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# Natalie Schlabs
- URL: https://www.analogue.io/new-artists/natalie-schlabs/
- Published: 2020-07-06T07:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2020-05-25T13:53:19.000Z
- Description: Singer-songwriter Natalie Schlabs marries the poignant and personal on her latest set of songs.
- Author: Analogue
- Tags: New Artists, Natalie Schlabs, Matt Conner, #Import 2026-11-12 21:02, #color-red, #blend-hard-light

*By* [*Matt Conner*](https://www.analogue.io/tag/matt-conner/)

**Her new album doesn't drop until October, but we're too excited to tell you about Natalie Schlabs to wait.**

Unlike most who make the trek to Nashville, Natalie Schlabs wasn't intent on making a living as an artist in Music City when she first arrived. However, it was only a matter of time until her natural gifts surfaced enough in a town steeped in the industry.

With songs both personal and poignant, we're excited to hear much more from Natalie in the months to come, including the aforementioned LP *Don't Look Too Close*. Yet as we sit with new singles like "See What I See" and "Home Is You", we thought it would be an ideal time to shine a spotlight on this new(er) artist.

**Analogue: You're not originally from Nashville, so was your move there akin to most other artists looking to make it in the music industry?**  

**Natalie Schlabs:** I moved here from Texas and originally I was not here for music. I was curious about getting involved and seeing what would happen, but I really moved here because my now-husband and I were dating long distance and we were ready to live in the same city. I was ready to move and he had a lot of work here, so he said, 'I can't leave.' I moved here to see what would happen with that. I always did music to some degree or another and, at that point especially, I'd been doing a lot of writing.

I was actually a lot more involved in food. I oversaw a cafe in Texas and did the orders and the menus. Then I broke out and formed my own catering company, but catering was starting to dry up. Instead of planting myself there and going hard after it, I was ready for a change. I would put something in the oven that I needed for a wedding that weekend and then I would go and finish a song and come back. \[Laughs\] It was growing a lot in me but I wasn't really keeping my expectations high moving to Nashville. It just seemed like a fool's errand to me at that point.

> "I had to make the decision of whether I was going to let fear of not being good enough hold me back from trying it..."

**Analogue: What made you decide to go all in?**

**Natalie**: I think the fire was already going, but I think it was probably meeting certain people. Nashville can be overwhelming because so many people are going after music. Every other barista is a singer-songwriter or maybe it's even every single one. That can be overwhelming, but meeting people who are now my friends in the Americana community, they were really supportive and curious.

I think I was really scared of co-writing or putting myself out there, but I just decided to ask a friend of a friend to do some writing. He was a writer but mainly a producer at that point. We started writing together and then ended up recording a record a few months down the way. I don't know. I had that hunger but was afraid to try. I was scared the first couple years I was here but I was inspired by the community I had to find. I had to make the decision of whether I was going to let fear of not being good enough hold me back from trying it or if I was going to be inspired by the people I saw around me and just try to get better.

**Analogue: What was the turning point where the fear was suddenly not enough to dissuade you?**

**Natalie:** I want to say that in 2016 was when things changed for me. I released a record in the fall of 2015, so I had been writing and recording prior to that. I ended up quitting my job as a nanny at the end of that year and started scheduling my week out with co-writes and music opportunities. So I think I got serious about it that year.

**Analogue: I know some songs on your new record are steeped in motherhood. Is that true for all of them thematically?**

**Natalie:** A lot of them. It's not only motherhood as a subject, but it's all the things that end up coming up looking at raising a human. I started questioning our values as a family. What do I want to spend my time doing? How do we want to raise him? It's looking at the way my family raised me and what I want to change. It's looking at who we want to spend time with and who matters to us. Being pregnant with him made me question or decide a lot of things. The practice of being pregnant caused me to think of these things in a really different way.

**Analogue: Is that typical for you to turn to songwriting to process?**

**Natalie:** Yeah that's definitely one of the ways I work through things. I'm definitely a verbal processor so sometimes I can talk my friends' ears off just working through everything verbally. \[Laughs\] Songwriting is a really helpful way for me to work through it because I have to sit with myself and my thoughts long enough, and kind of go deep enough, to see what's really going on.

**Analogue: Are you ever surprised on the other side of a songwriting session?**

**Natalie:** Good question. A lot of times, I have a subject or framework from where I'm starting, but sometimes it can be really surprising. When I'm doing freeform writing by myself, I allow myself to say whatever or do whatever and that can be a very surprising process. When I'm not thinking too hard about what I'm writing down, I end up saying sometimes more of what I want to say, and that's probably when I'm most surprised by it. Or when I'm sitting down with a terrific co-writer and they can condense down what I'm trying to say or feel, it's like, 'Oh that is what I want to say.' So it can be a really cool process both individually and with another writer.

**VISIT:** [**Natalie Schlabs**](https://www.natalieschlabs.com/?ref=analogue.io)

*Photo Credit: Fairlight Hubbard*