Nikki Hassman

In small town Waverly, Iowa, Nikki Hassman began her journey as many other little girls do, taking dance, piano and gymnastics classes in the town of 10,000. The journey quickly turned less typical, however, when at the age of 7, veteran coaches saw Olympic potential and gymnastics classes turned to gold medal dreams and serious training. The life of a carefree child soon turned to the life of an adult; training 40 hours/week and traveling throughout the country on the weekends for gymnastics competitions. By the age of 12, Nikki had moved away from home to pursue her Olympic dreams even further, but returned home a year later, homesick and yearning to experience normal life as a teenager. This "normal life" would not last long, however. Within a year, Nikki's voice caught the attention of a local studio owner when she and some friends went into a studio at a shopping mall to record a song for a friend's birthday. He detected the music gifts that first appeared at ages 5-10 when Nikki had won state and regional piano competitions against children much older with only one hour of practice per week. The studio owner encouraged her and "produced" her first demo at age 14 which connected Nikki with a Minneapolis management team who voluntarily advanced her skills and encouraged her to pursue every singing opportunity she could given her "late" singing start! One such singing performance was heard by a Christian recording artist who encouraged Nikki to move to Nashville and pursue singing and an education. She followed this advice and went to Nashville to study Music Business at Belmont University. Once there, Nikki immersed herself in the music scene both at Belmont and the real world and began to write music for the first time. Continuing her pattern, she sang whenever and wherever she could and found other "encouragers" which resulted in a short stint as a backup singer for Dove award winning CCM artist Clay Crosse. At this point in her young life, Nikki was attending school, had a "regular" job, sang in four different vocal groups, was writing music, and helped the Crosse team by also driving herself and his band from show to show across the southeast United States. One year after moving to Nashville, some of Nikki's songs were heard by the head of EMI Publishing, Nashville, who strongly believed in her talent, both as an artist and songwriter, and immediately signed her to a publishing deal. About a month later, her "juggling act" paid off as Sparrow Records offered her a record deal to join a new group called Avalon.....a "Christian ABBA" for the 90's. Over two years, Nikki made two albums with the group and performed nearly 265 shows per year. During her tenure, Avalon was awarded five Dove awards (Christian Grammy's), had eight number 1 singles, sold over 1 million records and performed on stage in some of the biggest venues with some of the industry's brightest stars. During her time with Avalon, a demo featuring Nikki's voice caught the attention of then Sony music CEO, Tommy Mottola. Although there were no words to these songs, only "la la", Mottola flew her to New York and had her sing for him in his office. Immediately, he offered her a 6 album deal to record for Columbia Records. This was completely unexpected yet a dream fulfilled for Hassman; the opportunity to perform her own songs! However, she still had a commitment to Avalon that had to be met and one such commitment was "The Young Messiah" Christmas tour where she met bass player and songwriter Adam Anders. Adam and Nikki began spending a lot of time together writing for her upcoming Columbia project. Immediately after her departure from Avalon, Nikki was able to start writing and recording for her Columbia project with some of pop music's biggest producers such as Patrick Leonard (Madonna, Elton John, Jewel) and Keith Thomas (Vanessa Williams, 98 degrees, Selena). What she didn't know, however, was that this would not be the best time of her life but rather one of the most difficult and troubling times. With the newly diagnosed illness of her mother and other personal crises at hand, the groundwork was laid for a very mysterious and introspective record. Through all of this turmoil, however, there was one positive constant in her life.... friend and collaborator Adam Anders. As the recording process grew more and more convoluted and politics got in the way of making music, Adam stepped in and produced the final songs of her project. It had been a long and sometimes arduous journey but in early 2000, Nikki's debut album was finally finished. It was an exciting time as the record was getting much positive feedback, with some songs from the album being singled out for other projects. "Any Lucky Penny" written by Nikki and Pat Leonard appeared on the TV series "Dawson's Creek" and its corresponding soundtrack (which sold over 3 million copies worldwide). Other songs from the album, such as "Calling All Angels" and "Only Give My Heart" also appeared on various compilations. The most notable of these would be "Adore You" which was featured in the move "The Wedding Planner" with Jennifer Lopez. It seemed as if all the tough times would be worth it and her dream was about to be realized. To her great disappointment, however, Nikki's record was never released but there was light at the end of the tunnel. A series of unique events gave her the freedom to eventually leave the label and take the album with her. Now owning an album that Sony paid a million plus dollars for, Nikki began evaluating her options. Although other labels wanted to purchase and release the album, she decided to focus on her personal life and marry boyfriend and collaborator Adam Anders. At this new stage of life, Nikki took some time off from the craziness of being an artist and focused instead on songwriting and marriage. To her surprise, she has enjoyed success solely as a songwriter with two major singles in Europe and one in Canada. One song, "Trackin" performed by Billy Crawford, sold over 1 million copies in France alone and stayed on the charts for over 30 weeks. Other songs of hers have appeared in movies and on their respective soundtracks. The writing team of Nikki, Adam and Maribeth Derry wrote the aforementioned "Adore You" and "When You Love" which was the featured song in the movie "Rugrats in Paris" (performed by Sinead O' Connor and produced by Wyclef Jean). Although she has enjoyed this success as a songwriter, Nikki's true passion lies in performing her own songs as an artist, and is now working with Adam to once again help make that dream a reality. The two have recently formed a duo "creatively" called "ANDERS" which would allow them the opportunity to work and travel together. They are now in the studio working with various producers/writers to help fine tune their musical style. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.