Artist Spotlight: Regan Hicks

Photo courtesy of Regan Hicks

The Appalachian Preservation Project is proud to present Regan Hicks as this week’s artist spotlight.

Reagan Hicks was born and raised in Houston, Texas, splitting time in between there and Steamboat Springs, Colorado. She later moved to New York to pursue music and acting, read more about her acting journey in last week’s Artist Spotlight!

What instruments do you play?

My main instrument these days is acoustic guitar. But I also play the tin whistle, which is a beautiful Celtic instrument. I also play the harmonica and I play the bodhrán, which is the Irish drum.

Um, what else do I play? I have a whole gaggle of instruments here. I also play ukulele. That was my first instrument that I really learned how to play. And then I play a little bit of the spoons or something like, you know, a little bit of this and that, you know, the, the folk side of me.

You refer to yourself as the "TikTok Bard." Can you tell us more about that and your connection to fantasy and D&D?

I love fantasy and D&D. What got most of my followers on TikTok is that I write songs for Critical Role, which is a D&D group that streams their games online and I started writing just songs for them or for the characters and stuff like that. And then people who are also fans of the show started asking me, “Hey, can you make a song for this character? Can you do more?” And so then suddenly I just expanded. So now I'm working on making that into a full album because people have asked me to put that onto Spotify and streaming services and stuff. So I'm starting to do that, which is a daunting task, but I'm having a lot of fun and hopefully people will enjoy it whenever it's out.

Being a bard is a big part of D&D as well because it's a role that you can play and it's very much the fun role, the storyteller role. And so, yeah, I picked that title because I thought it summed up the style of music that I do, which is mostly folk with a little bit of fantasy aspect and traditional folk and Celtic folk.

Do you have any other ongoing recording projects?

I also am working on, um, My first album, which is going to be called Dear Folks, which is a compilation of some of my favorite folk music, traditional American folk music and some of my original songs.

And I do have my first single, which I finally put out there into the world, and that's going to be going to streaming platforms very soon, so that's exciting, and I'm excited to be just recording a bunch of stuff, and just diving into it, and, you know, exploring the world of producing my music, especially self producing my music, learning the the craft of self producing and being an independent music producer. It's, you know, very nice to have the control, the full artistic range that it allows.

How long have you been singing songwriting?

Oh, gosh, I think... Definitely for probably over 10 years now. I think I started when I was a kid, like just making up stuff. And I remember, I think the first song I ever wrote, if I were to listen back now, it'd be, you know, embarrassing. It was some kind of folk inspired song about nature and animals or something.

And I think I wrote it when I was like seven or eight and I wrote it in this little diary that I had. It was like a pink little secret that had a lock on it and stuff. So I would write down songs there. And then I think I just started writing. I don't think I ever, like, seriously thought of making a career out of it until more recently, whenever I realized, you know, I think I can do this, and I think I want, I want to do this, and, you know, have this be a career and a creative outlet.

So how would you describe your music?

Genre wise, I would describe it as, I would say Joni Mitchell meets, like, Celtic music, and also fantasy music blended with that kind of traditional American or like Americana 70s folk kind of sound and traditional, you know, Irish and Scottish music.

Um, definitely. And um, yeah, I lean into the folk world for sure.

How can people get in contact with you?
I have a website, I have TikTok, which is where I’m posting most of my music right now. I'm going to be putting things on Spotify and all major streaming platforms, like Soundcloud. I also have YouTube where I put my full length songs and covers, and Instagram.