Hilton Head Island native Trevor Hall finds his way back to music with latest album

Trevor Hall needed a break.

The musician and Hilton Head Island native had been touring consistently since he was 16, and after 10 years, the constant travel, performances and pressure to create hit songs started to take their toll.

"I just started to really feel it, like on the road I didn't have any energy and I also wasn't having much fun anymore," Hall said. "Music seemed to be such a job. The job part of it was taking over from the love part of it."

So he stopped.

Hall took a yearlong sabbatical from music and touring, retreating to the forests of Vermont and the northern woods in Maine to relax.

He didn't know if he was going to come back to playing. He just wanted to sleep, eat homecooked food and come down from it all.

Slowly, Hall did come back. In between long walks and lake swims, he'd pick up a guitar and strum a few chords. Then he'd put it down. He'd pick up a guitar and write a song. Then he'd leave it be.

Bit by bit, in the peace and solitude of the woods, Hall's love for music was rejuvenated.

"I just started writing these songs to help heal my soul, my spirit," he said.

When he emerged from the trees, Hall had 12 reflective, earth-infused songs ready to release. He surprised his fans with the album, titled "Chapter of the Forest," in June.

Now Hall is back on tour promoting the album. The first stop on the eastern leg of his tour will be a show at the Music Farm in Charleston on Oct. 7. Singer-songwriter Cas Haley will open the show.

Hall grew up on Hilton Head, but left at age 16 to pursue music at Idyllwild Arts Academy in California. During his senior year, he signed a record deal with Geffen Records and burst onto the music scene with "The Lime Tree," a hit song on his 2004 debut "Lace Up Your Shoes."

Hall's growing popularity led to tours with multiple artists including Matisyahu, Michael Franti and Colbie Caillat.

Between tours, Hall made annual trips to India, a magical and spiritual place for him, he said. It's also where he met his wife, Emory, in 2012, and where he proposed to her a year later.

"Before, I wasn't even thinking about getting married at all. And then she just popped into my life and I just knew right away that it was something," he said.

Emory Hall, or "my angel" as Trevor Hall calls her, accompanied her husband on the woodland retreat.

"You just have your best friend with you all the time and can relay ideas off each other and learn from each other," Trevor Hall said. "It's a really amazing, grounding relationship."

In addition to finding love in India, his various travel experiences in the country influenced the sounds on "Chapter of the Forest."

Most of the album is acoustic, accented by Indian instrumentation.

The song "Holy Country" features a sarangi, a string instrument often used in classical Indian music, and "Kabir" reverberates with the lush buzz of a sitar.

The album is more atmospheric than Hall's earlier reggae-heavy work, and has a stripped-down, meditative quality accentuated by Hall's husky vocals.

There is nothing complicated about "Chapter of the Forest." It is as natural as the woods where Hall wrote the songs.

"I just wanted to make everything simple," he said. "Just how the forest is."

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Trevor Hall with Cas Haley

WHEN: Oct. 7. Doors open at 7 p.m. Show starts at 8 p.m.

WHERE: Music Farm, 32 Ann St., Charleston

COST: $13-$15

DETAILS: www.musicfarm.com

This story was originally published October 2, 2014 at 5:24 PM with the headline "Hilton Head Island native Trevor Hall finds his way back to music with latest album."