Sarah VonderHaar
The former America’s Next Top Model contestant focuses on music career
By Lisa Balde
Published: January 21st, 2008 | 12:26pm
Chicago musician Sarah VonderHaar was a contestant on America’s Next Top Model two seasons ago, for which she moved to L.A., met Tyra Banks, posed for photos, the whole nine yards. Her “Cycle 8” appearance ended after five episodes, so she flew home, formed a band, and started a music career.
If you hadn’t guessed, she doesn’t fit the modeling mold. I mean, she’s tall and thin and walks with the bold grace of a ballerina, but, well, she drinks Schlitz. And prefers dive bars and Chuck Taylors to clubs and high heels. She’s a musician. A punky, pop-spirited one at that. So when partway through our coffee-shop conversation a barista runs up to her all shy and star-struck, I’d already forgotten that I wasn’t talking just to an indie music talent, but a TV starlet as well.
Barista: “Hi, real quick question for you: Were you on Top Model? My friend is convinced.”
VonderHaar: “Yes, I was.”
Barista: “Yes?!”
VonderHaar: “Yes.”
There’s a scream, some hand-to-mouth action, and the barista runs away to the counter, yelling, “It’s her, Kara!” VonderHaar, unfazed by the whole encounter and eager to gain a new rock fan, excuses herself from our conversation and floats after the girl to pass along some show fliers. By this time, people are staring. They’re pointing at VonderHaar, looking at me. The manager is investigating up front. It’s officially a scene.
I bury myself behind my notebook, but VonderHaar jogs back all smiles, wondering aloud if she’ll see the barista at her acoustic set. She’s happy: “It’s awesome to promote my music,” she says of these rather frequent encounters. “I just ran out of fliers.”
That’s pretty much VonderHaar in a nutshell: Nonchalant about the professional modeling career she began at 17, which ultimately landed her on TV, and ramped up about what’s most important to her: music. Mere weeks after she returned from L.A. about a year ago, VonderHaar lined up a band and immediately began the task of writing music for the pages of lyrics she’d written on the show (the producers wouldn’t let her play guitar while on Top Model). The result is her forthcoming, full-length debut, Are You Listening Now, a collection of pop anthems filled with rocked-out, unrequited love songs and slowed-down soul-searchers that mirror her extensive artistic background as a photographer, one-time indie actress, model, and musician.
It’s sort of a weird transition. For a gal who trained herself to model and be the center of attention as a silent art piece, the verbal performance part came quickly but cautiously. Her step-dad, and now her band manager, was the one who planted the seed not long before she left for the show: Why not perform her private music onstage? The results, like VonderHaar’s fashion photography, felt staggering.
“When you’re shooting and everything’s going right, you get that adrenaline rush,” she says. “Onstage, it amplifies 100 times, [especially] when you perform your own music. Like, I love to go around and talk to everyone who’s in the audience after the show and see what they thought. And hearing their input is indescribable.”
VondarHaar gave up plenty to get to this point. For one, she’s living at home and working at Pizza Hut part time to contribute to her music fund. She shells away all her photography money and spends hours promoting her shows — with full mention of Top Model included. But perhaps most devastating for reality-TV gurus, she essentially took a break from modeling altogether.
“Right now it’s about focusing on the music,” she says. “I was supposed to actually go to Milan while I was doing my record … and I turned it down to do my record. And the agency’s a little mad at me for that.”
She turned down the Milan shoot three different times, actually. All to play shows, garner herself a MySpace presence to recruit new fans, and record what she hopes will gain the following she received from Top Model. But it’s worth it, she says. Not to become the world’s next Brooke Hogan or Kelly Clarkson, but to see if she can make it in this other art form that she loves. Any fan can appreciate that, she says.
Simply put: “They understand that music is my passion.”
Issue #35
Comments
Please login to be able to comment on this article.
more