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With her first three recordings, 2003\\u2019s The Love EP, 2005\\u2019s breezy twentythree and 2008\\u2019s Hello, Tristan Prettyman parlayed her smoky alto voice and laid-back surfer-girl-from-San-Diego charm into an eight-year career studded with highlights that included Hello\\u2019s No. 2 position on the iTunes Digital Albums chart and headlining tours across the U.S., Europe, and Japan.
But instead of capitalizing on the attention and immediately making plans to record a third album after wrapping two years of touring in support of Hello, Prettyman took an extended break during which she traveled the globe, had surgery to remove polyps on her vocal cords, got engaged to her long-term boyfriend, dealt with the pain of his ending the engagement, and eventually questioned whether she even wanted to be a musician at all.
\\u201cI was really burnt out and uninspired, so I decided to take some time off,\\u201d Prettyman says. \\u201cI went to Bali, Australia, and Europe and kind of went crazy. Life went from all these obligations to eating good food, meeting amazing people, and flowing with the wind. Then when I got back and tried to sing again, we found the polyps, so I had surgery and had to recover. Through it all, I was one foot in and one foot out of whether I wanted to do music at all. I had periods of time where I was numb and immune to feeling. My walls were up really high and I was on my guard. Then this fairy-tale picture of what my life could have been was set on fire. That brought all my walls down; it was a relief to finally feel something again.\\u201d
Prettyman chronicles the experience on her new album, the raw, emotionally charged Cedar + Gold, which finds her sifting through the wreckage of her relationship and emerging stronger on the other side. \\u201cI started writing songs from a place that was so deep and honest, where I didn\\u2019t hold anything back,\\u201d she says. \\u201cIt felt so good. I was like, \\u2018This is what music is about \\u2014 being able to release what is trapped inside of you.\\u2019 Whenever anything ached or caused me pain, I\\u2019d tell myself, \\u2018Save it for the record.\\u2019\\u201d
With an artistry that lies in her finely etched lyrical details and intimate vocal performances, Prettyman spares no one, including herself, on songs like \\u201cSay Anything,\\u201d \\u201cI Was Gonna Marry You,\\u201d \\u201cCome Clean,\\u201d \\u201cGlass Jar,\\u201d and \\u201cNever Say Never,\\u201d which ends a heartbreaking spoken-word outro: \\u201cYou can\\u2019t start a fire in the pouring rain.\\u201d
Prettyman wrote several of the songs with Dave Hodges, whom she first met the morning after a particularly emotional night. \\u201cI go meet Dave and I\\u2019m late and I\\u2019m crying,\\u201d she says. \\u201cI\\u2019m just a ball of snot, like, \\u2018Hi, I\\u2019m Tristan and I\\u2019m a mess.\\u2019\\u201d That session yielded the completion of the album\\u2019s opening track \\u201cSay Anything\\u201d \\u2014 an open-hearted tune about finding freedom in letting go. The second session resulted in the no-holds-barred \\u201cI Was Gonna Marry You.\\u201d \\u201cIt was like, \\u2018Wow, I\\u2019m getting really transparent here and being really specific,\\u2019\\u201d Prettyman recalls. \\u201cBut once I walked through the door of honesty there was no telling where I was going. I\\u2019d never spoken out before about the way it really was, but I found myself saying \\u2018Screw it, I\\u2019m going to tell the whole story.\\u2019\\u201d
As intense as some of the songs may be, the mood is tempered not only by playful, lighthearted tunes like first single \\u201cMy Oh My\\u201d (\\u201cabout someone still having their hand on you and you playing that game with them because it\\u2019s fun, even though you know it\\u2019s not good for you and it\\u2019s going to backfire\\u201d), \\u201cThe Rebound,\\u201d \\u201cQuit You,\\u201d and the sexy, smoldering \\u201cBad Drug,\\u201d but also by the album\\u2019s warm, earthy sound, which Prettyman created with her producer Greg Wells (Adele, Katy Perry), who plays piano, bass, drums, and some guitar on the album. \\u201cGreg told me he was not going to hold my hand through this; I had to convince him I wanted it,\\u201d she says. \\u201cHe forced me to step into really being a musician and owning what I do. Once I did that, I got super creative and the songs started coming from a different place. It was a very intuitive process.\\u201d
When mixing on Cedar + Gold wrapped, Prettyman went back to her hotel room and burst into tears. \\u201cI couldn\\u2019t believe it was done,\\u201d she says. \\u201cI got everything out. It no longer lived in me. It felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I finally felt free.\\u201d
Cedar + Gold (whose title refers to both the cedar walls and ceilings in the home where she recovered from her heartbreak and the gold she spun from her situation in the songs) is an album that manages to be both deeply personal, but highly relatable to anyone who\\u2019s had the ground collapse under them and fought their way back to healing. \\u201cIt\\u2019s actually a very hopeful album in a lot of ways, which I think is a common theme in all my records,\\u201d she says. \\u201cThe idea that \\u2018things may be a bit crappy right now, but let\\u2019s make the most of it\\u2019 is very reflective of me as a person and my outlook on life. I always try to look at the bigger picture of why something is happening. And I love that I was able to go so deep and dig around in places I never thought I could access and still remain hopeful at the end of the day.\\u201d