Dropping the baggage: Why I changed my stage name

What's in a name? Well a hell of a lot of baggage for one.  I've been performing as Abi Grace since I was 18 years old, and while I will always be Abi Grace to family, that is no longer who I feel like as a musician.   

For one thing, back when I started playing there was no twitter or instagram to clue me into quite how many toddlers also went by Abi Grace, and seeing those cute, innocent, hopeful faces unwittingly included in my instagram feed doesn't do much for my rock star credibility, let me tell you.  

 I'm also going a different direction musically than when I started 12 years ago (holy shit!) I always wanted to work with a band, but I am not the kind of person to sit around and wait for people to be ready to work with me and so my solo career was born. I've got a lot of respect for the singer songwriter scene here in Seattle, but it's not where I want to stay forever. I have rock songs to write, and it's high time I wrote them.  

Finally, it actually frees me up to be MORE authentic both as a performer and as a friend. Using a name so closely associated with who I was dragged all my insecurities and history with it. It means that instead of getting to fully be private Abi and public Abi I was always a little bit of both, and being a little bit of both is exhausting.   

So there you have it, all the things in a name that I am letting go. From now on you can call me Allie LaRoe....at least when I'm on stage.