Payton Rae
League City, Texas, United States | SELF
Music
Press
Payton Rae's voice and guitar playing have made her a hit on YouTube. - ABC Entertainment News - ABC World News
There are a few milestones in a teenage girl's life. Payton Rae is about to celebrate one of them — she'll turn 16 in September. A big party is in the works, and she's already scouting locations with her mom.
But the League City teen has other reasons to celebrate that aren't so commonplace.
Last month, she released her debut EP, Dare to Live, via her own Pink Pony Records. Thanks to a strong online presence and savvy pre-release buildup, it climbed as high as No. 4 on the iTunes country chart. That's unheard of for an independent artist with minimal radio play....... - Houston Chronicle
“Finally there was a young lady by the name of Payton Rae. She was country through and through. She had complete command over the stage and her vocal delivery was spot on. When you watched her, it looked like she had been there before. In other words, she had it together. Payton Rae is another talented young artist to come out of Hootenany that I believe you’ll be hearing more out of in the very near future.”
- The Knoxville Focus
Payton Rae’s latest video, “Not Your Cinderella” debuted earlier this month. The clip is the second created from her five song EP, Dare To Live. - Music Row
With more than 105,000 Twitter followers and 44,000 YouTube subscribers, 16-year-old country singer Payton Rae has a social-media impact that matches some bigger stars. But in the black-and-white video for Sidelines, a song that appears on the five-song Dare to Live EP she released in May, she doesn't seem to be making much of an impression at all on the football player she's crushing on. Payton Rae doesn't name the boy, à la Taylor Swift, but she does identify his football jersey — No. 20 — in both the song and the Stephen Shepherd-directed video.
"That was actually his real number," says the Houston native. "I want to feel what I'm singing. In order to do that, I need to make it as real as possible." Just the number was enough to identify the boy for their mutual friends. "When the EP came out, I got messages from every single one of his ex-girlfriends, going, 'Oh, my God, this song is about him.' I guess they felt the same way." — Brian Mansfield - USA Today
Discography
Still working on that hot first release.
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Bio
What happens when you take the best of Nashville’s music community - brilliant songwriters, seasoned, top-notch musicians, the high-quality studios and production -
and team it with a 15-year old girl with a big, expressive voice and exploding Internet popularity?
You get the perfect blend of old-school craft and wide-eyed enthusiasm, proven Music City genius and fresh new Lone Star talent - all fueled by a staggering amount of online
exposure, including six million YouTube views of her performances to date. In short: you get new teen sensation
Payton Rae, with her debut project, the five-song DARE TO LIVE.
Part of a new wave of performers who are taking their music directly to the fans, this 7th-generation Texan (hailing from just outside Houston) has harnessed the exponential
promotional power of the Internet to become a bona fide YouTube sensation, amassing an impressive domestic and international audience for her fresh-faced blend of pure
country music and genuine Texas charm. By instinctively following her muse, sticking steadfastly to her dream and singing her heart out at every opportunity, Payton Rae has
already achieved the impossible, and she's just getting started.
In just five songs, DARE TO LIVE captures the youth, passion and flourishing talent of this young performer. Recorded in Nashville, the EP boasts the work of many well known songwriters.
Brian White - who produced DARE TO LIVE and shares writing credits on the title track - has 13 #1 hits on the Christian music charts; Brian’ work is familiar to
many country fans through his song for Rodney Atkins, the #1 smash “Watching You.”Other songwriting heavyweights on the project include veterans Steve Bogard (George
Strait, Rascal Flatts) and Brett Beavers (Dierks Bentley).
When working with Brian White on DARE TO LIVE, songs were a very important part of the process for Payton Rae. "Ever since I was really little it has always been about
country music for me," says the petite singer with the distinctive voice. "Country songs tell a story, and there's so much thought that goes into the lyrics...I wanted my songs to
really mean something to me."
The songs of DARE TO LIVE feel tailor-made for this 15 year old artist. The themes include boys (“Boy To Blame”), heartache, (“Mississippi’ Crying”), ("Not Your Cinderella”),
isolation (“Sidelines”) (where Payton Rae shares a co-writing credit) and inspiration ("Dare To Live”). Yet listeners of all ages will delight in these well-crafted tunes; as any country fan knows, some topics - love, relationships and reaching for your dreams - aren't limited to any age bracket.
"I just really love singing –sweet love songs, songs about breakups, and songs about boys I guess," she says with a laugh. "When I'm in the studio it's like everything that's on
my mind is put to the side. It's the best feeling ever."
It all started for Payton Rae with her first public performance, singing the national anthem for the Houston Comets women's basketball team when she was just four years
old. "There's a funny story behind that," Payton says. "I had never sung it before, but I was sleeping with my mom one night and she says I burst out singing the national anthem.
After I sang it in my sleep, she had me learn it and I auditioned after that." That pre-game performance, a vintage video of which the fans have now made a
YouTube hit, touched something deep inside the singer, and her fate was sealed. "After that performance I knew what I wanted to do," she says. "I just kept singing the anthem
–for my brother's baseball games, for high school volleyball games, wherever. That's pretty much how I got started."
Inspired by the Internet-aided launch of teen stars like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift and armed with a microphone and a digital video camera, Payton Rae went to work, posting videos and monitoring the astonishing response. "I put some videos up for my friends and family and all these people started viewing them," she says with a touch of surprise still in her voice. "It's a great way to get your music out there and connect with listeners Her YouTube tributes to some of her favorite artists –including everyone from Carrie Underwood to Taylor Swift to newcomers like The Band Perry –have become viral hits in themselves, igniting Payton's singing career and making that all-important fan connection with no prior management or label help. In addition to her YouTube fan base, Payton's Twitter following has long since passed the 100,000 mark (more than many established country artists!) and continues to grow daily.
“I spend a lot of time on Twitter and Facebook, and I love talking to my fans,”smiles Payton Rae. “It's one of my favorite things to do."
Boosted along the way by great friends and a supportive family, she stays plenty busy these days between being home-schooled, shuttling back and forth from Texas to
Nashville to pursue her music, and the high-tech business of keeping in t
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