(people speaking indistinctly) - Hello, come on up.

- How are you doing?

- [Speaker] Good, how are you?

(rhythmic guitar music) (Hanna vocalizing) (bright guitar music) ♪ Gave it all back ♪ ♪ Gave it all back ♪ ♪ Got me off track ♪ - My name is Hannah Simone.

I'm from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

I got my start in music pretty much from my family.

Growing up, my mom listened to a lot of hip hop, soul, R&B and stuff like that, so a lot of my time was spent trying to, like, imitate that.

Once my mom heard me sing and thought that I was okay at it, she kind of just threw me into lessons.

♪ Something different, something is in the air ♪ I had an instructor in high school that really pushed me, especially, like, pushed me to get out on stage.

I had a really hard time, like, being on stage and doing stuff like that, but he really pushed me.

And then pretty much as I got older, I spent a lot of time listening to, like, Brandy Carlisle and Jewel and songwriters more so.

Those are songwriters that are also great vocalists, so that helped me be able to, like, hone in on being a singer and a songwriter at the same time.

I moved to Nashville and I did two years at a music school in Nashville, and then I moved back home and I did a year at Concordia and a year at UWM.

I love the Milwaukee music scene.

It has been really, like, interesting, especially coming back from Covid, how to navigate the music scene as a whole.

But I have, like, the best band.

They're, like, my greatest friends, and they're kind of teaching me how to wiggle my way into the scene, which is full of just incredible, like, musicians, vocalists, producers.

Milwaukee's full of great potential.

♪ Please give me space to ♪ ♪ Think all these things through ♪ All of my songs are written from, like, a place of vulnerability, or an experience that I've been through, so I would hope that anybody that was listening to my song could take that song, whatever it is, and take from that at whatever capacity they need, 'cause there's never, like, a specific goal to a song of mine that I want somebody to hear specifically.

I just want it to be so vulnerable and so, like, honest that people can listen to it and grab what they need to hear in that moment.

♪ Some things are better left unsaid ♪ Personally, like, as an individual artist, I kind of wanted to be like, an indie, kind of like a folk singer-songwriter, which is not the route we took, and I'm actually really enjoying, like, learning blues and rock and soul.

Music is not, like...

It's not a hobby, it's not something that I just kind of like pick up and put down whenever I want to.

Music was pretty much, like, my catharsis.

Like, it was my consistent, it was always there.

So I do it because I literally have to, otherwise I just don't feel like myself.

♪ You gave it all back ♪ ♪ Gave it all back ♪ ♪ Got me off track ♪ ♪ Gave all my lovin' away ♪ (bright guitar music)