Martha Byrne Chats With Impact 210 (Impact210) in SOHO

Impact210: Who were your musical inspirations growing up?
MB: I started in Annie when I was 10. I just loved musicals and singing and dancing. I grew up in a family that was very supportive and artistic, but not in the business though. I was always a singer. I had a rock band when I was 15. I thought I was Pat Benatar for a minute. As I’ve gotten older and I’ve started writing music, my inspirations have changed to my husband, my family, my children, my environment, my work, my friends. Jennifer Marks is my writing partner and Peter Bliss also. Jennifer is the one who said I have to write. ‘You’re an artist and you love to perform. You’ve got to express yourself.’ I didn’t know if I could do it. I had never done it before but she just inspired me to write from my heart and just write about what I love. It kind of grew into this. Which is incredible. I’m so happy and thrilled to be here tonight doing this.

Impact210: What are your goals for your music career?
MB: My goals are having people enjoy the music and hear it. Like anything else, in my career in acting, you just want people to see your work. And get something from it. You want them to be touched by it. You want them to feel something from it. Have an opinion of it. Hopefully, it touches them. This is more an expression of myself. When you’re playing a character, you’re playing a role, you’re working for somebody else. Of course, you want to give it truth and honesty, but this is really me putting something out there that is from my own heart and soul, and I hope people enjoy it and like it.

Impact210: How do you juggle your career and personal lives?
MB: I have two babies and I have a great husband, and you juggle because you love it and you can’t see yourself not doing it. If you have support from your family and they love you, then you can do anything. They support your successes and they help you in your failures and love you no matter what. You can’t really fail when you have people around you that support you and have as much fun watching you succeed and move on. It’s great. I’m lucky.

Impact210: Do you have a favorite song on this album?
MB: It’s “Baby Blue,” which is a song I wrote for my boys. From the beginning, that was one of my goals to do something for my children that they’ll have for the rest of their lives. And my son who is seven now is singing the song in the car and asking me to play it which touches me so deeply. When they’re grown up and they leave and go on to their lives, they’ll always have that and they can pop it into the CD player and say ‘Mom wrote that for me because she loved me.’ The song is about allowing your children to grow up and be themselves and be individuals and not try to instill anything on them other than who they are. And let them grow and let them go. It’s the last song on the record because I feel like it sums up my whole life. And my husband, I talk about him too.

To purchase The Other Side, visit www.marthabyrne.net or call 1-800-MM-BYRNE.