RACHEL PLATTEN '03 Soars with Pop Music
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THIS By Maura King Scully IS HER ‘FIGHT SONG’ RACHEL PLATTEN ’03 soars with pop music hit 22 / The Trinity Reporter / / Spring 2015 / 23 IT’S EVERYWHERE. You hear Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song” in the elevator or the grocery store. A Connecticut marketing firm used it in a video for Connecticut Children’s Medical Center; it’s in the trailer for the launch of the TV show, Supergirl, as well as the new Ford Edge com- mercial. In April, Platten sang it at the Radio Disney Music Awards. In May, she sang it on Good Morning America, simul- cast on the Jumbotron in Times Square. By early June, it hit Billboard’s top 10 in the adult pop category, and by mid-June, it reached No. 1 on the iTunes all-genre single sales chart. That same month, VH1 named her a You Oughta Know artist. And her “Fight Song” video had more than one million views. Platten is seemingly an overnight sensation. It’s an “over- night,” however, that was 13 years in the making and traces its roots to Trinity College. EARLY SIGNS Berklee College of Music and ended up “I always loved music; I just didn’t making a demo CD. think I was good enough,” explains Back at Trinity as a senior, Platten Platten, who grew up in Newton, met John Alcorn, principal lecturer Massachusetts, playing the piano and in language and culture studies, who singing. At Trinity, she was a four-year organized a program called Inside the member of the Trinitones, eventually Music. “I would search for up-and-com- directing the a cappella group. And ing bands and book them to come to Platten remembers panicking one day it was at Trinity that she felt the first Trinity on a night when they were in because she had an important show glimmers of a solo career. Sophomore between shows in Boston and New but also a paper due for Schulz’s class year, she sang with her friend’s band York,” Alcorn said. Students who were the next day. “Professor Schulz told me, one Friday night at a fraternity party. part of the music scene on campus were ‘Of course you have to go and do your “When I was finished, I thought, ‘Oh my invited to sound check and then to have music, Rachel.’ ” God, that was the most fun thing I’ve dinner with the band. Though Schulz has no recollection ever done!’ ” she recalls. “Rachel showed up at a sound of the event, the story doesn’t surprise A few months later, Platten, a politi- check in fall 2002,” Alcorn recounts. her. “Don’t get me wrong. If I had a stu- cal science major, was in class, listen- Learning she had a demo, he asked for dent who was messing around, I would ing to someone from the Office of Study a copy. “When I heard it, I immedi- turn into steel about deadlines. But I Away talk about all the different oppor- ately knew this was true talent.” Alcorn never thought my own classes should tunities. “He mentioned a new program helped Platten assemble a band of tal- necessarily be the most important to in Trinidad. ‘Music is everything in ented local musicians and book gigs students,” she says. “I wanted them to Trinidad,’ he said. My first thought was, at Hartford hot spots like Black-eyed have open minds and treat all of life as a ‘I have to go there.’ ” Sally’s, Sully’s Pub, and the Webster learning experience. Rachel was a bril- And she did, spending the spring of Theater. liant student but also very passionate her junior year taking classes at The On the sidelines, Platten’s aca- about her music.” University of the West Indies and demic adviser, Brigitte Schulz, now And Platten kept learning. In May interning at a record label. There, she a retired professor of political sci- 2003, Alcorn helped her record Trust in met Andre Tankard, a gifted songwriter, ence, was a steadfast cheerleader. “I Me, her first full-length CD of original and took lessons from him. When she kept telling her, ‘Follow your heart, songs. “Rachel ended up selling out of went home that summer, she enrolled Rachel.’ I could see she really had the CDs at Commencement,” he says. in a songwriting course at Boston’s something special,” Schulz recalls. 24 / The Trinity Reporter / “Amazing songs don’t have to be hard to write … they can come out very quickly and feel like gifts that you just get to channel. But ‘Fight Song’ for some reason was not one of them. It was laborious, and I had to go through the trenches for it.” reworked the verses seven times. It was torture. Amazing songs don’t have to be hard to write … they can come out very quickly and feel like gifts that you just get to channel. But ‘Fight Song’ for some reason was not one of them. It was laborious, and I had to go through the trenches for it.” OWNING IT Thanks to “Fight Song,” Platten now has a large team, including a record label, publicist, agent, business man- ager, and others. She released an EP BUILDING FIRES charts. “That got me on the map,” she (extended play recording) of the same After making it in Hartford, Platten recalls, but the glow didn’t last long. name in May and spent the summer decided to move on to New York City. At the time, she was opening for Andy on the road with Colbie Caillat and “I look back now and I think, ‘Who was Grammer, whose hits include “Honey, Christina Perri on the “The Girls that girl’?” she says. New York was a I’m Good.” She liked Grammer’s agent, Night Out, Boys Can Come Too” tour, harsh wake-up call. “My singing wasn’t Ben Singer, and the way the two worked with stops across the United States good enough. My piano playing wasn’t together. “So I called him and said, and Canada. good enough,” she says. And her par- ‘I’d like to be part of your team.’ ‘Stop “Looking around, I feel really good ents were scared, though at first, they warming yourself on other people’s about where I am,” Platten says. For supported her financially. Eventually, fires,’ he said to me. ‘Go build your own years, she’s strived to be heard, and that came to an end. “I was broke, and fire.’ ‘Wow,’ I remember thinking to “Fight Song” has finally given her that my parents said to me, ‘We’re not going myself. ‘Okay, it’s back to basics.’ And chance. “I felt like I deserved to be on to help you anymore. If you’re going to that’s songwriting.” those big stages, to be told that my voice make music your life, you need to figure Platten locked herself in her apart- mattered and that my songs were valid. this out.’ ” So Platten began playing cov- ment for three months and wrote. When that validation didn’t come, that ers every night from 1:00 to 4:00 a.m. “When Ben saw that I was serious, he pain led to ‘Fight Song.’ It led me to in Greenwich Village. “Thank God I called and said, ‘I’m in. I want to work need to declare, no matter what, that I did that,” she reflects. “I can sing to any with you.’ That three months turned still believe in myself. crowd now. I learned to how to work a out to be the tip of the iceberg: Platten “I’m so proud that a song I wrote room and how to get a crowd of even the ended up spending two and a half years when I was at my lowest point is now most seemingly uninterested people to in full songwriting mode, compos- maybe helping people find light and pay attention.” ing 130 songs. “It took me 18 months hope as they go through theirs,” she In 2011, Platten’s single “1,000 Ships” to write ‘Fight Song,’ ” she explains. said. “I don’t know what more I could made it into the top 25 on the Billboard “I rewrote the bridges five times and ask for; I feel very very lucky.” / Spring 2015 / 25.