Folk Roots Powerhouse Aliza Hava Shines on ‘Into the Light,’ a Transformative Anthem of Healing and Resilience
The world can be divided into two groups of people: those who inherently believe in what messages or proverbs are found within fortune cookies and those who don’t. Southern Oregon-based folk roots musician Aliza Hava falls into the former.
“I have a whole box full of them at home that I’ve collected over the past two decades,” Hava says.
However, a moment of serendipity arrived while working on her phenomenal new studio album, Into the Light, with producer Mikal Blue and, more specifically, the fantastic title track, which is also the album’s lead single.
“While I was making my album with Mikal Blue at his studio, we ordered Chinese takeout and Mikal got the fortune, ‘Courage isn’t the absence of fear. It’s facing your fear,'” Hava says. “I tripped out because that’s the line I wrote in verse two of ‘Into the Light’ — ‘Courage ain’t the absence of fear, it’s the power to face it…straight clear.’ I couldn’t believe he got that as a fortune as we were just wrapping up the recording. Talk about a sign from the universe.”
“Into the Light,” written by Hava and Alan Roy Scott, is a powerful, uplifting track that would make artists such as Amanda Marshall, Melissa Etheridge, and Brandi Carlile envious. The artist belts out the chorus with precision and soulful prowess as its mid-tempo feel provides a great counterbalance to her stellar, rock-solid pipes. Meanwhile, its message is near and dear to Hava, who survived a traumatic childhood.
“It took a lifetime for me to find the courage to speak up about the painful things I’ve been through and start healing from extreme child abuse,” Hava says of “Into the Light.” “But developing that strength is exactly what helped me find my voice and use it to move the trauma out of my body. That’s why I was able to write this song. I hope you feel as empowered by it as I do.”
“Into the Light,” produced, mixed, and engineered by Blue, and mastered by Daniel Rowland, whose impressive credits include Pixar (2017 Academy Award winner), Seal (2018 Grammy nomination), Star Wars (Clone Wars, Rebels, Battlefront, Squadrons), Nine Inch Nails, Adrian Belew, Lady Gaga, Marvel (Avengers, Jessica Jones)has gained terrific traction since its release. It was Number Two on the North America College and Community Chart’s Top 5 Folk Adds for the week ending Feb. 18. The song features Hava’s glorious vocals, Blue playing both acoustic and electric guitar, Toad The Wet Sprocket’s Dean Dinning on bass and organ, keyboardist Dalton Cyr, and drummer Gregg Bissonette (Ringo Starr’s All-Star Band). A video for the single, shot in Romania and directed by Andrei Zaitui and Kalman Eszter Antonia, has over 64,000 YouTube views in its first month of release.
“Into the Light” is the lead-off track of Into the Light, a brilliant 10-track effort highlighted by Hava’s ridiculously powerful vocals, heartfelt lyrics, and craftsmanship. Hava and Roy co-wrote four songs (“Into the Light,” “The Last Goodbye,” “Behind Your Eyes” and “The Invitation”) while Hava also co-wrote two tracks with Marla Rubenstein (“Let It Roar” (with its spine-tingling, marathon-length note Hava holds in the middle) and “The Only Way Out Is Through”). The album, recorded at California’s Revolver Recording Studios, also includes keyboardist and guitarist Jason Achilles, guitarist Jason Perno, and cellist Giovanna Moraga Clayton.
Aside from three songs she wrote alone, Hava offers an exquisite cover of White Lion’s signature ballad “When The Children Cry.” “I chose to cover it because of its profound anti-war message and the impact it had on me as a kid,” Hava says. Other standouts are the gospel-tinged “Fix My Fate,” the impactful and deep “Behind Your Eyes” and the closing “Love Who You Are,” a song which lyrically brings to mind Christina Aguilera’s poignant “Beautiful.”
“Into the Light is a thematic rock album that takes listeners on a profound, transformative journey from trauma to triumph,” she says. “The songs on this album are reflections on my healing process. They are raw, vulnerable, honest, and the best work I’ve ever done. People who have heard these songs live told me they’ve felt their own trauma lifting off their bodies as I sang, as if some form of transmutation was happening in the room. My prayer is that these songs heal others as much as they’ve healed me.”
Inspired by artists such as Stevie Nicks, Indigo Girls, Ani DiFranco, Janis Joplin, and Brandi Carlile, Aliza Hava has crafted a sound that blends raw emotion with powerful storytelling. In 2006, she released her debut album, Rise. In 2017, she released her Songs for Social Change EP, followed by her breakout full-length album, Natural State, in 2020. Her re-record for “RISE” was featured on the star-studded compilation Occupy This Album: 99 Songs for the 99%, solidifying her place as a voice for change.
Her music was included in the soundtrack for Femme: Women Healing The World, a documentary directed by Sharon Stone. Hava also worked with the United Nations for seven years, being a vital catalyst and chair of the International Day of Peace NGO Music Committee.
Hava has shared the stage and billing with an incredibly eclectic array of talent, from the late Dr. John and Zac Brown Band to Loreena McKennitt, Pete Seeger, and members of both Cheap Trick and Deep Purple. And she’s logged ample air miles with performances in North America, Europe, India, Israel and Palestine, South Korea, and Morocco, among other locales. She’s also been featured in Americana Highways and Americana UK.
Now, with a memorable message-laden single, “Into the Light,” from a simply equally stunning album of the same name, Aliza Hava is doing what she was born to do. It’s music that should radiate with anyone who has endured and persevered through whatever life has thrown at them.
Hi Aliza! Good to meet you! Care to introduce yourself to the readers?
Sure! I’m a singer/songwriter originally from NY/NJ and am currently based in Southern Oregon. I’m a traveler at heart, love nature, and am deeply inspired by mystical traditions. All of these things are important components of my music. I sang in my school choir as a kid, started writing songs when I was 9, playing piano at 12, and acoustic guitar at 15. I’m mostly self-taught and can honestly say that music has been the guiding force of my life.
“Into the Light” is deeply personal and rooted in your own healing journey. What was the emotional process like in bringing this song to life?
It was a very cathartic process. I started co-writing this song with my dear friend Alan Roy Scott in a little artist village in Morocco while we were both traveling overseas. I knew I wanted to write a song called ‘Into the Light’ for the title track of the album when he and I got together to write, and there was already a melody in my head that needed development. The concept had been brewing for a while — the idea of needing to confront painful memories and bring traumatic things out of the shadows of my subconscious in order to be healed.
Being in a foreign country helped me open up to new ideas and inspiration, and we wrote the melody and chord progression on a dusty old keyboard in a friend’s home studio. It was really fun. I wrote the lyrics once I returned home and then went to record it, which was an incredible experience. For the first time in my life, I was working with a producer who could really bring out the best in me. I’ve worked with other wonderful producers in the past, but Mikal Blue has a unique gift, and we really connected, which helped me do my best work. So it was validating to finally have a producer who could capture my abilities in the best possible way. We tried different microphones before recording, which helped us find the one that was best suited for my voice. That was an eye-opening experience as well because it helped me tap into my vocal strengths in a whole new way. And that’s what the song is about, ultimately — finding my voice, stepping into the light, and no longer being afraid to talk about what I’ve been through — those traumatic things that I’d suppressed and hidden for decades. It was an entirely transformative process for me.
The fortune cookie moment with Mikal Blue feels like a sign from the universe. How often do moments of synchronicity like this influence your songwriting?
I consider synchronicity the spice of life. When it happens to me, I know I’m in alignment with a higher power. I often think of it as a “God Wink” or universal guidance. Paying attention to it has led me to some of the most incredible places I’ve ever been and the most profound experiences I’ve ever had. And yes, it most definitely finds its way into my songwriting. It’s like poetry in motion, and when you tap into it, the subconscious starts to write the songs for you. I’ve written songs that felt entirely channeled, only to tell a story that had a more profound meaning or impact than I could have imagined. That’s the power of art — when it comes from the soul, it speaks to the soul, and it connects to something much, much bigger than our conscious minds can even comprehend. I can honestly say that every single song I’ve ever written has had some kind of synchronicity involved — because that’s often what prompts me to get focused and start composing to begin with. I could tell you some synchronicity stories that would blow your mind. Many friends have told me I need to write a book.
You’ve described Into the Light as a thematic rock album that takes listeners from trauma to triumph. What do you hope people take away from this journey?
My deepest hope is that people connect to the lyrics and melodies, find their own stories in the songs, and let the music take them to a place where they find encouragement, solace, and healing. Every person on earth has experienced some sort of trauma or dark night of the soul. It’s part of the human experience. To me, each song on the album is a pillar or stage of the healing process I went through. Writing and recording it was so liberating and transformative for me; I truly hope it has the same impact on listeners who need that uplifting energy and message. A friend of mine listened to a private preview of the album and pointed out that it was like going on a hero’s journey, which I didn’t intend but also found to be fascinating feedback. It made me think of the archetypical hero’s journey and how we need to go into the “inner cave” in order to find the hidden/buried treasure. Once we find it, only then can we emerge triumphant from the darkness to share our newfound wisdom (the treasure) with the world.
You’ve worked with the United Nations and have been a voice for change throughout your career. How do you see music as a tool for healing and activism?
Music is one of the most powerful tools in the world for uniting people of different cultures, building bridges, and spreading peace, joy, hope, and love. It is also a powerful format for communicating ideas and messages that might otherwise be hard to hear. As a young songwriter, when I was just starting out playing guitar as a teenager, I was very influenced by the music of the 60s and 70s. The anti-war songs were part of an incredible era of activism that had a historic influence on culture. Even before I discovered that era of music, I was drawn to songs with meaningful messages and was deeply moved by ‘When the Children Cry’ by the band White Lion, which I decided to cover on the album. I studied Music Therapy in college because I was very interested in learning more about the healing power of music from a scientific perspective with intentional therapeutic application. But in the end, it was too clinical for me, and songwriting became my main go-to for transforming challenging thoughts and emotions into something cathartic that helped me release and resolve whatever I was feeling. That’s still essentially its own form of Music Therapy and could be considered Expressive Arts Therapy as well. I’m also very interested in sound healing and the applied use of pure-tone frequencies for managing pain, alleviating chronic illness, and accessing deeper levels of relaxation and meditation. When all is said and done, music is truly magic.