Lincoln native plays Lollapalooza, and now the sky's the limit.

Emma Harner, a musician who grew up in Lincoln, got to play at Chicago’s Lollapalooza last weekend with Boston-based band Jesse Detor. She has been playing guitar for only around five years yet has managed to already travel abroad because of her music. Nebraska Public Media’s Arthur Jones got to chat with her and hear her story so far.

Jones: So what was it like playing Lollapalooza?

Harner: It was awesome. It was incredible. Like going first. We didn't really know how many people were going to be there. It was so many, more than I thought. It was crowded, like there were people there and people there who knew the words, which was actually incredible. You know, you know these songs better than anyone else, as the artist up there playing them you've like, in my case, for this music, I've written, the guitar parts, you know, poured myself over the chords and to just, I don't know, to watch people sing it back and like, know the hits and know the beats. It's just this incredible, electric feeling. It's like the best high I've really ever experienced.

Jones: How did you get started playing guitar?

Harner: My parents started me. I grew up in Lincoln, and my parents started me on the violin. When I was very small, and I developed a love for like studying instrumentation and phrasing and classical music. But it wasn't really until I started picking up instruments like the piano and the ukulele in middle school that I started writing songs, right slowly before, like, shortly before COVID hit, I picked up a guitar a little bit, and I had a lot of fun just kind of messing around with it and realizing all the things you could do with a guitar…and when covid hit, I all of a sudden had nothing to do…I became obsessed with the instrument and just with playing it. So I think I kind of sped run, for lack of a better word learning the instrument…I went to UNL for a year, and kind of had this moment where I realized that I needed to be studying guitar. I had just kept playing it and kept playing it, and so I auditioned for Berkelee College of Music in Boston as a transfer student and ended up transferring.

Jones: Where are you now?

Harner: So I started Berklee guitar performance, but I ended up dropping that major, and I picked up Berklee's kind of catch-all major, which is called Pro music -- Professional music -- back in November, not for Jessie Detor, but for my solo project that's just under my name. I had the absolute pleasure of opening on tour for an Irish artist called Orla Gartland. She needed somebody to kind of solo guitar open for her on this tour and in North America. And I went, and it was so fun. I made friends for life, and then she invited me back in March in Europe. And so I got to see, got to see some of Europe, which was really cool, because I'd never been to any of those cities that we were playing in. But when things started taking off for me, I was signed up for classes, and I ended up emailing all the professors and saying, ‘hey, listen, I just said yes to this tour. I'm going to be gone for the month of November. Should I drop your class?’ Two got back to me and said ‘no, drop’…So I took a semester off, and then when I came back, I came back for a semester, and it was quite, I don't know, for lack of a better word, just busy. I was starting to look at the classic Berkelee thing, which is dropping out. And my mom really, really wants me to have a bachelor's degree. She thinks that it is the most important thing. So she said, you know what, if you transferred back to UNL, and, like, took some classes online, because they'll let you go part time. And I said, Well, okay, so that's what I'm doing.

Jones: Well, welcome back, unofficially

Harner: I know, good to be a Husker yet again.

Jones: It sounds like your career and your ability to like, to market your craft. It kind of skyrocketed and that it outpaced the academic part of it.

Harner: I'd say so. And this is all because of social media. I uploaded a guitar cover of a Manchester Orchestra song in January of 2024, I think, and it just went super viral. I think it has like, 4 million views on Instagram, about a million on TikTok. And all of a sudden, kind of overnight, I went from having less than 2,000 Instagram followers to having a lot more than that, just people who all of a sudden, like, really care about my music and care about what I'm putting out. And it truly was just night and day before I was like, okay, I'm gonna be a musician. I'm trying to be one. And then it was okay, now I am one. What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do with all this? So you really have to kind of capitalize on what's going on, and it's, I don't know, it's hard. It's hard to be like, This is what I'm going to do, and it's not going to be school.

Jones: Do you have anything coming up?

Harner: Well, this isn't really going to apply to the people in Nebraska, but I'm supposed to be pushing this tour that I'm going on, which is New York, LA, London, Berlin. I guess I am going on tour if anyone wants to fly to one of those cities. I can't wait for a hometown show, but the time's not right yet.

Jones: Emma, it’s been great to talk to you.

Harner: This was so much fun, thank you so much.

Jones: This has been Emma Harner, hear her play guitar in Jesse Detor, or within her own solo project. I'm Arthur Jones, Nebraska Public Media News