Live Performance – recorded at Santa Clara County Fairgrounds, Aug. 1, 2025

Episode #142: Ha Nguyen – LOLAH Entertainment 

This podcast is also available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Born in a small town in Vietnam, Ha Nguyen was raised with a clear path laid out before her: academic achievement, a professional career, and a life of quiet respectability. For years, she followed that path—studying dentistry for six years at the insistence of her father. But even in the lecture halls and clinical labs, something louder was calling.

Music had always been in her bones. As a child, she played piano, fashioned guitars from broomsticks, and recorded her favorite songs from MTV on cassette. It wasn’t until her late teens that she picked up a guitar and started taking lessons. In her early twenties, she joined an all-female rock band in Saigon, and soon after, she never looked back.

Nguyen quickly found herself swept into Vietnam’s indie rock scene, becoming the frontwoman for groups like Lazy Dolls and WhiteNoiz. Her voice—a rich blend of vulnerability and defiance—resonated with fans across the country. Fame followed. So did the pressures that often accompany it.

Behind the glamour of music videos and festival stages, Nguyen’s personal life was unraveling. Struggling with depression, disconnection from family, and loss of motivation, she reached a breaking point that forced her to walk away from it all. What followed was not an ending, but a beginning: a return to self, to family, and to music as a means of healing.

Now based in San Jose, California, Nguyen has entered a new phase of her creative journey. Her songs—many of them written in solitude, produced in her home studio, and shared intimately—are deeply personal yet universally resonant. Themes of surrender, forgiveness, and growth thread through her lyrics. She writes not just for applause, but for understanding.

Nguyen’s sound resists easy categorization. Influenced by everything from The Beatles to Adele to Dream Theater, her work drifts between indie rock, acoustic balladry, and soulful pop, often layered with subtle Vietnamese phrasing. Her band, The Travelers, gives her space to explore collaborative storytelling, but Nguyen also thrives in solo performances where the vulnerability is front and center.

One of her most poignant songs, “Surrender,” tells the story of letting go—a theme that has become central to her life. She once received a message from a listener who said the song had saved him from taking his own life. The weight of that connection is something she carries gently but powerfully.

In this conversation, Nguyen is reflective, grounded, and quietly fierce. She speaks of her Buddhist practice not as a performance of spirituality, but as a daily discipline—a reminder to stay present, to stay soft, to stay open. She’s also a mother now, a role that has softened some of her edges while sharpening her sense of purpose. Songs like “Best Thing” reflect this shift—less rebellion, more resolution.

Nguyen is not chasing fame anymore. She’s building something slower and more sustainable. She plays regularly in the South Bay, at venues like The Wheelhouse in Willow Glen, and continues to release music on her own terms. Her work doesn’t demand attention—it invites it.

Lolah Nguyen’s story is not one of overnight success, nor of perfect redemption. It’s a portrait of a woman who has fought hard for her voice, and who now uses that voice to create space—for herself and for others—to feel, to heal, and to be fully seen.

Follow Ha on Instagram @lolahentertainment or visit her website at lolahentertainment.com 

Ha was most recently featured in Issue 17.2, “Connect.”