Local luminary

About a year ago, in late February and early March 2012, there was suddenly a strange sense of shared community across Reno’s music scenes, historically overloaded with oversized egos. This sense of community extended well beyond the confines of the music scene—local mothers were calling their adult sons with unabashed awe to boast of brief encounters with a local musician as though this musician were a Beatle or something.

It helped that this sense of unity was centered on Whitney Myer, a young singer with genuine, versatile talent and a sweet, likable disposition. So, when she appeared on season two of The Voice, NBC’s answer to American Idol, it was easy to root for a favorite daughter competing on a national stage. And when, after a dazzling beginning, she was eliminated in an early battle round, the sense of disappointment throughout the community was palpable. Even the most grizzled, cynical barflies complained that she was robbed.

Nowadays, Myer is hopeful that The Voice will be a mere footnote in a long career. She has a new EP coming out next month with a new musical direction. And, after years of being the centerpiece of the Whitney Myer Band, a group anchored by her father and her uncle, she disbanded the group and is forging ahead as a solo artist.

“The Voice

was my first time truly stepping far out of the comfort zone of playing with my dad and my uncle and playing with the band,” she says. “And I didn’t realized how much of a comfort zone that was for me until I put myself out on that limb alone.”

The experience of being quickly thrust into a national spotlight and then just as suddenly yanked away gave Myer new perspective and prompted her to reevaluate her priorities.

“The Voice helped me decide that I didn’t want to go for that super, super mainstream thing,” she says. “That’s not really the type of music I make anyway. It helped me realize that, at the end of the day, it’s about making music and connecting with people, not all really about all the other stuff.”

In the wake of her experience on The Voice, Myer decided it was time for a little self reinvention. This meant disbanding the Whitney Myer Band, and exploring new directions as solo artist—specifically electronic music, what she describes as “indie electronic soul.” Her forthcoming EP, Articles of Luminous Nature, was produced by Carson City-based producer Jiggawattz.

“I come from wanting to have this singer-songwriter thing, where my lyrics are easily audible, you can feel a lot of emotion, and it’s heavily vocals—but also backed by emotionally driven electronic sounds,” she says.

And though she and Jiggawattz collaborated on the EP’s production, mixing custom electronic sounds and live instrumentation—from local talents like Tim Snider and the members of funk band Jelly Bread and rock band Rigorous Proof—Myer did all the songwriting.

“I’m the only writer on all of [the songs], which is nice for me as an independent thing,” she says. “It feels good to me. That was part of my thing that I wanted to be an adult and kind of step out from under the umbrella.”

As a writer, Myer favors the trick of marrying upbeat music to downbeat lyrics.

“I tend to lean toward the melancholy a little bit,” she says. “I draw from my negative experiences and work through them by translating them to a song.”

The record release show for Articles of Luminous Nature, on April 26 at the Grand Sierra Resort, will feature Rigorous Proof, as well as local hip-hop DJ PRSN. It will also incorporate visual aspects from the work of local artists, like Kelly Peyton and Kaitlin Bryson.

“I want the show to not just be about me and the EP and the music,” says Myer. “I also think that Reno has so many talented people, not just musicians, but a whole art scene.”