Alana Springsteen

Springsteen grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with her parents and three younger brothers, where she started making music at an early age.^[1] She started playing guitar at age 7 and wrote her first song, called "Fairy Tale", at age 9. When Springsteen was 10 years old, her family moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to support her music career, and there she secured a publishing deal at age 14. Some of her early performances were at minor league baseball games. Springsteen has said that both her grandfathers were pastors.^[2][3][4] Despite having the same surname, Springsteen is not related to musician Bruce Springsteen.^[5]

In 2019, Springsteen released her debut EP Slow Down with a single of the same name.^[6][3] In 2023, Springsteen released a series of three EPs, called messing it up, figuring it out, and getting it right. Those three EPs were later combined to form her first full-length album, Twenty Something, released in August 2023.^[1] The album included collaborations with two high-profile country musicians. Chris Stapleton was featured on "Ghost In My Guitar" and Mitchell Tenpenny was featured on "Goodbye Looks Good On You". The latter record was Springsteen's first to be certified RIAA Gold.^[2] Springsteen co-wrote all the songs on the album, along with other Nashville-based songwriters, including Liz Rose.^[7] Robin Hilton of NPR called the title track of Twenty Something "a deeply moving coming-of-age song that left a lot of us at the office in tears."^[8] Other NPR critics wrote that the album "focused on illuminating, owning and pushing through the tangled mesh of emotions of that time with piercing detail — the self-doubt, the friendships that come and go, the ways we navigate a mountain of new responsibilities, and so much more."^[9]

In July 2024, Springsteen released a collaboration with Dutch DJ Tiësto called "Hot Honey", which went to the number-one position on the Billboard Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart.^[10] Springsteen toured in 2024 as an opening act for Luke Bryan's Mind of a Country Boy tour.^[6][11] While touring in October 2024, Springsteen's tour bus caught fire, destroying musical gear and personal items. This forced Springsteen to cancel tour dates in Texas before returning to performing.^[2] That month, Springsteen released singles "Cowboy" and "Hold My Beer", and in December 2024, she released an EP produced from her August 5, 2024 appearance on NPR's Tiny Desk Concert series.^[1]

In 2025, Springsteen will tour as a supporting act for country musician Keith Urban.^[2]

In addition to singing, Springsteen plays piano and guitar on her records.^[7] She has said that Taylor Swift has been her musical role model.^[12]

People named Springsteen on their "2024 Ones to Watch" list of musicians.^[13] In discussing Springsteen, music critics at NPR wrote that "few artists dissect and make sense of life in your 20s quite like Alana Springsteen" and that she "pulls off a deep understanding of human nature with surprising detail — and without falling back on any of the typical tropes you might expect in country music."^[9]