(wind blowing) - My name's Alaina.

I go by Lainey Lou for a couple reasons.

My dad always called me Lainey Lou growing up.

And as I was learning music, as I was kind of establishing my identity and understanding that music is probably gonna be a pretty significant part of my life, I would come home from my piano lessons, and that was my name, Dad would call me Lainey Lou.

The other reason is, who wants to go to a show where Alaina Bechard is singing?

That doesn't really roll off the tongue, you know.

Like I'm going to a Lainey Lou show, come on, it's a little different.

♪ But she'll lead you straight to the grave ♪ I'm a Wisconsin girl, I'm from Central Wisconsin, Nekoosa.

It's a town of like 2,100 people.

I first got into music the same way we all do, I mean, dance around the kitchen, singing songs at school.

Music is just part of, that's just part of life for so many people.

So I didn't really think it was anything special, it's just a normal part of life.

Until I got to my first piano lesson, I was five years old, and I loved piano, and was super involved in music in school and I went to Peck School of the Arts at UW Milwaukee.

I got a bachelor's in music, just general music.

I studied primarily voice, but I also played guitar there, I played piano there.

♪ Honey you're my pull tab princess ♪ ♪ The nicest thing I've seen ♪ ♪ Pull tab princess give me your hand ♪ I think one of the hardest questions for a musician to answer is, "How would you describe your sound?"

Because I feel like, while we all like have our own buckets we drop into, I feel like I'm more in like the folk-Americana-storytelling category.

You never wanna limit yourself by saying, "Oh, I'm this one thing," or, "I'm this other thing," because music is so broad and there's so much overlap.

For me, my personal style, my sound has always been changing.

As I change as a person, it definitely changes with me.

I don't just listen to the type of music that I play.

I also like, I like classical music, I like to listen to jazz.

So I think my style definitely changes as I'm influenced by things that I consume, or experiences I have, or people that I surround myself with.

♪ When chips are down you're my lucky seven ♪ What stands out to me about the Milwaukee music scene the most is probably just the fact that everyone's there to support each other.

It's a pretty small scene.

It's big and it's small.

It's small in the sense that everyone knows each other and everyone's friends.

You walk into a show, or you go to play a gig, and there's someone there ready to hug you, or if you forgot something, someone's there to let you borrow something too.

So it's cool, everyone's super supportive, and I dunno, we're all buds.

♪ Kissing Kate Barlow has lips that drip honey ♪ I hope my music just helps people have a good time.

I guess my goal isn't necessarily to make anyone feel a certain way, or be inspired, or make any earth-shattering revelations, but sometimes people just have a hard day at work and they just wanna like go listen to some live music, and have a drink, and hear a cool story, and I don't know, maybe feel like they're not alone when they hear some music or when they're with that Milwaukee music scene.

♪ She'll make your grown men cry ♪ I think I'm really passionate about communicating with people, hearing their stories, telling stories of my own, whether they're significant or not.

Even just how was your day?

Guess who I ran into at the grocery store.

I think things like that hold a lot more meaning than we might think.

So sometimes I think it's important to just share stories about normal life so that other people that hear them don't feel so alone.

♪ But she'll lead you straight to ♪ ♪ The grave ♪