Chloe Rae Hammock, a graduating theatre major, wants to say thank you to every rad person who listened to her newly released EP.

On April 21 Chloe released her first EP titled “Sorry, I’m Sad (Sometimes)” with unexpected feedback from listeners.

“I thought maybe some people will listen to it, and then a lot more people listened to it than I thought. I was like, ‘This is so cool,’” exclaimed Chloe.

Within a week, her EP got 1,000 plays (which is a good reach) on a music platform called Bandcamp, and she is still waiting for feedback from iTunes and Spotify.

“It’s so weird because it wasn’t even like a project…It is more for me, just something I enjoy doing for fun,” said Chloe.

The last couple of years have been instrumental to the EP’s creation because many important things have happened in Chloe’s life, good and bad.

“I’m a very positive person, and growing up I was afraid to show sadness because I felt like people depended on me for my positivity. This was my outlet for my sadness,” said Chloe.

Joking about the sadness of her songs with friends, she said, “Sorry guys, I’m just sad sometimes,” which she immediately realized was the perfect title for the EP.

Songwriting has never been something Chloe thought she could do, but she believes that songwriting is therapeutic.

Music has always been Chloe’s foundation. Her grandpa plays country shows in Kentucky, and her mom grew up singing in the choir.

She grew up taking guitar and voice lessons, singing with family around the bonfire, and in choir and in musicals in high school; notably “High School Musical.”

When Chloe was visiting family in Kentucky during her birthday, her grandpa gave her a ukulele. She plays guitar, but never felt like it was her instrument. The ukulele was the perfect and natural fit for her because she immediately began writing songs about integral parts of her life.

Chloe wrote her first song on the ukulele and thought, “That’s not terrible… Then came this snowball effect of writing songs.”

“One song is about two of my friends passing away in 2015. Most are about heartbreak or love, that gross thing.”

She had been working on the EP for over year with classmate Daymon Ryan.

“Daymon is an important cookie… He has like three albums and his own ‘do it yourself’ [producing and recording] equipment. I was like, ‘Do you want to produce it?’ and he was like, ‘Uh, yeah!’”

The two would get together for hours at a time in between their busy theatre schedules to record. She says that Daymon was great to work with because he would know exactly how to translate her suggestions into instruments, melodies and harmonies.

“I wanted it have a mixture of raw under-produced music. I wanted most of it to be simplistic; it’s not polished, I didn’t see why it had to be,” explained Chloe.

“Some of it is folky, indie singer/songwriter, or very pop. It is a mixture of genres.

Chloe also had help from her friend Chasen Cooper to design her album artwork. She asked if he would do her photography.

“We went to Hobby Lobby one random Tuesday, and bought a bunch of gold stuff, and then the next day, we came here, in the theatre on the mainstage. It took an hour to put the [gold glitter on me], and the actual photo took like ten minutes,” said Chloe.

Since she is a theatre major, Chloe says she has no intentions to pursue music, but if an opportunity presented itself, she would be excited.

“When I came [to Eastern New Mexico University], I wanted to focus more on acting instead of musical theater, so I stuck to acting,” said Chloe.

She plans to move and audition for theater in big cities like Seattle, Portland, or Denver. Eventually, she would like to do both music and theater.

To listen to Chloe’s EP go to chloerae.bandcamp.com.