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Brandi Carlile, who will sing 'America The Beautiful' at the Super Bowl, grew up in Ravensdale, Washington, a rural community outside Seattle. Her hobbies were hiking and camping in the nearby woods, as well as singing.
On her mother's side of the family, she inherited a love of music. Her mother, grandparents and great-grandparents were singers and had a great influence on her musical development from an early age.
It was in her teens that she revealed her sexual preferences. During this period, her family moved frequently and her father's alcoholism was at its worst. While in high school, she made an important and momentous decision in her life with her brother Jay: they dropped out of school for good. She chose to concentrate solely on music.
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Her past with the Fighting Machinists and the Hanseroth brothers
A turning point in her career came when she was recording demos in a studio and heard Fighting Machinists, a local rock band made up of twin brothers Tim and Phil Hanseroth, rehearsing in another room of the studio. She and the brothers quickly connected, recognizing that they shared a common passion for songwriting and musical performance.After the dissolution of Fighting Machinists, Carlile collaborated with the Hanseroth brothers and incorporated them to play with her. Together they co-wrote some of her songs and influenced her sound. Their first performance as a group was in 2000 and, within a couple of years, they were touring and opening for artists such as Dave Matthews, India.Arie and Shawn Colvin.
Carlile's rising career
In 2004, Carlile landed a deal with Columbia Records, which released her self-titled debut album the following year. The record, with eight of its 10 songs written or co-written by Carlile, received rave reviews and earned her a spot on Rolling Stone's list of the "10 Artists to Watch in 2005."
Her second album, The Story (2007), was produced by Grammy Award-winning record producer and composer T Bone Burnett and received critical acclaim. The follow-up, Give Up the Ghost (2009), includes a duet with Elton John, one of her musical idols. The record peaked at number 26 on the Billboard 200 chart, becoming Carlile's first album to enter the Billboard Top 40.
In November 2010, Carlile collaborated with the Seattle Symphony, giving two sold-out concerts that were recorded and released as Live at Benaroya Hall with the Seattle Symphony (2011). In 2016, she received her first Grammy nomination for The Firewatcher's Daughter (2015). The album, which reached number nine on the Billboard 200 chart, included stadium-sounding rock songs such as "Blood Muscle Skin & Bone" and the energetic "The Things I Regret", alongside more delicate and harmonised arrangements such as "The Eye".
Carlile reached a new level of critical acclaim with the album By the Way, I Forgive You (2018), which was nominated for six Grammy Awards in 2019. It eventually won three Grammys: Best Americana Album, Best American Roots Song for "The Joke" and Best American Roots Performance, also for "The Joke". The album reached number five on the charts.
Brandi Carlile's personal life and other projects
In 2012, Carlile married Catherine Shepherd, a British philanthropy executive with whom she founded the Looking Out Foundation in 2008, a nonprofit organization dedicated to social justice causes. The couple has two children, Evangeline and Elijah.
In 2021, she published her memoir, Broken Horses, in which she shares her experiences growing up with a father with alcohol use disorder, as well as her reflections on sexuality, faith and the importance of music in her life. The book debuted at number one on The New York Times bestseller list.
Later, in 2025, she appeared in Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery, a documentary about the groundbreaking 1990s women's music festival created by fellow singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan, which Carlile said was a key influence on her youth.