Review Fix Exclusive: Greye’s Hannah Summer Talks Goals And More

Review Fix chats with Greye’s Hannah Summer, who details the band’s origin, goals for the future and plans for 2020.

Review Fix: How did you get involved in music?

Hannah Summer: I have been involved in music for as long as I can remember, and even a little before then! There are pictures of me as a baby sitting on my dad’s lap while he played piano. From church choir in elementary school to performing in class musicals, and now finally being part of a fulltime rock and roll group, music has always been a major part of my life.

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like? 

Summer: With Greye, my creative process typically begins after the guys have come up with the skeleton of a song. From there, I start to work on the lyrics piece by piece, sometimes at our practices, sometimes at home, and they go through several editing stages until we get the final product!

Review Fix: What inspires you?

Summer: I am inspired mostly by events that take place in my own life, and I read like a madman, so occasionally something I see in a book will make its way into our music. In regard to my personal experiences, it actually took a quite a few years for my writing and performance ability to mature enough to be able to convey my own emotions through our songs. Where at fifteen or sixteen I would only write about characters and made-up scenarios, I’m now focused almost entirely on using my own life experiences as themes for our songs, and it’s become such a cathartic outlet for me.

Review Fix: What does music mean to you?

Summer: It’s terribly cliché, but music truly is my life. I have been playing with Greye since I was fifteen, so for eight years I have had this amazing escape that has kept me so busy I really wouldn’t know what to do if it didn’t exist. Music has given me the confidence to be unapologetically myself. It has brought me the people I love most in the world – I truly do owe it all to the sound!

Review Fix: What makes this project special?

Summer: Greye has never been afraid to be different. We have never tried to pigeonhole ourselves into one genre or style because ours constantly evolves as we do! The group isn’t old, young, black, white, or any one thing at all, it’s just…Greye.

Review Fix: How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard you?

Summer: With classic rock, funk, and soul influences, killer background vocals, and a driving female lead, our sound is groovy and palatable and familiar – there is definitely something in our original repertoire for every taste. 

Review Fix: How are your live shows different from your studio work?

Summer: I’ve always thought our studio work was just a more intimate version of our live show. We really try to bring the same energy in the studio as we do when we’re on stage, and in recent years with the magic touch of multi-platinum engineer, Brian Reeves, and just with our own evolution as a band, the two are special in their own right but still great representations of what Greye is really like.

Review Fix: What inspired your latest single?

Summer: We hear so often from friends, family, and audience members how lucky we are to be able to do what we do. And they’re absolutely right. However, they don’t see all the thousands of hours spent packing gear, driving and flying to shows, recording, booking gigs, etc., and sometimes I feel that they’re the lucky ones, because all they get to see is exactly what we want them to – a professional, polished act that delivers a killer show every time.

Review Fix: What are your goals for 2020?

Summer: In addition to keeping up with our busy show schedule and completing our sixth record, in 2020 we hope that our upcoming single, “Lucky,” is well received, and we also plan to tour Europe this summer. 

Review Fix: What’s next?

Summer: At the moment, we’re pretty focused on putting the final touches on our sixth record and putting together our European tour. After that, the sky’s the limit.