Once a year (and much to Terah’s disappointment) we’ve tried to touch base with her as our Editor and as the heartbeat behind Bridge Music Magazine. To give you a little insight into who she is, what vision she has for the future of the publication, and where her own music is going.
If you don’t already know, Terah Lynn started Bridge Music Magazine back in 2020 as a way to “sow the seeds I need to reap” into the industry. She found herself realizing the music industry is less run by record labels and more run by the press and social media. Long gone are the days of being discovered, now comes the era of each artist having to build their brand and business themselves in order to even show up on a label’s radar.
This means networking, press coverage, and public opinion. As an artist herself, she needed these things herself so she thought “Every other artist needs what I need and I can create a space for them to get it.” And thus, Bridge Music Magazine was born.
Terah went to Google to teach herself how to create a basic website, something she had never done before, “I’m not exactly computer savvy,” she explains. After all, most of Terah’s work history involved manual labor, putting on roofs, hanging drywall, laying tile, so this proved to be stretching for the artist. The New York Weekly called her the ”Backwoods Businesswoman” while the Ritz Herald dubbed her ”Blue Collar Barbie.” Needless to say, it was a stretching for th self-proclaimed Mountain Woman.
After putting together a basic site, she began reaching out to fellow artists and that is what has evolved in Bridge today.
“I just want this to be a place of encouragement, positivity and some words of affimation,” she says, ”Sometimes it’s hard to exist as an artist in a business model and I want to create a space where the striving is out the window, just all love, fun, depth and music.”
And she has done just that. In the few years since the digital magazine started, we have grown to become strategic partners with Universal Music Group as well as doing work with Sony and Warner Records artists. “It’s a humbling thing,” she says, “To get an email from someone at Sony asking for our opinion on their artist’s music. It’s surreal.”
We sat down with Terah to ask a couple questions about her life, music and vision for the future.
Bridge: You hate this, I know but we don’t care!
Terah: (laughs) You’re fired…
Bridge: No thanks. So anyways, Landmines. You just released a song last month. It was spun on so many stations and put on some Top Country Hits Playlists on Spotify, how does that feel?
Terah: It feels amazing. It’s just a fun song, my first in I think six months or so I was glad to have it out there. I’m thankful for the team that helped put it together.
Bridge: It gets stuck in my head on the daily, no cap.
Terah: What?
Bridge: Nevermind (laughs) Tell us about some new music!
Terah: Sure, so right now I’m about to hit the studio and finish up another fiery, little southern rock rock called “So Strong” then after that I am crazy excited to work on some brand new stuff with producer Dean Miller. His work is extraordinary and I am so honored he is choosing to work with me.
Bridge: New Music, yay! How long do we have to wait for that?
Terah: Hopefully no more than a couple months for “So Strong” and just a few after that for some of the new stuff. It’s going to be a great summer/fall season.
Bridge: Live shows?
Terah: For sure, we’re adding dates every week but just having ourselves a chill little summer here in Nashville and traveling around. I’ll be in Deer Park, Washington in July for the Gr8ter Veterans Summer Concert Series so I’m excited about that. Very honored to be included.
Bridge: We want to come! Okay. Bridge, what dreams do you have for us here?
Terah:Aw man, so many dreams. We are about to soup up the podcast in a way that should be so entertaining. We have so many artists in the pipeline to bring to you via articles or interviews and have so many new elements coming up this year.
Bridge: Vague but somehow specific, I like it (laughs) Let’s do some fun questions, what is your all-time favorite song?
Terah: I honestly have so many but for the sake of picking I would have to say “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding. As a kid, I just felt the transience of that song in my heart, along with his grit so it was such a soothing sound and picture to my soul.
Bridge: I’ve never heard of that but I will look it up!
Terah: Honestly, get out. (Major eyeball)
Bridge: Nah, you like me too much. Okurrr, favorite food…
Terah: Sweet potatoes.
Bridge: Interesting choice. If you could have anyone play you in a movie who would it be?
Terah: Hands down, Julia Roberts. The height, the red hair. She was my hero as a kid.
“if You’re an artist…enjoy creating, enjoy the process, and know that you contribute to society in such a necessary and beautiful way.”
Terah Lynn
Bridge: I can totally see that! Last question, what piece of advice would you give to young artists?
Terah: Well, as I’ve been able to interview some amazing artists this past year who have some amazing mentors like Vince Gill, there has been a common theme. “Let go of the results”
This industry is beautiful but it can be so volatile to self-worth solely because the metrics of success. It’s all vanity metrics, ultimately useless figures of likes and shares and views, easy manipulated metrics at that. So I would say, the system is broken, so let go of the results, they’re wrong half the time anyways. You’re an artist, enjoy creating, enjoy the process and know that you contribute to society in such a necessary and beautiful way. You don’t want to look back at the end of your life and think “Man, I wasted my life striving to meet hollow, vain, and meaningly standards of success.” You want to look back and think “Wow, I had so many beautiful experiences, made so many beautiful things and met so many beautiful people.”
Bridge: Lowkey I’m about to cry. Thank you for sharing that and giving us some time to point the camera at you today. We appreciate you, the industry appreciates you.
Terah: Aw, I love yous guys.
If you haven’t already, be sure to follow Terah on social media, stream her latest single “Landmines” and check back for all of the latest and greatest in music.
