A self-taught guitarist and song writer, Anuhea began showcasing her talents while boarding at Hawaii’s famous Kamehameha Schools in Honolulu. “We would print out guitar chords to Bob Marley and Jack Johnson songs at school then skip water polo practice to go back to the dorms and jam them. Once I got the basic idea of guitar I then started writing my own songs.” Anuhea enjoyed the spotlight. She was the head anchor for the daily campus-wide news, hosted a variety of TV shows for local television stations, and acted in school musicals.
After attending film school in Orange County for a year, Anuhea realized she wasn’t heading in the direction she was most passionate about, music. So she abandoned her scholarships and embarked on a soul-searching odyssey to Australia for 3 weeks. She returned to the islands and immediately got into the scene, performing at a local coffee shop. These gigs turned into paid restaurant gigs and she eventually put a band together using friends from around the island.
In 2006 Anuhea competed for a crown in the Miss Maui Scholarship Pageant, the preliminary to the Miss Hawaii and Miss America Pageants. Not the pageant-girl cliche by any means, Anuhea embraced the challenge of the pageant and performed an original song “I Just Want You Around” for the talent portion of the competition. She walked away with a trophy for Miss Congeniality and 2nd Runner Up. “I thrive off of challenges. I had hit a point where I was pretty stagnant, and I had some student loans I really wanted to pay off. Plus you see pageants on TV as a kid, and I just always wanted to try to be that girly girl for once in my life.”
Anuhea’s musical and performance skills continued to improved with every performance, and successes came steadily. She took the initiative to market herself as a musician initially acting as her own manager, booking agent, music producer and distributor. Anuhea even took recordings from a live taping for a public radio station and turned them into her first real demo CD “Rough Cuts” which through her myspace page got her discovered by manager / record label co-owner Warren Wyatt.
A naturally gifted songwriter, Anuhea’s word choices are a clever balance of emotions where each song tells a unique story, each story a lesson learned.”I’m influenced highly by R&B and Soul, Hip Hop and Funk, but my instrument is acoustic guitar. I tend to write most of my songs during the craziest parts of my life. I’ll write pages and pages in my notebook in no order then go back with my guitar in my hands and sing the words as lyrics to some chords. That’s how most songs start for me.” Anuhea wants to be a part of a new generation melding the melodic traditions of her island upbringing with modern beats and influences.
