Nicole Nehrbas
Nicole is a pop artist manager, business co-founder, pedal tavern lifeguard, and experienced food truck driver.
Job Juggler On Her Way Up
Nicole is a pop artist manager, business co-founder, pedal tavern lifeguard, and experienced food truck driver .
Previously a member of an entrepreneurship center that jacked up its rates, Nicole found solace at HOME a handful of months ago after hearing about us through TONS.
Grown from the mystic soil of Arizona, Nicole Nehrbas trekked here to Nashville five years ago after just having graduated from college. Unemployed and minimal familial connections in town, Nicole braved the unknown and allowed herself three months to find a job to sustain herself living in an apartment with no roommates. Luckily, only two months in, Nicole joined the Country Music Hall of Fame hospitality team, helping with ticket sales and guided tours of RCA Studio B. While at CMHoF, Nicole met other transplants around the same age and in a similar situation as her; in short, she found a place where she fit in.
Her first real job in the music industry didn’t come along until around the 8-12 month mark after moving to Nashville, which was an unpaid internship with a small record label that no longer exists. Finally, five months later into the internship (that’s a year and a half after moving), Nicole landed her first paid industry job as a promo coordinator. Woohoo!
The reason Nicole wanted to move to Nashville of all places was because she craved to work in artist management. Since she graduated from The University of Arizona with an impressive GPA in Business Management and a minor in Music, plus 2 years working part time at a record label in AZ already under her belt, she assumed she held all the cards in her hands to immediately land an industry job in Nashville.
Then reality hit. Typically in the music industry, fancy diplomas and beefed up resumes don’t guarantee an entry-level job.
Having connections with the right people and actually demonstrating your skills is what pushes people ahead in the industry. Now having that knowledge, Nicole landed her first major gig by going above and beyond at her internship. She talked with everybody, asking them questions, seeking for advice, and offering a helping hand whenever possible. Acting proactively painted Nicole as a genuinely passionate person eager to work in the industry, which left an impression on the big guys.
Nicole’s dream to pursue the music industry manifested at age 12, though the picture wasn’t clear as to what that entailed. Her hard working inspiration comes from Simon Cowell, who started in the mailroom at a record label and worked his way up to millionaire status/mad scientist who formulated the highly profitable, perfect five-piece combination of entertainment talent to make young girls world-wide lose their minds. During his American Idol years, Nicole was obsessed with Simon and aspired to be him.
Certainly well on her way to the top, Nicole is now co-founder of Vibe Entertainment, a joined media and management company helping artists push their careers further through creating digital content and promotions.
The other co-founder is her business partner Randy, who she met while working together at CMHoF back in 2013. The two are the perfect business-meets-creativity team, and their high compatibility shows in the quality of Vibe Entertainment.
Nicole is simultaneously living her dream as an artist manager, presently helping a Nashville alt pop/rock group called Lost Stars.
She discovered the boys, who all attended Belmont (surprise), while on set during a music video shoot through Vibe Entertainment. The lead singer blew Nicole away because, instead of lip-synching as most artists do, he was actually vocally singing the song on set with the camera rolling. His singing voice astounded Nicole, and she enthusiastically committed herself to managing them; not only are they super talented, but the boys also all work well together as a band. Since becoming their manager, Nicole helped them release an EP and a couple singles, executed a successful DIY tour, and booked all their shows for about 20 different cities. Not to mention, she also worked as their road manager, aka mom/cat herder.
Overall, the tour was fun and indie. When crashing at hotels, the 7 of them crammed into 1 room, occupying two beds, an air mattress, and the floor. The boys are like brothers to Nicole, while being very entertaining and easy to travel with. Their gnarly road stories include losing car keys, running out of gas on the highway, and driving through a snowstorm in NY.
For Nicole, it feels as though she’s always working 2-3 jobs at any given time. Even though she is already a co-founder/co-owner of Vibe Nashville and artist manager for Lost Stars, she is also working odd jobs with particularly flexible hours to supplement income. One of her grinds, which she regularly works Thurs-Sunday, is with a pedal tavern called Sprocket Rocket. Because hours are solely on weekends, Nicole has the ability to work as artist manager during the week. Not surprisingly, several other musicians and music industry folk work with her at the same company, so they are extremely lenient about giving time off, even weeks at a time, as long as someone else covers the hours.
At the time I interviewed Nicole, she had just returned from hustling a food truck tour job for a queso company.
The gig lasted for 5 weeks, so she needed to take a leave of absence from “Sprocket Rocket and The Drunk Bachelorette Parties,” but she was stoked to do it since she absolutely loves traveling. The food truck itself was brand spankin’ new, and Nicole basically assisted with driving the truck, handing out samples and swag at grocery stores in between doing product promo at events, including the Indy 500.
Juggling several projects at once is nothing new to Nicole. When she was in 4th grade, she played both the clarinet and the saxophone, she joined her school’s jazz band in High School, and she sang with her church choir, not to mention being able to play hand bells. In fact, her superlative in school was: “Most Likely To Be The Entire Tonight Show Band.”
Nicole has acquired and completed so many jobs through her 20-something life, as a matter of fact, that there was not enough room to include them all here.
She has vast experience and knowledge in several touring/promotion/assistant/administration music industry jobs, so if you need any more information about the business end of music, before you rake through annoyingly vague or excruciatingly specific articles on Google, give Nicole a shout! Bonus points if you’re an advocate for growing Nashville Pop like she is!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nnehrbas/
https://www.vibenashville.com/home
https://twitter.com/vibenashville
Interviewed and written by Andra Ingram
Wendy Child
Hot releases on the way, former contestant on The Voice, private music tutor on the side, wife to a Producer, and proud mother of a Rat Terrier
Local Honest Pop Artist
Hot releases on the way, former contestant on The Voice, private music tutor on the side, wife to a Producer, and proud mother of a Rat Terrier
An average, everyday e-blast from the network of overshadowed pop genre artists in Nashville, The Other Nashville Society, is what (probably) first introduced Wendy Child to HOME.
The digital letter announced a mixer that was to be held at the HOME location. After a post-event grand tour of the community campus, soaking in the awesome vibes and seeing how beautiful a family of like-minded music folk can be, Wendy decided to officially join. Her favorite thing about HOME? The opportunity to leave her house that freelancing as an artist inevitably draws her into.
As far as being in Nashville goes, Wendy has lived here for less than a year! July will mark her first anniversary of moving here from Dallas, TX. Originally from Colorado, the infamous Nashville humidity has obviously been an adjustment. Another unforeseen obstacle Wendy encountered was when she and her husband initially moved to Donelson but consistently had a horrific mouse problem. After six months of rodent torture, they broke their lease and settled in cozy, historic Franklin where her husband works as an A&R rep by day and Producer/Sound Engineer by night.
Like most other people who move here, dreams of becoming a music star pulled Wendy to Nashville. Her dream’s humble beginnings started with her first studio recording experience at age 18, which was also when she first met her producer husband. Having always wanted to live in a musical city, she was naturally drawn to Music City, USA due to the overall attitude here of what can I do for you versus what can I get from you that is frequently found elsewhere.
Rewinding to before her first recording session, Wendy grew up with parents who were into Christian music and strongly encouraged her to love bands such as Superchick, the genre’s alleged Britney Spears equivalent. At age 12, she began writing her own music and playing the guitar in order to impress a guitarist heartthrob she had her eyes on; she took guitar lessons from the dreamboat, but alas it was not meant to be. Moving on, the Christian music track carried over into High School where Wendy played in a band she believes was called Standing Saved...or something like that. In her first year of college, drunk on the newfound freedom of being away from home and her parents, and trying to find a genre that properly fit her as an artist, she bought a pocket-sized, four string ukulele, learned how to play it, and wrote a song on it in a single night. Her new roommate was less than thrilled, to say the least.
Further into her music career, Wendy participated in season 7 of The Voice.
In 2014 she began the audition process with an open call in Colorado. The open call led to a filmed callback the next day in a small studio with a producer, which led to an interview process including psych evals, which led to a flight to LA, which led to more interviews with hair, makeup, and full glam, which led to the actual blind auditions to be aired on TV.
Six weeks prior to the big, blind audition, she and the other final 90 contestants were sequestered in a hotel in LA and actually had all modes of contact with the outside world taken away from them during the final week of filming auditions, to prevent results from reaching the ears of contestants who had not yet sung in front of the celebrity coaches. Wendy recalls sitting by the hotel pool or the fire pit with other phone-robbed contestants and just staring at each other out of boredom. Luckily, around the corner from the hotel was a small pet shop where mostly the female contestants traversed to and released their woes through self-prescribed puppy therapy. Unfortunately, Wendy never made it on-screen, due to the show trying to compensate for millions of dollars lost daily from postponing filming for a week in order for Pharrell to recover from an illness. The last scheduled day of filming never happened, and the four teams of 12 contestants filled up before the other half of the contestants had the opportunity to perform for the blind audition.
But the story doesn’t stop there! Since Wendy’s most exciting but never-to-be-repeated experience, she has encountered numerous former Voice contestants at random places in Nashville. When meeting former contestants, there is an unspoken attitude of “once you’re in the family, you’re in it for life,” so out there in the music world there is an ever-expanding family of entertainment TV veterans. If this applies to you, feel free to contact Wendy for emotional support or general story sharing.
That aside, all of Wendy’s crazy music experiences have carried her to where she is today, releasing a series of Honest Pop singles throughout 2018.
With her current project, Wendy delves into an unapologetic and truth bearing pop vibe. Sadly, however, the ukulele does not make an appearance (darn). For her release strategy, a highly debated topic with her producers, she has chosen to release a series of several singles as opposed to the more traditional approach of releasing a whole EP or album, due to the change in how music is currently consumed. Since the success of pop music relies heavily on Spotify playlist features, Spotify being the king of music streaming and consumption, releasing a full album simply does not make sense anymore. A stream of singles builds traction, allows for artist growth, and gives music consumers a reason to keep paying attention. Using this tactic, Wendy builds a lasting momentum that reflects her non-stop drive as an artist.
Follow Wendy Child on all her socials to stay in-the-know with her single releases, or reach out to just say hi! She’s super friendly, I promise!
Music: http://wendychildmusic.com
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6s7bcPZT7f6G51ozLgbQsR
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Wendy-Child-191453047239/
Interviewed and written by Andra Ingram