-based artists such as Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith got their start. She had played there once before at seventeen, so the return engagement was special.
Prince tours without a band. “It’s just me and my guitar,” she said. This week, however, she is getting ready for a full band show at the Mockingbird Theater at The Factory in Franklin, Tennessee, on Friday, December 8. For the show “Women of Folk,” Prince will join Rebecca Lee Daniels, Hannah McDonald, and Redd and the Paper Flowers.
Young fans are also discovering her music. She has had several thousand Taylor Swift fan accounts following her. “They’re the nicest fan base,” she said, adding that they post positive comments to her posts. “They’re the kindest, sweetest people. I love when people my age and, of course, people younger like my music. It’s really flattering.”
In the meantime, she is keeping her eye on the future, balancing songs with a little teenaged angst with songs of hope for the future. She said, “This is something that I’ve always known that I was going to do, so I’m thinking about the future all the time, thinking about everything that I want to accomplish and really just manifesting it. That’s been a big thing.” She admits that seeing her parents’ live the artists’ life has taught her to keep going, no matter what.
She has also made peace with the music that is right for her, despite well-meaning advice. Upon coming to Nashville, she said, “I was set on doing folk music, coming from Woodstock, but a lot of people said, ‘You are just not going to make it if you do folk. It’s not commercial; there’s no money in it. You need to do country.” She considered the switch before coming to terms with who she is and what she wants to do. Fishell told her, “You just need to be yourself.”
“Maybe it’s just that simple,” she said. “I think I am a little bit of multiple genres; mainly I’m Americana, which is such a good mix of multiple sounds. In LA or New York, I’d be indie pop or indie alt, but really I’m folk with a drop of country, and definitely Americana.
Stella Prince is not waiting around for her career to take off. She is planning a tour next year, heading to Ireland for a folk music conference and festival in January, and she hopes to play the Country to Country (C2C) Festival in the spring and to work toward a full album. She looks forward to ending the year with a band and working as hard as she can, giving her “Future Me” plenty to celebrate.