DAYS MICA ROBERTS LIVES FOR

By Lindsay Whelchel  

Life is most definitely a journey – one with countless ups and downs – and Mica Roberts knows that as well as anyone. Now she has a song about it, a new single titled “Days You Live For.”

Roberts also has a record deal, one with country music sensation Toby Keith’s label, Show Dog Nashville. Lately, it seems the Oklahoma native and longtime background vocalist for Keith is having quite a few days to live for.

“There was never any doubt what I wanted to do,” says Roberts.

She’s calling from Nashville where she has been living and pursuing her music career for the past 20 years. Despite her long relationship with Nashville, Roberts is still very much an Oklahoman. She grew up in Locust Grove, and attributes Oklahoma with giving her the determination to make it in the music business.

“People in Oklahoma where I was raised are very grounded and hard working,” says Roberts. “I believe that being raised in that environment where nothing was taken for granted, and you’ve had to work for everything, has made me very driven as an artist and incapable of giving up.”

For Roberts, that determination has been vital. However, her road to success has been long and difficult.

“I think a lot of people from my hometown think I came down here and it’s just been glamorous,” she says. To continue pursuing her dreams, she has waited tables, lived in her car, slept on friends’ couches, and even donated blood. “You name it, I did it,” she laughs.

 Roberts’ experiences have given her an important perspective. “I can appreciate my audience because when they pay the ticket price to come see me, I realize how hard they work for that money because I’ve done that. I’ve been that girl.” She then adds, “It’s taken me a good nine years before I actually got a gig where I could say that I’m making a living playing music.”

Roberts wouldn’t give up, and that gig finally came in 1997 when she was hired to sing background vocals for Faith Hill. She worked with Hill for the next four years.

“After I had that on my résumé it was fairly easy to ping-pong around to other artists,” Roberts says. That résumé now includes artists like Martina McBride and, most recently, Toby Keith.

Roberts devotes her time to being both a background vocalist for Keith in his Easy Money Band while also continuing her solo music career. The two paths crossed when Keith signed Roberts to his record label in 2008. It was then that things got really busy.

“It would be a lot on one person’s plate,” says Roberts of the balancing act. “But I absolutely adore [Keith] and I love working with him so much that I’m willing to be exhausted, to continue to work with him on the road and follow my own personal journey at the same time. The stress has just become funny.”

Of course, the strain would be taken in stride. After all, Roberts was raised with that sort of ethic. “My Dad used to say that the only thing worse than too much work, is no work,” says Roberts.
            According to Show Dog-Universal Music General Manager George Nunes, “Mica Roberts is everything you hope for in an artist. She is an amazing talent, singer, songwriter and one of the nicest, most honest people on the planet. She is smart, and the fact that she is stunningly beautiful doesn’t hurt. Mica has a real sense of self and who she is as an artist. She has not only the drive but the perspective for success.”

The duality of being on the road and working on her music has its advantages. There is more than enough inspiration to be found for her songs.

“I don’t have to search it out. First of all, I’m on the road with 65 to 70 boys, and they talk about everything,” she says. “Honestly, you just have to listen and keep your eyes open. It’s just everyday life for me, and important for me to express my feelings in writing.”

And it’s in everyday life that Roberts found the material for her latest song, the aforementioned “Days You Live For.” Her co-writers on the track are Regie Hamm, who wrote the song “Time of My Life” for David Cook, and Lee Thomas Miller, who wrote the Trace Adkins hit, “You’re Gonna Miss This.”

            Roberts explains that Hamm was giving a toast at her best friend’s wedding when she first heard of the concept for “Days You Live For.”

“He was talking about the days you live through, and this is a day to live for. We connected eyes – it was a goosebump moment – and he said, ‘That’s the song we’re gonna write,’” says Roberts. 

Her next step was to take the song to Keith. “From the time I wrote and recorded the demo, it was only one week to the day that Toby heard it and said, ‘That’s going to be your new single,’ and then it was mastered and given to the record label.”

“That’s just unheard of,” continues Roberts. “Sometimes artists will sit on a record label for five or six years at a time before they get a single release.”

Roberts credits Keith with taking charge and getting things done. “Working with Toby is completely different than any other record label because he’s able to expedite things, which makes it easy.”

 According to Roberts, her lyrics are not only about what is heartbreaking in life, but also about what is beautiful and worth living for.

 This is a balance Roberts has had to learn the hard way. First, through her struggles in Nashville, then the unexpected death of her father in 1992, followed by other losses within her family.

“I have had a tremendous amount of loss, particularly in my immediate family, and I have learned that you better love the people closest to you, and let them know it while they’re still around,” Roberts says.

Perhaps the importance of her new single is that, despite the hardships in life, we all have to learn something and keep going.

“You have to take the days you live through and turn them into a positive. That’s what I try to do,” says Roberts.

As for what she lives for, she has a pretty good idea about that, too.

“I live for waking up every day and loving the people that I love, going to work and making a living doing the job that I love, and using that to make a change,” she says. The change she is referring to is various non-profits with which she has become involved.

“If I can use my talents to make a change in some peoples’ lives, then for me, that’s a day to live for.”  

As for what’s next, “I’m very grateful for the opportunity that I’ve been given, but in this business I learned a long time ago not to expect anything,” Roberts says. “So I’m just going to take it one day at a time, and I’ll get excited whenever I see ‘Days You Live For’ working its way up the charts.”

And, for Mica Roberts, up is more than a direction – it’s a state of mind.