In a moment of exposition, Rachel Burns poignant and reflective lyrics teamed with her tender and skillful guitar playing will ground you-- they will reaffirm and readjust your perspective. Her music acts as an abreaction of human emotions and also deals heavily with the world through her eyes, being both incredibly personal but also incredibly identifying. The listener is immediately drawn to the real and invested undertones within the music itself and its deliverance.
Rachel's music appreciation started at a very young age, influenced largely from both her father and her mother who both had a deep-seeded love for music. Her father would make her mix tapes, containing artists such as Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, Jim Croce, Cat Stevens, John Prine, Steve Earle and Jim Taylor and also bought her both a Beatles 20 Greatest Hits tape and an Elvis tape. She remembers quite vividly being the only child at age eight in her group of friends who could identify Stevie Nicks on the radio. Her friends parents were impressed.
As she grew up, her music appreciation evolved into more contemporary artists. She had a brief flirtation with punk rock and branched out into alternative rock, classic rock, indie rock, old country, folk, and bluegrass. She also loves to get her hands on a good pop album (but nothing youd find playing on a top 40 radio station). She had been drawn to the guitar almost immediately and remembers how her father used to play to her when she was young. He bought her her first guitar when she was 13 for Christmas and promised to teach her how to play when she got older. So she waited. At 16 she started taking lessons and was writing her first songs by 17. At first the songs weren't so good. Mostly just power chords and angst, she hadnt yet grown into her voice or her particular style yet. She kept writing though, due largely to her supportive friends who told her they liked her songs (they lied). Soon she narrowed her focus slightly and went internal to find her truest sound and what found itself developing were folk/country/pop songs that dealt heavily on a foundation of hooks and strong melody.
She released a demo of seven songs recorded by her dear friend Joshua Peters in the summer of 2004 entitled, Pick Me Ups and Let Me Downs. If you dont already own a copy, youll never own a copy because it was rush recorded and she is slightly embarrassed by it. However, her two hit songs, Oxygen and Understood have become staples of her live performance. She is currently working on her latest project, a full-length, entitled, "Circular Motion". No release date is yet scheduled.