Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in the Aug. 1, 2016 edition of the Sequim Gazette. — MD

The U.S.’s next music sensation may call Sequim home.

In a few years span, 18-year-old Bailey Bryan has gone from strumming her guitar in front of Jose’s Famous Salsa in Downtown Sequim to playing for thousands of people at the Watershed Country Music Festival at The Gorge Amphitheater.

“Growing up in Sequim, there wasn’t a ton of big performing opportunities,” Bryan said.

“My dad told me that if I want to play, I should go sit outside and play. We were friends with Jose (Garcia) and I asked him if I could sit out there.”

Garcia agreed and “that was a bulk of my performing experience,” Bryan said.

But Bryan did take center stage several other times while in Sequim though. She starred as Ariel in Sequim High’s “Footloose” as a freshman and performed with the school’s different choirs.

To pursue a recording career, she took to the road last October with her mom and dad Heidi and Jay and 15-year-old brother Cooper and uprooted from Sequim for Nashville.

Bryan finished school online while pursuing her music passion.

Recording background

Years ago, Bryan met publisher and mentor Becki Devries of Kompass Music Publishing in Nashville at a music worship service.

They reconnected in the summer of 2013 at a songwriting seminar.

“It was then that I realized she had the whole package,” Devries said. “Without any training at all, she was already an impressive songwriter at a really young age.”

Bryan signed a publishing agreement with Kompass in 2013 and began visiting Nashville more frequently from Sequim.

“I always jumped at the chance to sing and play my guitar in front of people, but when I started writing songs when I was 12, music became an even bigger part of my life,” Bryan said.

“Being able to share my heart and experiences with other people through my music became my purpose and my passion.”

A few months ago, Bryan signed a joint-recording deal between Warner Music Nashville and 300 Entertainment of New York. So far, performing at the Watershed Country Music Festival is the biggest event she’s done. Bryan played a 30-minute set of original songs at the Next from Nashville stage on July 30 and she’ll play it again at 3 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 6.

For more information, visit http://watershedfest.com.

Finding her own

In recent months, she’s been working with songwriters Casey Brown and Dennis Matkosky (“Maniac”) on her first single “Own It.”

“I’m so excited. ‘Own It’ is probably the most autobiographical song I’ve done,” Bryan said.

She approached the songwriters with a list of “quirky things” about herself at “a time of self-discovery and learning who I want to be,” Bryan said.

“The biggest and most important thing I’ve learned is that there are really no rules. People think there are a ton of expectations … but the most important thing is to be yourself.”

Bryan’s style is a cross between pop and country and says her influences range from the Dixie Chicks to Drake to the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

For her songs, Bryan usually is working with one or two other writers, she says.

“I’ll go in with an idea or another song that inspires me,” Bryan said. “It’s whatever I’m feeling. I’ll say this is what I want to do. It flows from there.”

Beautiful country

Bryan said since moving to Nashville she’s found herself to be biased toward Sequim and the Olympic Peninsula.

“I think Sequim is the most beautiful place on Earth,” she said. “You can’t fully appreciate it until you live somewhere else. Every single day, I wish I could go jump in Lake Crescent. Here it’s a 1,000 degrees and the air is mostly water but then there’s no water to jump in.”

But she’s loving Nashville.

“I get to do music every single day,” she said.

So far, she’s experienced a few surreal musical experiences back home and since moving.

At 14, a friend talked her into an open mic night that hip hop artist Macklemore was hosting. Once there she discovered most of the performers were rappers but she braved up, took the mic from Macklemore and sang a country song in a flowery skirt with her black guitar.

“It was a dream come true,” she said. “I got a good response. I loved it.”

More recently, she traveled to New York for the first time to sign with her record label. There, she performed at the CEO’s house, Bryan said.

“That was the first business-y thing I got to do,” she said.

But even though Bryan has been gone only a little while, she feels Sequim is full of talented people.

“It’s such a supportive community,” she said.

“Emblem3 and myself are testaments to how supportive Sequim is. I love that’s where I came from.”

“God is so good. I couldn’t have planned this whole thing,” she said.”

Look for future tour dates and music announcements from Bryan at YouTube “Bailey Bryan,” Instagram, and Twitter @baileymyown, and Facebook @baileybryanmusic.

Reach Matthew Nash at mnash@sequimgazette.com.