Americana musician, Edan Archer, performed at Gasparilla Music Fest in Tampa, Florida, held April 29-30, 2020. We caught up with the Florida native to learn a little about her background in music, inspirations, and performing at Gasparilla Fest.
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I’m a musician. I write songs, I play music and that’s basically what I like to do.
You’re from Gainesville, Florida, right?
Yes, I’m from Gainesville Florida. My whole family is in Florida, but I’ve lived in Miami too and now I live in Orlando.
Did your family do music? Did they inspire you to get into music?
My parents are musicians, so I grew up with that stuff in the house and just guitars and pianos laying around and they both play, so they kind of taught me. We had a family band when we were younger, like folk festivals, singing harmonies, but I didn’t play guitar, my mom played the guitar. Now I play guitar in my own band.
What are your other inspirations?
I love everything from rock and roll to murder ballads to old country to stuff that used to be considered pop but now would be considered more alternative like Tom Petty and that kind of stuff.
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Any words of wisdom to young women coming up trying to pursue music? What advice would you give to these up-and-coming artists?
Yeah. Even if you don’t know how to do something yet, you can figure out how to do it and do it yourself. Even if people say that you can’t or that you shouldn’t. I mean, I’ve taught myself how to do so many things that I didn’t think I could do and I think it’s important. People will try to take control away from you, creative control, financial control, whatever. But I think it’s important to maintain your own control. Even if somebody might say that they know more or have more experience or can do things for you, it’s important to keep control. Don’t give it away because you need to have ownership over your own vision, over your own life, and the moment you let somebody else take charge, your options are limited and you shouldn’t have to wait around for anybody. You should just do it yourself. That’s something I’ve learned the hard way.
How was your experience here at Gasparilla Music Fest?
I loved it! It was amazing…I think this is a festival that is really based around the fan experience. It’s not too big. There’s tents, little grassy areas…there’s all sorts of places. It’s kid-friendly. It’s a variety. I just think it’s awesome and I just think it’s the perfect size festival and I love that they supported me. They’ve had other up-and-coming female Americana artists here before like Nikki Lane and Margo Price, and they mentioned that I was kind of like one of those for them, so I think they’re really supportive towards women artists in my genre and I am so excited because it’s really important to me and I guess it’s great to feel supported and to help represent Florida.
Any more new music in the works? What are your plans for the next year?
So I’m still kind of supporting my album that came out in August, but I am starting to workshop songs for the new album. So what I do is before we record them, we kind of play them live and get all the kinks out and see what I really like. So that’s kind of what we’re doing right now — “road” testing.
So you’re writing new stuff, you’re trying them out on the road…what else?
We’ll probably still do a couple of videos for this album that’s out, but looking forward, I’m ready to get back into the studio which may be a little while because it’s something we’ve got to save for and plan for… and I don’t know what town I’m going to do it in. Am I going to do it in Florida? Am I going to do it in Nashville? I don’t know. So right now I’m just starting to water those seeds.
Anything else you would like to add?
I love girls who play guitar and I love Guitar Girl Magazine! So thank you for talking with me!