Actress Hayley Orrantia’s Country Career is a ‘Long Time Coming’
"So I guess more than anything, I’m excited for people to hear those stories and kind of hear about what happened in the last few years," she said.
If you’re familiar with ABC’s fall television lineup at all, you’ve probably come across actress Hayley Orrantia on the hit sitcom, The Goldbergs. Orrantia plays the character Erica Goldberg, a young high school girl with big dreams of becoming a famous singer… not far from her real life aspirations.
“I never wanted to be an actress until I started kind of taking classes because record labels told me ‘it would help us to have a following like a TV show,’” she explained to Sounds Like Nashville. “So acting was never part of the plan, but it became a part of the plan I guess as I went along in music and I booked the show ‘The Goldbergs’ and I love it now. I love acting just as much as I love music in a very different way. As much as I can in between seasons, I try to take the time and focus on the music and get my music out there because it has been a long time coming.”
A long time coming is right, because Orrantia has been pursuing a singing career for a number of years.
“I actually grew up singing more R&B, pop kind of stuff. It wasn’t until I was on The X Factor in 2011 and put into a country pop girl group called Lakoda Rayne that I started thinking about doing country music as something for myself,” she continued. “And songwriting, I wanted to tell a story and that’s really what country music does.”
Though much of her time lately has been dedicated to her hit show, the 22-year-old is hoping to get new music out to fans in the near future. She’s been busy writing song for an upcoming EP with hitmakers Corey Crowder (Chris Young, Jamie Lynn Spears, Cassadee Pope) and Mark Bright (Carrie Underwood, Rascal Flatts, Scotty McCreery).
“Everything that’s in the EP is a real story,” Orrantia explained. “Every line makes sense to the situation and it’s kind of just a progression of the last two years, being in LA, moving from Texas and being in Nashville, finding love and losing love. So I guess more than anything, I’m excited for people to hear those stories and kind of hear about what happened in the last few years.”
Currently, there is no set release date for Hayley’s Strong, Sweet and Southern EP, but she is busy preparing for season four of The Goldbergs, which premieres on ABC on Wednesday, Sept. 21.
