Zoe Brenn: Spotlight
Zoe Brenn, a sophomore here at CCU, grew up watching shows like The Voice and fell in love with music and singing. Influenced by Lecrae and other Christian rappers, she began writing songs and developing her voice in high school. Throughout childhood she dabbled in songwriting, but in her junior year of high school, she became interested in producing her own music. She sang backup vocals for various friends, and then quickly launched into making and releasing her own songs.
Her first single “Surgery” came out in 2018, and it describes how her physical knee surgeries exposed emotional surgery that she needed in her heart. Near the beginning of quarantine, she released her first album called “Daddy My Heart Is Broken” and is now working on another album to be released this spring. She would describe her music as mainly R&B and highly personal.
The best stories come from what we know. Zoe discovered this when she started writing songs and has always used her songwriting as an outlet to share her story and process difficult things happening in her life. The main story behind much of her music is suffering and pain. She delves into the tough relationship she has with her father in a few of her songs, but also wants to keep her music open to audience interpretation. After all, each song can mean something different to every person based on their personal life experiences.
Growing up in Highlands Ranch, Zoe performed in various school events near CCU and now records her music at Colorado Sound Studios in Westminster. During her studio sessions, there is a sound engineer that helps her lay down tracks and create a finished product. They work on the instrumental tracks, adding melody and harmony, mixing vocals, and adding other effects. She loves the creative process in the studio, as she has a lot of flexibility and freedom to find her own sound and fine tune her song until she thinks it is finished. She would love to perform more in the future, but for now, she mainly spends time in the studio.
Zoe would love to be a recording artist and get signed to a record label, but she also has goals of becoming a songwriter as it is a more stable career in the competitive industry. However, she is open to where God wants to lead her and ready to jump into any exciting role in the music industry.
Her faith deeply impacts her music and every aspect of her life. She never wants to be known as a “Christian artist”,because in her opinion, Christian artists tend to only reach a Christian audience. There is an industry for that, but she wants to be able to reach a larger audience. Due to this desire, she does not include the word “God” or strictly Christian words very often in her music. However, it is easy to read between the lines and realize that she is talking about God in many of her lyrics. She really admires the hip-hop artist and rapper Lecrae, because he is a Christian, but as he is not signed with a Christian label, he reaches a larger audience. Overall, Zoe says that she writes from a perspective of hope. She wants to let others know that there is a greater hope, despite the suffering people go through. That greater hope is Jesus Christ.
To listen to Zoe’s incredible music, click the link below:
