Patti's After-Party: Noelle Toland is Breaking Up With "Breakup Songs"

Related Stories

Exclusive Premiere: Noelle Toland "I've Been Led" - A Leap of Faith to Nashville's Bright Lights

It had been a minute since I last interviewed the lovely and effervescent Noelle Toland, but I was happy to find her just as fun and engaging as the last time we talked. Toland is a Nashville-based singer/songwriter and an actress. Born and raised in Oregon, she spent some time living in Los Angeles before heading to Nashville to pursue music, and I think she's right where she belongs.

I was fortunate to run into her recently at a wedding just outside of Nashville, so it was good to have this interview scheduled so soon after that, it was like an extended reunion. Even though I live up north again, I remember how much I loved fall in Tennessee. The summers are oppressive and when the air got crispy and the trees were ablaze with color, it was the best time of the year for me.

I asked her how the weather was on the October day we spoke. "It's great," she answered. "It's sunny and the leaves are starting to fall. I'm really excited for the weather to get cooler. This summer was hot." We revisited the whole "fall is our favorite season" later in the interview, but I wanted to dive right into her upcoming single, "Breakup Songs." 

I told her, "I listened to the new song. It's really cool and really clever. Who wrote it?" She replied, "Thank you! I wrote it with Dan Harrison and Mark Taylor." My brain stalled after she mentioned Mark Taylor. I knew who he was, but the mental hard drive crashed for a couple seconds. I scrambled to remember and I found it. Mark Taylor was another client of Toland's publicist, Nicole Zeller Law. Senior moment or just too much going on? I have no idea. 

After I had that stunning revelation that I actually did know who Mark Taylor was, Toland exclaimed, "Yeah! He played during Nicole's wedding." He sure did, I even have video. A handful of clients played at the wedding. She added, "It was so fun to see you there, by the way."

It was a really good wedding. It isn't often that I go to a wedding and get to enjoy live acoustic music, so that was an unexpected bonus. Toland asked, "Wasn't Nicole just the most beautiful bride?" I agreed, she really was. Using a word from my own made up vocabulary, I said, "She's so 'glowy' all the time. She just glowed extra that day. I'm so happy for her and Jim." I know I said we were getting into the new single, and we really were, it just took a weird turn for a minute, and I confess, my favorite interviews always contain a few hairpin curves and detours.

After swapping stories about how talented we thought Mark Taylor was, we dug right into the new music. As I said earlier, the song is clever, but it wasn't anything the writers had thought about prior to meeting in the writers' room. So who came up with the idea and what's it about? 

Toland shared, "I walked into the co-write and I'd never written with them before, and they were like, 'Alright, what do we wanna write today?' I just said, 'Listen guys, I'm through with the 'man hating, 'men suck' songs, to be honest. I need a break from breakup songs.' We all kinda looked at each other like, 'Oh, that's kinda fun, let's write that.'"

If you've ever followed my writing, you'll know I live for pop culture references in songs. Being a pop culture junkie, it's like I have a giant magnet that just extracts those name drops from the song, usually to the point that I need to listen to the song again to really pay attention to the lyrics. The random names, brands or whatever jump out at me and make me lose focus. I get a little excited. "Breakup Songs" has a couple popular song references; "Strawberry Wine" and "Before He Cheats." The tune has a comfortable tempo, not too fast, not too slow, it's just right.

 "I recorded it with Sean Paddock and he had everyone overdub, and then I recorded my vocals at Brad Hill's studio," explained Toland. "He produced my 90s country cover project as well as my latest single, 'Handmade.'" For anyone new to Noelle Toland's music, her 90s cover project is worth mentioning. It was a series of three country hits from the 1990s, reimagined for the modern day. She recorded covers of "Walkaway Joe," (Trisha Yearwood), "It Matters to Me" (Faith Hill) and "Watermelon Crawl" (Tracy Byrd). They are definitely worth checking out, especially if the country music from the 90s is still close to your heart.

The last time I interviewed Toland, we talked more extensively about her acting career and since it had been a couple of years, I was a little fuzzy, but I did remember she appeared in an episode of the highly-successful series Criminal Minds. She played a convincing junkie. I made sure to find it and watch it. If you'd like to look it up yourself, the episode is titled The Job. It's the season 11 premiere and the 234th overall episode of the series.

I asked if she was still doing any acting and she told me she did a film called Veronica & Julian in New York City recently, having just attended the premiere in September. The project is an independent romantic drama written, produced and directed by Otoja Abit and set in present day New York City.

Since I just mentioned a romantic drama, let's head back to the not-so-romantic drama of "Breakup Songs." According to Toland, she played the song out for a while before deciding to record and release it. "It's the best litmus test," she said coyly. The audiences loved it and their response tipped the scale in favor of putting it out to the masses.

I was fully aware that Noelle Toland has had enough of breakup songs for the moment, but I rolled the dice and asked anyway, did she have any favorite breakup songs, you know, when she was actually in the mood to hear one? She does. "I love 'You're So Vain' (Carly Simon). That's probably my favorite." I don't know anyone that doesn't love that song. The 1972 number one, multi-platinum hit has not only become a classic that most everyone knows, it carried a mystery on its back for years; who was the song about? All over the world people tried to guess who the pompous jerk described in the lyrics might be. For decades names like David Geffen and James Taylor were thrown around, but the frontrunners were always Mick Jagger and Warren Beatty. In a 2015 interview, Carly Simon confirmed the song's main character was based on Beatty. Case closed.

Toland and I agreed that most women could relate to the song in some way. She remarked, "You can always put your own experience into the song."

As for her own soon-to-be-released anti-breakup song, it's set to drop Friday, October 30th on all streaming platforms. She won't be doing a release party, but she hopes to go live on social media that day. A co-write she has in the morning would likely put the live broadcast during the afternoon, but for up-to-the-minute information, please follow her social media sites. 

Presave "Breakup Songs" and listen to all Noelle Toland's music here: https://linktr.ee/NoelleToland.

"Breakup Songs" will enter the world right smack in the middle of autumn, one day before Halloween. That took us back to things we love about fall. Toland revealed, "I love this weather because I love to get cozy. One of my favorite things to do is read. I look forward to quiet evenings with a good book. My dog loves to be outside in this weather, so I'm spending a lot more time with her. I'm enjoying the fall colors as the leaves turn. The pumpkin spice lattes are out. I love fall." I commented that I'd love it if fall could be all year, but quickly took it back, saying we probably wouldn't appreciate it if we had it all the time. She wisely said, "Yeah, you have to have seasons. I lived in LA and it's nice when it's sunny all the time, but moving here (Nashville), I realized I missed seasons."

I'm a huge animal lover, so I asked what kind of dog she had. "She's a Pit Bull/German Shepherd rescue named Velvet," Toland responded. "How did she get the name? Is she velvety soft?" "Yes, so she was a rescue. I got her at a shelter in LA. I picked her up from the floor where there were a bunch of puppies running around. I just looked at her and she looked at me, and I held her on my chest and she started snoring on my neck." Of course, I melted hearing that. She went on, "I said, 'Oh my God, I think this is the one.' I felt her coat and it was just so velvety soft, so I named her Velvet."

I told you I love interviews that fall off the road a little and I think this one certainly qualifies, but I spun the wheel and got us back on track. I asked Toland if she had discovered any artists or songwriters recently that she really likes. "I'm really liking Olivia Dean," she shared. "I love her voice and her style. In the country sphere, I'm a big Ella Langley fan. I know she's everywhere now, but I still love her." I'm a big Ella Langley fan too. Judging by how often she crosses my social media feeds, we are far from alone. She's exceedingly popular.

Noelle Toland imparted a story about a brush she had with Langley. "I remember I was backstage in the green room at my first CMA Fest. I think it might have been 2023, and she was there. There were several artists back there, but I remember she had just come out with 'Country Boy's Dream Girl.' It was cool to be in that atmosphere. I thought she was really cute and I liked her music. It's been really cool to see her take off. She's got a cool style and obviously, I love her music."

Who's at the top of Toland's collaboration wish list? Ella Langley? Nope, but I'm sure she'd accept the offer if it ever came her way. Actually it's Chris Stapleton. With an enthusiastic level of adoration, she confessed, "I would die and go to Heaven! I love him so much, his voice, everything." I added that he's such a great writer, to which she replied, "Yes! All those songs like 'Drink a Beer.' (Recorded by Luke Bryan, co-written by Stapleton and Jim Beavers) Another fun fact; Chris Stapleton not only wrote "Drink a Beer," he also sang background vocals on the song.

What makes Noelle Toland's story even more interesting is she moved to Nashville at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2020. Now that she's ready to hit her six year anniversary in Music City, she's experienced enough ups and downs to offer advice to others. I asked her to describe a typical workday as an independent country music artist in Nashville. She began, "You get up every day and you're making phone calls because you book your own shows. You're constantly reaching out by phone or email, pitching yourself to venues. I write every day, either by myself or I have a co-write. The co-writes are usually scheduled from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm or 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm. Sometimes you can write twice a day depending on how booked your schedule is. You're working on social media as well. You might have a posting scheduled where you have everything figured out and planned in terms of strategy, hooks and editing videos. You also might be content batching, you're filming video or editing it."

I felt out of breath just listening to that and said, "It's a lot, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is a lot," she agreed. "Then a lot of us have other jobs. We have to do other things to keep the lights on, so it's even more, but it's also really fun. All of that stuff I mentioned takes up your day, so in the evening you might play a show. For me, it's usually writers' rounds in Nashville. You might go to a friend's show where you'll meet other songwriters. What I will say I love about Nashville is it's a creative community here." 

So now we know what a day in the life of an independent songwriter might look like. Now I wanted her to tell aspiring singer/songwriters what they should definitely do and also what they absolutely should not do once they land in Nashville.

"I would say you need to develop a thick skin and you need to have some grit. I would say to develop a really strong sense of self and identity because if you don't know who you are, no one else is going to. Work on yourself and know why you want this, and you have to want it bad enough. If you don't want it bad enough, there's a lot of people who are gonna work harder than you. You've gotta work hard."

She then addressed what not to do. "I would say, don't be lazy. There are so many people working hard and working towards the same thing as you. You really have to figure out how to separate yourself and know what makes you different from others. You also have to find your own sound, you don't want to sound like everyone else or just sound like whatever's trending on TikTok. You also have to get good at songwriting. The best songwriters in the world are here. In order to stand out you have to up your game and get good, and that comes with not being lazy. Show up every day with your pen and paper and know that you're gonna write and you're gonna work. You're gonna clock in and work at this thing."

That sparked a memory for me. In our last interview we featured her single, "Nashville Numbers." I recall her telling me how she had to learn the Nashville Numbers system of charting music when she first came to town. She did eventually learn it and even wrote a love song with a theme based on the popular system used by just about all musicians in Nashville.

We went on a bit of a tangent about people that enter a new situation believing they know everything they need to know, even before they're thrown into the deep end. Being an artist in Nashville isn't just about singing and playing well, there's so much more to it. Toland remarked, "The wisest person says they know nothing. One thing I can't stand is a know-it-all." I shared that even at my age, I am forever learning new lessons, often due to ignorance or plain old stupid decisions. I've concluded that  I'll never have it all figured out, not by a long shot.

She came back with, "I'm convinced as humans, our time on Earth is just one mistake after another, we're just fumbling around." I love that quote and it's the most truthful thing I've heard in a while. She elaborated, "It's something that makes me feel better because sometimes you look back and say, 'How did I make that decision?' But in the moment you're not presented with an all-knowing sense of the universe and how things work. You're just making the best decision you can in the moment." I think that's accurate. Maybe the universe just challenges us so we don't get too bored here on Earth. Maybe it laughs at us a lot too.

I squeezed in one random question. "What type of service to others or good deed done for other people do you personally find the most rewarding?" I'm going to tell you ahead of time, her answer was pretty perfect.

"I'd say giving your time. I think time is the most valuable asset in the world and it says a lot to give your time to someone. Whether that's helping a friend out, I don't know, if they need help setting something up at their house or they need help painting. Maybe your neighbor kid needs help with a lemonade stand, so you help 'em out. I think giving your time is the most valuable thing."

In recent years, my life and its various events have solidified just how much I believe in the words she said. I agree that time is sacred and some people hold it so sacred that they won't give any of it up. I think there's a fine line between appreciating and valuing time and hoarding it.

Lastly, because we are Center Stage Magazine, what was a time where Noelle Toland felt like she was "center stage?" It could be career-related or anything else. "It was when I got to play The Bluebird Cafe. That was a 'pinch me' moment. It was a showcase so I was up there on stage by myself. I did two songs and it was one of the greatest days of my entire life. That was St. Patrick's Day 2024."

An uplifting end to what I considered a fine interview. Who doesn't love The Bluebird? I don't even play music and I know how hard it is to get in there - as a patron! I can't even imagine how exciting it must be to get in and perform. It's an enchanting little place and I'm so glad Toland got the chance to experience it as a songwriter.

Stay current with Noelle Toland on social media and her website. Give "Breakup Songs" a listen and drop a comment on one of her socials. Let her know what you think and tell her Center Stage Magazine sent you!