"Guests" by Brittany Lee Moffitt

Brittany Lee Moffitt’s second album Guest’s is a music merger of complex emotions and uplifting soaring arrangements. Moffitt’s pure, kind voice soars alongside the piano and the violin played by Stephanie Young creates a melodic stream. The album is supported musically by local favorites Eli Kahn and Seth Creekmore.

The song Sleeper Sofa leads the album. The heroin struggles with her love and identity. She attempts to resolve the breakup or near breakup around the idea of changing furniture. The telling of a love story through the practical action of a purchase is a touching example of Moffit’s poetic energy.  Moffit’s singing eloquently draws the near pain and hope of the woman.

In the Yellow Brick Road to Wonderland Moffit creates a magical, hypnotic carnival metronome on her piano. As the song moves, we are wrapped by waves of increasing tempo by Young’s longing string playing. Moffitt’s harmonic voice dashes dissonance audibly, creating a sense of wild passion. The flow and timing of the crescendo and diminuendo elicit just the right amount of nostalgic melancholy.

Brittany Lee Moffitt

By Donavan Barrier

Moffitt’s parents divorced when she was two. As a result, she grew up moving around the Michiana region, living for a while in Osceola, Mishawaka, and South Bend until she settled in Elkhart, where she graduated high school. Both of her parents, she said, dealt with both mental health issues and substance abuse issues. 

“There was a lot of negativity but positivity, too,” says Moffitt. “

Despite the unstable living environment, Moffitt said music was one of the constants she had growing up. As a child, she said she was constantly singing, which brought attention from both sides of her family. Her mother introduced her to Celine Dion. Both of her uncles on her mother’s side, she said, are singers, with her uncle Billy Wayne becoming a successful Elvis impersonator.

Her father was a drummer for over 30 years, playing in regional bands. When she stayed with her father on weekends, he listened to classical rock and heavy metal music when he wasn’t practicing with his band. As she grew up, she began to explore other artists such as Red Hot Chili Peppers and Foo Fighters along with Bjork and Beck, the latter two she said have become major influences in her work.

“One way or another, [music] was just in my life,” Moffit said.

Moffitt said she started formal vocal training during her senior year of high school. After graduation, she enrolled in Columbia College in Chicago with a Bachelor of Music in Contemporary Urban Popular Music. During her time there, her mentor, Gary Yerkins, approached her to participate in the International Summer Music Camp, a collaborative program with Pop Akademie, a music school in Germany. According to Moffit, she and a group of students from different European countries had to work together to create a set of songs to perform in front of an audience and record two of them in only ten days. Moffitt said that that experience was a landmark early on in her career.

Moffit would continue her music career by becoming an independent contractor in the Chicagoland area, singing in various corporate and private events and weddings. She toured extensively worldwide, performing in Quebec, Chapas, and Mexico City with the progressive metal band Sonus Umbra. She released her first EP, Acceptance, in 2014 and an album, Guests, in June 2023.

Many of the songs in her newest album speak about deep and personal themes in Moffitt’s life, including battling depressive disorder, a condition she struggles with. One of her songs, Note to Self, was written in 2016 to express the intrusive thoughts she fought that diminished her self-worth.

“I would just curl up and cry,” she said. “It would build up so much that I would equate it to being bullied. So, I decided one day to write about it.”

She wrote another song, Don’t Go, to verbalize what she wants to say to someone struggling with thoughts of suicide. Moffitt said she tried to be authentic in wanting to help, giving words of encouragement that felt real.

“Fighting these thoughts in your head, feeling like you don’t have a purpose, you don’t want to live, that’s terrifying,” she said. “There’s no answer as to why this or that person is alive. Being alive, knowing somebody, and having somebody in your life is very special.”

When asked about what is next for her career, Moffitt said she plans on recording another album. This time, however, rather than drawing inspiration and material from her past, she said she plans to use the current issues she is dealing with in her life now as part of the creative process.

Recorded by Jeffrey Miller at Resonant Sound Recording Studio, Granger

Mixed by Justin Heron at Justin Heron Music

Mastered by Justin Perkins at Mystery Room Mastering, Milwaukee/Madison

Drums on tracks 1, 6, 8 by Arthur Schroeder

Drums on tracks 5, 7, 9 by Kevin DePree

Upright bass on tracks 6, 8, 9 by Darrel Tideback

Bass on track 9 by Jeffrey Miller

Guitar and bass on track 5 by Eli Kahn

Guitar on tracks 4, 5, 8, 9 by Seth Creekmore

Piano on all tracks by Brittany Lee Moffitt

String arrangements by Thor Bremer

Viola and violin by Stephanie Young

Cello by Molly Rife