Singer-songwriter Lexi Shroll now lives in Nashville, Tennessee to pursue her dreams of becoming a musician, frequently playing gigs with her staple black star-studded acoustic guitar and blonde fringe hair. She laughs easily and seems to brighten any room she walks into, something made even more obvious when she sings. Her candid lyrics and stripped-down songs reflect a truthful and sincere personality; when you listen to Lexi sing, you’re getting a glimpse of the real her.
Now a Rollins alum, Lexi graduated in May 2024 with a bachelor’s in music and a creative writing minor. On Sunday October 6, I called Lexi and got the chance to chat with her about all things her and her music.
I started her off with the question people always ask her: Are you planning on releasing any of your songs soon?
“Yes, I am!” Lexi said. “I’m currently working with a studio, so I’m really excited. I’ve just had a lot of bad luck when it comes to recording.” She went on to share how she had worked with several audio techs, and something was always off, but Lexi ended up working with the husband of a family friend who does audio engineering, and they just got through some of her final music, so she’s planning on releasing music in the spring.
Lexi has few recordings of her songs on her website, and I wanted to know how she would categorize her current songs to be.
“I’d say I’m country-ish,” she said. “I have some songs that are kind of country-rock, country-pop but also stuff that’s folksy, singer-songwriter, Americana, so it’s those blends.” She admitted that she’s tried to write in other styles, but what innately comes out of her is that folksy, country genre.
From her time at Rollins, I knew Lexi was from the small town of Oviedo, not too far from the Winter Park campus, and she’d often talked about the town inspiring her stories. Her first play, Nowheresville, is based off the very town, so I asked if growing up there had influenced her sound at all.
“Oviedo was a big influence in my writing, but it has more to do with the people there,” she said. “It wasn’t a big musical town, but my parents both really liked coffee house music, that acoustic style, so I always heard artists that were really stripped down and raw. When I went to start writing songs, that’s where I pulled from.”
She described how growing up there made her a modern, empathetic songwriter; what Lexi writes about is very real. “It’s hard to escape growing up in a small town and not having it influence anything you do. The songs I write are relatable on a micro and macro scale because I grew up in that environment of everyone knowing everyone,” she said.
I asked Lexi what her dream venue was if she could perform anywhere in the world.
“Oh, a huge dream venue is Madison Square Garden, but I have a smaller goal right now,” she said. “There’s a songwriting stage in Nashville called The Listening Room, and I really want to play there. All the songwriters that perform there are so cool. It’s definitely not the equivalent of Madison Square Garden, but for me currently, that’s my big goal.”
Getting the chance to perform at all is impressive, and Lexi’s been doing a lot of that since moving. She emphasized its difficulty while acknowledging the hard work she’s already done in a brief period. “I talked to a guy the other day, and he told me that I was doing things that most people do in an entire year, in a short amount of weeks,” she said. “I go to a bunch of open mics, and I’ve made connections. They say that half of the business here is networking. It also comes down to a mixture of luck and talent, being in the right place at the right time, but if you have nothing to back it up, then you’re not going to get picked. I have another gig coming up for a songwriter’s round which I got invited into doing.”
Apparently, people looking to ‘make it” in music move to Nashville and typically only last six months, so Lexi says it’s hard for people to trust new musicians because they’re assuming that they’re just going to leave. “It’s half the battle—finding people to talk to who are going to listen,” she said.
Lexi has received a lot of advice since being in Nashville, particularly about only having “a few asks” when networking. It’s about building relationships and having people know you.
She also mentioned how many genres Nashville has, not just country. There’s big rap, pop, and indie scenes, too; Nashville is much “more of a music city than it is a country city at this point,” Lexi said.
Because of the city’s status for music, people flock there. “It’s just a place where anybody you talk to is a musician, or they know one; it’s cool to be surrounded by such artistry all the time,” she said.
I asked if she had written any new songs since moving, and if she had, if the city influenced it. Lexi said that she had just finished one of her first co-writes with a friend of hers, Dani Nicole. She had been taking her around the city to meet other songwriters. “There’s an influence to keep writing more to try and make songs as best as I can because there’s some amazing musicians here. I really love Nashville, I really do,” Lexi said.
I asked her if it was her dream city, or if she’d be there for a while at least.
Her voice buzzed with energy. “Yeah, Nashville has always been a dream of mine, ever since I was a freshman in college,” she said. “I made a promise to myself that I would try to do music, and to see myself achieve moderate success feels like a huge win for that goal. I definitely think I’ll be here long-term.”
Since Lexi had mentioned networking earlier, I wondered if her perception of the music industry had changed at all, and whether she viewed it as a business.
“Yes, without a doubt,” she said. Lexi shared how she dislikes social media, how uncomfortable it is for her, but how it’s “one of the main ways musicians network.” She’s been following a lot of Nashville-based musicians and has realized how full of music their accounts are. “They always say it’s important, but I didn’t realize the extent of it until I got here, and now I’m playing catchup on when I could’ve been posting about stuff I’ve been doing for years now,” Lexi said.
Lexi briefly touched on the gender dynamics in the Nashville music industry. “I heard it’s really hard for female musicians to get hired for a publishing deal because all the big female country singers write their own music,” she said. “So, people are hiring musicians who can write from the perspective of a man because all of the artists that these companies sign are men who need music.”
She ultimately made the point that the music industry is a business. “You can’t escape the fact that this is a thing where people are trying to make money for you and off of you,” Lexi said. “It’s crazy because I’ve always wanted to sit in my room and write, and if I sit in my room and write, I should probably record that and post that so people can connect with me because, at the end of the day, you’re creating a product, and you have an audience of consumers.”
Bouncing off the topic, I asked Lexi if there was a difference in who she was when she was networking and performing, ‘Lexi the singer-songwriter,’ or if she was pretty much herself during all her Nashville interactions.
She thought a moment before imparting that “there’s definitely a difference.” Lexi didn’t think it was a huge difference, but when she’s at home, relaxing, she’s only Lexi, as opposed to being out in the city. She said, “when I’m networking, I’m on. I’m an extrovert, but in those moments, I’m a crazy extrovert. I can talk to anybody; I’m on stage sharing very personal information about my past and what inspired my songs.”
Finding success in the music industry in Nashville is no easy feat and seems to be a mysterious combination of luck, talent, hard work, and being prepared. Lexi Shroll seems to be taking it all in stride, barely a month and a half after moving there. Her charismatic smile and voice can’t help but bring people in, and the insights she shared with me during our interview let me get a glimpse at the girl behind the musician. At the end of the day, Lexi’s bright light can’t be dimmed, no matter how difficult the industry is, and, from what she tells me, people are already starting to notice. For Lexi Shroll, Nashville is only the beginning.
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