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In 2018, Marie Miller took a bold step. She left the record label where she’d spent the previous 10 years and began a path as an independent artist.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At first it was liberating to know that she could now do whatever she wanted musically and lyrically. But Miller also encountered the challenges of the music business without her label.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cRecord labels pay for things, and you have a team, people surrounding you and cheering you; and all of the sudden I was by myself and feeling very small. I thought, how can I possibly do this by myself?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n It was out of this period of doubts that the idea for her LITTLE DREAMS album was formed. \u201cThe songs are about being afraid but taking that first step even when you\u2019re scared\u2014 believing in yourself even when you don\u2019t feel like you can do it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n After taking that initial step, it dawned on Marie, \u201cI don\u2019t have to do this by myself,\u201d so she assembled a team like the one that supported her with previous label releases. With an initial $30K of funding\u2014raised with the help of an investment company called Stampede\u2014Miller was soon in a position to begin building that team. Two of the initial members included Sean Fowler, the founder and CEO of digital distribution leader Tone Tree (Joy Williams, Birdtalker), and Missing Piece Group (Amazon Music, The Avett Brothers) publicist, Erik Anderson.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n With this kind of talent boosting her new music, Amazon and Apple Music playlisted Miller\u2019s singles, and her recently released song, \u201cImaginary Friend,\u201d surpassed 300 thousand streams in its first two months on Apple Music alone. On January 24th Billboard.com premiered \u201cLittle Dreams\u201d Music Video.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Prior to her current success, Miller performed for Pope Francis during his 2015 visit to Philadelphia, opened for the BackStreet Boys, toured with American Idol winner Kris Allen and singer\/songwriter Five For Fighting, and had songs featured on pop radio and ABC\u2019s Dancing with the Stars. After all this, Miller still gets excited at the thought of performing even for small audiences of 50 people.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cEach one of us has a unique quest, something only we can do to make the world more beautiful, more humane, more fraternal. If it feels like we\u2019re too small, it\u2019s a mistake.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n With LITTLE DREAMS Miller has chosen to return to the acoustic, folk-oriented, approach of her roots. But she’s still creating music for the same reason she always has: a desire to connect people with beauty, solace, and cheer. “It’s the reason why I came, the reason why I\u2019ll stay,” to pull a line from the album’s title track.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNo matter where I go, beauty finds me somehow,\u201d she says. Still, LITTLE DREAMS isn\u2019t following the script of “happily ever after” after hard times; this is an album that encounters the moments when all seems dark, and cold winds threaten to blow out your internal spark. Everyone\u2019s got that spark. For Miller, it\u2019s to make music that asks listeners to acknowledge their own spark\u2014 the motivating force that reminds us all why we\u2019ve been put on this earth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row disabled_on=”on|on|on” admin_label=”Row” _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” disabled=”on” global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.16″ custom_padding=”|||” global_colors_info=”{}” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text admin_label=”BIO (part 1)” _builder_version=”4.16″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” global_colors_info=”{}”] W<\/span>hen Marie Miller writes a song, she does what all gifted writers do: She looks at her life and into her heart to make sure what she creates comes from real emotion and experience.<\/p>\n She also does something none of peers likely do: she searches through classic literature, whether it be Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy or Homer. There, she finds parallels for what she wants to say, channels that inspiration into her lyrics and comes up with something unique: Music that\u2019s immediate and timeless, driven by feelings all listeners can relate to yet infused with a perspective that transcends the present.<\/p>\n \u201cI have a song called \u2018Story\u2019 on my new album,\u201d she explains, referencing Letterbox, scheduled for release in the spring of 2017 on Curb Records. \u201cIt brings in a lot of epic characters: Heathcliff and Catherine from Wuthering Heights, Hector\u2019s wife Andromache from The Iliad. I\u2019ve always loved epic stories \u2014 Anna Karenina, The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment \u2014 because they\u2019re filled with relationships that are super serious and dramatic. Sometimes I feel like I\u2019m right there in the midst of them.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet Letterbox is no droning lecture on literature. It\u2019s a celebration of freedom. Miller has paid plenty of dues to get to the point where she feels she can write what she wants how she wants to, and sing without constraint. Still young, she has survived years in the music business. She impacted initially with the infectious, \u201cYou\u2019re Not Alone.\u201d More than 115,000 downloaded that single on Amazon. ABC\u2019s Dancing with the Stars featured her second single, \u201c6\u20192,\u201d in 2014.<\/p>\n