Sonia Rao

There’s something charming about Sonia Rao, the Los Angeles based indie pop singer/songwriter who’s received praise from CeeLo Green and Christina Aguilera on the purity and soulfulness of her voice. She didn’t grow up with dreams of becoming a pop star nor a TV star, and unlike many of her peers, she didn’t go to college to pursue music. As the daughter of Indian American immigrants, Sonia was classically trained on violin at age five and piano at age seven, but encouraged to seek a career outside of music. She went to UC Berkeley to study Psychology and didn’t write a single song until after graduating.

Sonia Rao’s college boyfriend unexpectedly passed away and to process his death she found herself writing song after song. “Music was my catharsis; it helped me to process everything that happened and express the heaviness I was feeling,” she says. “I never talked to anyone about his death because I felt like there was nothing to say. But in writing these songs, I realized I did have something to say about it, as well as to him, and to myself.” These songs would later become her debut full-length album, Calm Her, released independently in 2011.

Sonia Rao growth

It is that genuine, instinctual human need to create and express that has propelled Sonia Rao to continue to grow and explore as an artist. Sonia and artists like Bon Iver, Feist and Rachael Yamagata have something very special in common; they create music that moves us in such an intimate way that it feels and sounds as though it’s just the two of us alone in a room while they sing and play a single instrument. With that special moment in mind, Sonia wrote the songs to her forthcoming five-song EP, Los Angeles Part 1, alone on guitar or piano. She then brought the songs to Evan Hillhouse, who added drums, guitar, bass and keyboard. All songs were produced, engineered and mastered by Josh Doyle at 3 Theory Productions in Van Nuys, CA, except for “Los Angeles,” which was engineered by Kurt Piar at Proving Ground Studios in LA. Sonia’s sophomore album, Los Angeles Part 1, will independently release on September 17, 2013.

Los Angeles Part I is an album for anyone in transition, be it between loves, cities, careers, homes, or even those on the verge of truly knowing themselves. The EP was written over the last two years, during Rao’s self-proclaimed “epitome of new beginnings and transition.” She moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles, challenged her Indian American family’s expectations for a career in medicine or law, fell in love, fell into LA’s tumultuous love-hate cycle, and was tossed into the reality TV experience with an appearance on Season 1 of NBC’s The Voice. In that time Sonia Rao has also performed duets with some of her favorite artists growing up, including Daniel Bedingfield and Elliott Yamin, and both MTV and E! featured her music on their TV shows including The Jersey Shore, Underemployed and Married to Jonas. Suffice to say, since the 2011 release of Calm Her, Sonia Rao has had plenty of time and experiences to approach her piano with a fresh mind and hands.

Sonia Rao influence

While many consider Sonia Rao to be an indie pop singer/songwriter, there’s an undeniable folk influence to her music on a conceptual level. Lyrically, her songs have a strong storytelling component. For example, “Los Angeles,” the final track on her forthcoming EP, tells the story of Sonia and her fellow contestants on NBC’s The Voice sharing their stories back at the hotel after a day of filming. “At the core of all of the reality TV weirdness, promo and consumerism, our ultimate goals were to simply sing our songs and tell our stories,” she says. “I thought this juxtaposition was strange and beautiful.” Sonia sings, “Keep on rocking me, baby, sing that lovely song, sing it straight from your heart and pull me along, into your story, I've seem to lost my own.”

Growing up between two cultures, Indian and American, has put Sonia Rao in a unique place. “One culture encourages entrepreneurship and individualism,” she says, “while the other, understandably so, encourages stability and discourages risk.” In pursing a career in the arts, considered by many to be the definition of “risky,” Sonia has found her place between these two cultures, within her family and within herself. “Growing up I didn’t see many Asian American artists, especially Indian American, in the mainstream music scene. One thing that has made my career thus far and my experience on The Voice so meaningful is the continuous response from young, aspiring Indian and Indian American artists who also want to break out of cultural expectations.” With Los Angeles Part 1, Sonia Rao leads fans into a world of indie pop where listening to your inner voice is the bravest move of all.