Emily King Graduates With "East Side Story"
By: Brett Hickman |
Wednesday May 16, 2007 |
 |
Emily King Interview |
| You may or may not have heard of Emily King by now but in the next month you probably will. The 21 year-old singer/songwriter is about to release her debut album, East Side Story, August 14th on J Records. King's smooth-flowing vocals float atop a bed of music that would indicate someone older than her years. This musical maturity if you will would seem to be the product of King's growing up in a musical family. Her parents, now divorced, were a performing duo who used to bring young Emily up onstage to sing a charming tune or two. Her whole young life has been a sort of musical schooling whereby King has been allowed to form her own path. Speaking to Emily by phone recently I found her to be an engaging personality with an eagerness that signals her youth all the while having a knowledge of someone wise beyond their years. The following is the bulk of that conversation. Static Multimedia: Hi Emily, how're you doing? Emily King: I'm doing great, how are you? Good, good. So, where are you at today? On the east coast? EK: Yeah, I'm in New York. Going home actually You were influenced in some way by your parents because of music always being around, is that right? When did you actually learn that you had the ability or the desire to make music? EK: When did I learn that I had the ability...I guess it just always made me happy, y'know? Singing was something that just kinda came naturally being around my folks, and I guess it was just...early. Y'know they would put me in their shows and I'd be nervous as hell but [laughs] I'd get out there and sing and see that I kinda just made people happy and I was like 'Oh that's what I wanna do.' Instant gratification. So it kinda just came naturally and early. Y'know, I'd say like five or six years old. And what would you do on stage? Would you sing or would you play something? EK: Just like a cute little song. [sing-song voice] 'Hello my baby, hello my darlin'...' Like those old forties, y'know, real innocent kinda stuff. And then, as I got older, I'd sing like a standard or bebop or something like that. What sort of places would your parents play that you would perform at? EK: Festivals, concert halls around the world, the Blue Notes. Just a lot of different venues. Cruise ships, everywhere that they could go. I can't remember the exact names of some of the places. What sort of guidance or help...were your parents the ones who basically pushed you along as far as guiding you and teaching you? And how do you feel about their influence on you today? EK: They were definitely a guiding force, I mean I was around the music business constantly whether I liked it or not, that's how they made their living. So I got to see how that whole world functioned and I just kinda new inside that that's what I wanted to do. I was in school basically throughout my life, they prepared me for what I was going to be doing in the future. How did their influence shape how you are now as a performer? EK: Well I recently formed a band. And throughout my childhood, my parents would be on the phone, getting band members together and rehearsing bands, and that's just a whole other world in itself, y'know, how to be a band leader. So I think that definitely had a huge effect on me. Just how to be on stage, stage presence, vocals, it still has a big influence on me. I still go to them for advice. Do your parents still perform? EK: Yes, they do. Not together, they used to sing together. Are they separated or divorced? EK: Yeah, they're divorced. When did that happen in your age? EK: I guess I was like twelve. I'm sure that was hard. EK: I'm starting to feel it now...[laughs]. That was definitely hard for me, because not only did they split up, but the music ended too, in that sense. But they're doing their own things, y'know, separately. That's good. When did you decide to start taking your own steps towards being your own performer and writing your own music and following your own path? What made you decide to go that way? EK: I knew that was the one thing I did pretty well. So that was the one thing I focused on growing; building any kind of talent I had. And they put me in lessons, I took like cello, lots of piano, lots of drums. And when I was about sixteen, my mother actually had a guitar in the closet which I discovered at sixteen. That one felt the most natural out of all the instruments I had taken. And that was a huge step for me because from there I started writing music and it kind of allowed me to find my own voice. Everything in my life was a growing process and it really led me up to that point. And then you started writing your own songs and you were taking them around to small clubs and performing them. From there how did you get noticed and what led you to J Records? EK: Well I was doing a lot of little gigs around town. I was singing with trios, I was doing my original music, and I'd say like a year after I made a demo..oh no, a year after I gave my demo to a friend of my mother's at Sony Music Publishing, and he ended up playing it for this producer, Cookie Thompson, and like a week later I had a meeting with Cookie Thompson in the studio, and we just started creating music from there. It was meant to be almost, one thing led to another and from there we just kept creating music and he brought me up to a bunch of different labels, I sang for L.A. Reid, I just played my guitar and did a thing for Peter Edge who led me to Clive Davis. I mean, it was like a year process before I got signed. And the whole time you were just developing things more, or did you record everything before getting the deal? EK: Some of it was recorded before, some of it was after signing the deal, but in that whole time we were creating music and I was constantly writing and in the studio, and just really trying to discover my own sound. It was all a development thing. Would you be able to describe your sound to somebody that perhaps hasn't heard it before? EK: I get that question a lot. I usually tell people pop/r&b/soul. I play guitar, I write all my music. I don't really like to compare it to anybody out there. I just say its like a collection of different sounds that you might hear on the radio from today to back in the day. I only have the sampler so far and I've been able to listen to it a little bit. It's very kinda low-key, real smooth sounding. Is that the kind of vibe that you're into, or is that just how the songs lent themselves to sounding? EK: Smooth as in... Just kind of a relaxed vibe. There's a real maturity to the sound. Very kind of calm, but assured in the playing and everything. It's a lot for todays standards, it's a lot more calmer and reflective than perhaps a lot of younger people would make at this time. EK: Yeah, I dunno, I guess it wasn't a conscious thing, that's just what came out naturally. It was really important for this album to be natural and not forced. I worked with a lot of different songwriters in the process because the record company wanted to see how different things would sound if I worked with Ne-Yo or Sean Garrett and all those collaborations were amazing, but it wasn't a natural thing. It was so important that my debut was something original and something that came from me. Not to sound like an egomaniac [laughs]. Just to get my voice out there somehow, it was important that I have my own thing. Well I think that a tendency nowadays is that people, especially with the business being the way it is with newer artists, they really want them to be attached to an established artist somehow, so they can say 'Well they worked with so-and-so' and so there's that name recognition, and if you like him then maybe you'll check out her. It's a lot harder to establish somebody's own specific artistic spirit these days. So, it's definitely good on your part that you made your intentions known. That's very encouraging actually. EK: Awww...thank you. Emily King supporting John Legend on Tour: 5/13 - Houston, TX - Verizon Wireless Theater 5/14 - Dallas, TX - Majestic Theatre 5/16 - Albuquerque, NM - Sandia Casino 5/17 - Phoenix, AZ - Celebrity Theatre 5/19 - Tucson, AZ - Anselmo Valencia Amphitheatre 5/21 - Fresno, CA - William Saroyan Theatre 5/22 - Sacramento, CA - Sacramento Memorial Auditorium 5/23 - San Jose, CA - San Jose Center For The Performing Arts 5/25 - Portland, OR - Keller Auditorium 5/26 - Seattle, WA - Paramount Theatre 5/27 - Vancouver, BC - Centre in Vancouver for the Performing Arts |
