Nina Storey’s songwriting journey toward triumph

“There’s something very Zen about reading a comic in which you have a moment where you read the text and then you have this separate moment in which you process the art. It really slows me down,” she rationalizes. “Contentwise it can go from very dark to something that might appeal to a 12-year-old. There’s stuff that really transcends age with heavy themes that are both beautiful and heartbreaking.”

Paralleling that description of her current favorite pastime, Storey’s latest album, So Many Ways From:me To:you, is like a musical manifestation of that which she appreciates for being simultaneously sophisticated and fun-lovingly silly. With a genre-jumping tracklist, her album plays like musical hopscotch that is malleable in time and tone. You’ve got the raucous funk rhythms of the title track (on which producer Rob Giles imparts beats via pots and pans), the stripped down vulnerability of “Little Conversation,” which is a one-off recording of Storey on her piano in her living room, the rootsy New Orleans-influenced “Time To Fly” (a song about her grandmother whom she calls “a pistol of a woman who totally celebrated life”), to the soulful Aretha-like closer, “Woman,” which emulates beautifully the mood of an old school LP. One moment new the next moment nostalgic, there’s something to be found for your pop-hop teen to your tea sipping, gospel-raised elder.

A Colorado native, born into a family she describes as an “artsy fartsy bunch,” Storey grew up with a writer/producer mother and a father who was the sound engineer for Frank Sinatra amongst others, making her induction into the music industry naturally early and easy. Having moved to LA two years ago, she’s since been instilling her R&B sensibilities with a taste of rock. “I really want to kick and scream a little more,” she says emphatically. “My music has recently been going in a specific direction. I call it 21st Century Soul because it’s rooted in soul but it’s got this kind of indie, darker edge to it. This is a new foray for me. There’s an intensity to it I’m tapping into more.”

Perhaps the new intensity had to do with that inspiring muse of all muses, a failed relationship, which also compelled her to delve into diversions including the world of triathlons when she moved to California. “I was going through a breakup and felt it could all go in one of two directions. I decided to dive into some other new activities while I was working on my album. I started training for triathlons and have competed in two.”

With writing songs and running races aiding her emotional growth and resolution, the result was So Many Ways’ 13 songs, which Storey says she inadvertently wrote with a narrative that carries all of the songs on one continuum. So where does the album’s continuum land our heroine? “The journey comes full circle,” she explains. “The way that it ends up is with relief. Things have been achieved. Love has been discovered, celebrated and lost, and then rediscovered again.”  

Reflecting the charismatic redhead’s sanguine outlook on life, Storey admits she ultimately champions a sense of hope in her songs. “My intention is never to preach or come off as self-righteous,” she begins, “but certainly over the course of my writings there’s a sense of hardship and then of coming out stronger and triumphant.” Sort of like a comic book story, one might say.

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