Untitled Document For the average person who can’t carry a tune, the shower is a safe performance haven. We sing, and sing loudly because we know it won’t affect anyone else around us – except for maybe making a passerby giggle at our poor attempts at being the next American Idol.

But for singer-songwriter Nadine Zahr, it was always different. Her emotions pour through her voice so strongly, no one laughed at her. Instead, she was getting yelled at.

"I was always too loud," explains Zahr. "If I sang in the shower, I would get yelled at by my mom. I was always told I was too much, and doing everything all wrong. The only release I had was locking myself away, so I would have to sing in the car or something."

And though you may still catch her singing at the top of her lungs while sitting in traffic on the 101 freeway, she’s moved on to performing at popular venues like The Hotel Café and Hard Rock. The scolding has also lessened and been replaced by praise for the 25-year-old New Jersey native.

Zahr’s soul-driven acoustic pop draws influence from the likes of Aretha Franklin, Janis Jopin, Patty Griffin and Ani DiFranco. Her voice, literally and lyrically, both challenges and calms. It soars to undiscovered heights, where the most honest feelings usually are kept tucked away, only to be released freely with her outward passion for life and love.

A few of her 3,000-plus fans on Myspace.com have left loving comments for the singer-songwriter: "Your sound is very original, meaningful and rich," "I’ll buy every album you make and listen to it a million times a day," "Your music is amazing. It’s so effing beautiful I want to cry." Even outside the online community, however, Zahr seems to pick up fans and new friends wherever she goes.

While working at a café, customers pleasantly got more than they paid for when Zahr would sing when making their yogurt. To this day, those people still come out to see her play.

One day at Bally’s Total Fitness, a woman randomly struck up a conversation with Zahr. After discovering she was a singer, the woman asked Zahr to sing because, as the woman said, "You never know who you’re going to run into in L.A." In the middle of the gym’s locker room, Zahr broke out into the gospel song "And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going," as a flock of older women started to gather.

Seeing Zahr perform live is testament to passion at work. She was always a performer. Her first experience wowing a crowd was at age 6 at Mohawk Day Camp. When all the kids had to get together and perform Whitney Houston’s "I Believe the Children Are Our Future," the young Zahr was in the back belting out her own rendition of the popular song, complete with hands flailing in the air. This was only the beginning of her musical career.

"The only time I’m not loud is onstage, and that’s why it feels like home more than anything else," says Zahr. Driven by this feeling, she pursued musical theater in high school and college, and then decided to focus on writing songs. At the age of 18, she sold her car to buy a Taylor acoustic guitar (the same one she plays with today) and released 15,000 copies of a record she wrote during her "angsty teen years." When the opportunity to move to Los Angeles arose, she packed a few necessities and left everything else on the East Coast. With $10,000 in tuition money stolen from her parents, she became a family fugitive yet a free spirit pursuing her love of music.

"I’m an extremist," says Zahr. "My biggest challenges are consistency, balance and discipline. I have none of those things, but it’s afforded me a free spirit and a lot of experiences I’m able to write about."

Her songwriting captures the core of the human condition. Listeners can relate to her rawness of feeling on many levels. Zahr does admit, however, that her music is not only meant as therapy for her listeners, but for herself as well.

"Whenever I need to process something, I write a song about it," says Zahr. "I wail – I get that out of me in a space where I feel I move through a situation through the music. I think people hear that and feel that. Being willing to express that, being vulnerable in that respect on stage, I create the safety for others to feel the same. All I care about is that people just open up to the fact that the music could make you feel something."

Nadine Zahr will perform at The Hotel Café on Oct. 16. Her upcoming full-length release, Underneath the Everyday, is due out March 2006. Her limited release EP is currently available. For more information, visit www.nadinezahr.com.