Kellylee Evans recently impressed me with her all-original album Fight Or Flight?
And it looks Kellylee and I have more in common than just liking her music: Then, I proceeded to do my favourite thing - procrastinate. Well, I’m actually another person who likes to procrastinate things but finally I’ve found the time to copy & paste Kellylee’s jazz-not-jazz interview into my template. So keep on reading to learn more about how Kellylee started writing songs, why she recorded her debut album in NYC, what she had in mind when writing Enough or Rapunzel and much more.
Q: Please tell me something about yourself. When and why did you started singing and writing songs?
Kellylee Evans: I used to only sing standards. Even as a music listener, I found that I wasn’t open to listening to original music in jazz. Pop music, no problem, but for some reason I had this shut down mechanism when it came to jazz. I only wanted to hear songs that were familiar. And sing songs that were at least familiar to me.
I had this music theory teacher that kept telling me that I would never make any money as a singer if I didn’t write my own music. I thought you had to be a born writer. I had co-written a song as a teen with someone I knew, but I didn’t think I would be able to do it on my own. Still, I really respected this teacher and I went out and bought a bunch of books on songwriting. Then, I proceeded to do my favourite thing - procrastinate. I needed something really big to make me focus on writing.
That came one day after I had an ankle roll over playing tennis in the morning and almost ended up dying that evening. I had an allergic reaction to a common over-the-counter drug and went into anaphylactic shock. The next day, I started writing with a vengeance. One of my first songs, “I Don’t Want You To Love Me” ended up on the album. In fact, the album is all my first songs.
Q: Who has influenced and keeps influencing you musically?
Kellylee Evans: I was listening to Abbey Lincoln a lot initially, Sting…Shania Twain. When I say that, people cringe, but I love the way she is able to make songs that people really identify with. I think she’s great. I listen to a lot of soft rock, Coldplay, Keane, Rufus Wainwright, Feist. Every song I wrote seemed to come to me over a dancehall or calypso beat. That definitely speaks to my West Indian heritage (both my parents are from Jamaica). I have a very diverse musical collection - country, jazz, opera, classical, rock, pop, lots of pop, calypso.
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