Page 58 - ION Indie Magazine MarchApril 2021

MH: Being a fan of classic music of the 1940s and 50s I truly appreciate listening
to your style of music. Who do you think you closely sound like?

SKC: I appreciate this style a lot, too. I’ve loved this music since I was really young. I grew
up watching old movie musicals: ‘Sound of Music,’ ‘Singing in the Rain,’ and ‘Wizard of
Oz’ were on repeat throughout my childhood. Then, starting at maybe 12 or 13, my
obsession with jazz standards and ‘The Great American Songbook’ started. Cole Porter,
George Gershwin, Lerner and Loewe, Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, Rodgers and
Hart…they wrote some of the best songs ever written. I absolutely adore Judy Garland,
Ella Fitzgerald, Rosemary Clooney, Sarah Vaughn, and Barbra Streisand, so I can’t
believe people compare my voice to theirs. I also get Karen Carpenter, Linda Ronstadt,
and Stockard Channing. Again, just a huge compliment to be compared to any of them.

MH: I first heard you sing on the TikTok platform and I fell in love with your style of
music. I’ve also noticed that you have some famous people following you, most
recently, James Taylor. Tell us how you felt when you realized you had famous
eyes looking at you?

SKC: Well, to be perfectly honest, when James Taylor first liked and reposted my singing
video, I screamed so loud that I lost my voice for a few weeks. I try never to scream
because I try to keep my voice healthy, but man, I was SO EXCITED. I mean, James
Taylor? Are you kidding? I know his ‘Greatest Hits’ album like the back of my hand! He
was the soundtrack to my childhood! I love him so much, and the fact that he has reposted
four of my videos now is just insane. I still can’t believe it. I jump up and down every time
it happens. I really need to work on playing it cool.

MH: When you’re writing music, what is your creative process? How do you decide
what songs to work on and perform?

SKC: I actually don’t write music. Most of the songs on my TikTok so far are covers. In
terms of my process of choosing and singing material, it has a lot to do with expressing
an emotion. Some songs just click with me, they make me feel something. If I’m not feeling
something while I’m singing, it’s just not as good. I have to feel it to sing it well, or it just
doesn’t work. Since I have a background in acting, singing is all about the storytelling for
me. I want to give a performance that takes people on a journey. I pick material that can
make people feel something. I want to capture my audience and take them with me on
the journey of the song I’m singing. All the greats do that same thing for me…Ella
Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Sarah Vaughn, Louis Armstrong.
They take you on a journey with their voice. I have been working on releasing some
originals though! My friend Emma Scotson, who is an extraordinary songwriter, has been
writing lyrics and songs forever. We never thought to collaborate in a professional way
until my TikTok blew up and I was looking for a songwriter. In the last few months, she’s
been writing specifically for me and my style of singing. It’s really important to her that her
songs feel like an extension of me; both from a narrative and emotional standpoint and
from a genre standpoint. She shows me a lot of lyrics and sends me a lot of material, but
we only develop songs that really mean something to me. We only work on material that
speaks deeply to both of us. She always talks about creating songs as a puzzle; with
every song and every lyric she wants to find something that feels like it fits as a piece of
the puzzle. We can both feel when something works. Since we’re best friends, we work
really well together. It feels like we’re always on the exact same page about our music.
We’ve got an album’s worth of songs that we plan on releasing later this year and have
some pretty exciting collaborations in the works that I’m not ready to go public about yet.
Our style is a blend of jazz with indie pop. I can’t wait for people to hear what we’ve been
working on.