New York based-indie folk artist Kevin Atwater writes queer bops with tender lyrics for other queer people to “feel less alone.” 23-year-old Atwater released his debut single “Freckles” in 2020 where he quickly cultivated a niche audience via his Tik Tok. While Atwater is known for his soulful lyrics and delicate guitar, his latest release “star tripping” is a fun pop song that maintains his sincerity. The singer-songwriter sat down with Returner Magazine to discuss “star tripping.”
Hi, Kevin, could you please introduce yourself and your music? Yeah, of course. My name is Kevin Atwater. I write queer music. I'm a singer-songwriter. I live in New York City. I taught myself guitar in 2019 and 2020. And then I started writing music. And my latest song “star tripping” just came out. And I'm super excited for people to hear it. You taught yourself guitar and 2019? How, how did you get to the conclusion that you should start releasing music? Like what was the push that was like, I should release “Freckles”? Thank you so much for knowing what “Freckles” is. I really appreciate it. I started teaching myself guitar on YouTube, just because I had always wanted to play guitar, but I would get really frustrated because it hurts your hands. And I was weak. And I was like, “This is annoying.” But then I finally just was like, I need to learn. My dad has this guitar. He never plays. He gave it to me. And I was like, I'm just gonna teach myself. I had written songs in high school, but they weren't good. It wasn't something that I was pursuing seriously. And I started writing a lot of music right before the pandemic. And when the pandemic hit, I was like, ‘Okay, it's time to just lean into this thing. I've always kind of flirted with the idea of doing it and seeing if anything could come out of it.’ I wrote a bunch of really bad songs, until I wrote “Freckles.” And I felt like that one was special. It meant a lot to me. And I decided to release it. And that was the start. Do you think any of those really bad songs will ever see the light of day?
No. I mean, maybe I could rework some of them. I don't know. I was actually recently going back and listening to my old voice memos. They're not as bad as I thought, but they're also not good. So they'll probably stay hidden forever until someone hacks me You write very tender queer love songs and as an openly queer artist, how do you feel that part of your identity shapes your music? And how do you feel kind of contributing to queer representation? I write music, very specifically queer, because I didn't see as much of that growing up. I really would have loved to have a queer singer-songwriter singing openly and honestly, about specific situations. I don't write music [where] no one can relate to this unless they're queer. That's never my intention. But my intention is to give music to queer people, so that they feel less alone and more represented in music. Early on in my songwriting career, I was writing really purposefully trying to be vague. Because in my head, I thought more people would be able to relate to something that is less specific. But the more that I did that it just felt way less genuine, and way less impactful. I think that you can relate to a lot in specificity and people can find bits and pieces of your situation to relate to. And I have to say it has been incredibly rewarding to get these DMs from like young queer people, just messages and letters, for sharing their stories with me, it really makes me emotional to talk about but that's why I do it. I think there's something very special about your music in the sense that it really celebrates like queer joy and queer love. Is that something that you intentionally set out to do to offset a lot of the queer sorrow that is depicted or is that just something that's come naturally to you? It's definitely been an intention of mine to write from the full spectrum of the queer experience, I guess. I feel like in mainstream music, the queer identity is typically either extreme pain, or like, ‘gay pride, we are out here with our rainbows and flags’ which is awesome and I love it. But there's a quieter side to queerness that I think isn't seen as much. Quiet pain and Quiet joy that I really set out to write about, because that's been my experience. Hopefully, people are able to relate that to that in the same way they're able to relate to the extremes. You've been getting very personal in your music as of late and you also use a lot of very vivid imagery, like the line “Listening to Phoebe / While I'm laying on the floor / Trying to ask you if you like me anymore.” How was it transitioning to vague writing to this hyper-specific imagery? All of my inspirations are incredibly specific songwriters, I'm very heavily influenced by Sufjan Stevens and Phoebe [Bridgers] and Clairo. They're very honest and specific and I find that that is the most thrilling songwriting to listen to. I did have a bit of a wall up for a while where I was like, ‘I can't get too specific, because the people in my life are going to hear this and the people in my life are going to know, specific things and, I don't want to be too honest, I don't want to let the guard down.’ But I was, when I was working on my EP I just needed to be honest, for myself, too. Songwriting is a way of unpacking and connecting with things that I've done and trying to understand why I've acted the way I did, or why somebody else might have acted the way they did. And you can't do that without being honest. And so I was just like, ‘You know what, I'm gonna go there.’ It felt amazing. I've taken that with me, and all the songs that I've shared on Tik Tok. I think that people can tell when you're being genuine and honest. They can sniff it out. And hopefully, they can connect with it too. Was there a favorite reaction that you received from somebody in your life? I had a childhood friend of mine reach out and she was like, ‘I didn't know you were going through all these things.’ And it was actually awesome, because it prompted a conversation with the two of us that wouldn't have happened otherwise, that was cool. I've reached out to people from my hometown, and people in my life and even my family. I’ve had to be like ‘Mom, I'm dropping your name song.’ It's been good. I don't ever just write about somebody, name, drop them, and then not tell them. So I have had to reach out to some people. But honestly I'm lucky that so far, it has been a really great way of prompting conversation and getting to talk to people in my life that I wouldn't have talked to you otherwise. You've also been sharing all of your music online, how is balancing the social media aspect of your creative process? For the most part, it has been extremely rewarding to share my music and get to see all the comments of people connecting and sharing my music and wanting things to be out and wanting to hear more. I actually started on Tik Tok as a comedy account. Yeah, I saw your Lana Del Rey povs I was doing something completely different on the internet for a while. But I knew that I wanted to do music and [for] that [to] be taken seriously and I had to switch lanes. I'm still very proud of that content, I loved it for what it was. But sharing my music on the app is a way more soulful and beautiful experience, because it's sharing a part of yourself with people. It's an interesting balance though because I sometimes find myself getting caught writing music for Tik Tok, which I don't recommend, because that is not what you should be doing as an artist. It's hard to say you can't. It works for some people but for me when I'm writing a song, and I realize that I'm writing it with the idea that I'm going to be sharing it, it takes away from the experience for me. It makes it feel more like a product and less like art. So I've been really, really careful with what I share on the internet recently, just trying to make sure that if I'm sharing something, it's because I think it's important and it's personal, and it's honest, and I feel like people should hear it.
It’s interesting that you mention authenticity in songwriting via Tik Tok because I find some of the most popular Tik Tok songs are very personal. For example “We'll Never Have Sex” and “complex” and all of your music is incredibly personal. Do you feel that personal aspect is informed by that audience? Absolutely. I think that it's this funny catch 22. You want to write something extremely personal, because that's what people are going to identify with. But also, you want to write something that a lot of people are going to want to listen to. So as a songwriter, you're like, ‘Ah, how do I do both of these things.’ And I find that if you're already thinking those things in your head, just don't. Because if it's authentic, and it's honest, it's gonna find its audience, and people are gonna love it. You’ve also been pairing your releases with playlists that feature songs similar to yours. What inspired you to start doing that? I think it's just fun! I love when an artist has playlists on their Spotify page because I feel like it gives you a little glimpse of their music tastes and their influences and whatever they're listening to at the moment. For mine, it's a combination of my influences for the song and also all of my friends on Tik Tok. It's just a cool little community of songwriters. And it brings me joy to like, put all of them on a playlist too, because I'm like, ‘well look at all of these people that I love and I am close to and their music inspires me every day.’ So for me, it's just a fun way to connect with people in that way. It is very fun. I enjoyed listening to “Bags” and “ICU” back to back. Yes! Come on Bags and ICU! Bags was the song that inspired start tripping actually. I sent it to my producer and I was like, ‘I want it to sound like this’. And then we got to work. It's obviously not the exact same not trying to copy anything but definitely a huge inspiration in the process. “star tripping” came out today, congratulations! What was the inspiration behind the song and how are you feeling on release day? It feels amazing. It's really, really cool. Honestly, I'm surprised when even one person listens to my music. I'm always surprised that people care, which is funny, but it feels amazing. I'm so grateful. I wrote that song two and a half months ago. I have been doing this deep archiving of experiences I've had in my past, specifically in high school. Just because mining that material for me has been extremely therapeutic, as an artist and it feels like it's also like a great subject that a lot of queer people relate. Specifically, the situation I was in where I was in a relationship with somebody who is really struggling with their identity and their connection to religion and their family influence. I wanted to write from my past perspective on that person and just lay things out how they were. The song went through a few different changes. It was originally like a fingerpicking song with a much softer melody, but I felt like it wasn't working. It needed something else. And then I just completely changed it up to a strumming pattern and it all clicked together. I wrote it, and then I left the next day to go to Florida. I was going to a family reunion, and I brought my guitar because I'm annoying *laugh*. I was like, ‘I really want to record the song and share it with people.’ My mom was like, ‘Okay, you can record it today. And then you need to come do things with the family.’ So I recorded it and then I was extremely surprised at the [response] from people. I'm always surprised when people care but I was so overwhelmed and super grateful that people connected with it, it was really cool. Especially because that one is a pretty, pretty dark subject matter. I was just overwhelmed that people were so tuned into it. But again, queer people love a personal experience.
Like you mentioned, “star tripping” is quite different from your previous releases. It's a lot less folksy and guitar-based. How was it exploring that new side of your music? I had been inching towards changing up my sound for a few months now. For my EP and all my songs before that I had produced them myself. It’s funny saying ‘produced' because I don't know how to produce. I just sat and recorded them in my room. And so most of what shaped my sound was my inability to do anything else. I know a lot of people praising the EP for just being guitar and voice and I'm like, ‘Thank you, that's great but that's all I know how to do.’ But I started working with my producer Tom [Michel] after he reached out to me after the song blew up on Tik Tok. I already had in mind what I wanted to do with it. We met and we just connected and it was great. It just felt right like something just clicked and we just were so in tune. This song is so heavy with the subject matter and I didn’t want people to sit in sorrow and sadness with this one. I wanted a song that is a bop but then you listen to the lyrics and you're like, ‘Oh, there's something going on here.’ This isn't just a ‘Let's dance in the car moment’. This is like this is a song that is about something very specific. And I think we captured it perfectly. We originally recorded it with just acoustic guitar and then we started adding some drums, we added some synth and electric guitar and bass and it all came together so quickly. Most of what we did with the song we did in one day and then it was just simple tweaks after that. With this release, you had to get back into the mindset of yourself in high school. How was going through that writing process and really like digging that up? It can be hard. Every time I go to write a song, I start with the guitar. I typically have never started with lyrics and then put guitar. I play around on my guitar until I express myself in a way that matches that feeling. This one felt like it was full of yearning and angst and confusion. The chords were really tugging at something and so I just started like singing gibberish over it. I just sang the word star tripping in one of the voice memos I took and I was like ‘Okay let me write about this.’ Wait, do you know what star tripping is, by the way? I would love it if you could explain it! So this is something fun that I'm realizing a lot of people don't know, which is good. It's also called star tipping. I think this is like a very Midwest thing. I don't recommend it. I'm in no way promoting this. But I used to do it in high school, when I was bored with my friends. You go outside when it's nighttime so the stars are out. You spin around like a million times looking up at the sky and then someone yells, ‘stop’, and you put your head down and someone shines a light in your face. And because of that, your body gets really disoriented, and you fall over. And it's like you're tripping. Very, very strange experience. It's something you do when you're stupid and young. And to me, it symbolizes doing something that’s dangerous, but also carefree. And then when the light is shining in your face, you fall over and it's over. It's something you grow out of. It was an experience I had with this person that felt really young and really beautiful for what it was until it turned into something worse. So for me it kind of was a little parallel. I also did star trip with this person. What's your favorite line from the song? It's always funny trying to choose my own favorite lines. But I am really proud of the line “Did the light hit my blush when you told me I could be enough,” And the previous line “Baby, why did you stop?” I feel like if I reveal too much of myself, people won't want me in relationships. I think I have a guard up sometimes. That's not a healthy mindset, I'm aware of it. But for me, I think especially in incredibly intimate experiences you can't reveal too much of yourself or at least that's how I felt in the past. But also if you're blushing you're turning red, and if the light hits your blush, it could be a stop sign. It just had a bunch of different meanings to me and I was really proud when I really wrote that one. Following the release of “star tripping,” what have you got coming up? I cannot say too much. But I can say that there is a lot of music in the works and there will be more coming soon. There are more things that I've shared on Tik Tok that will be coming soon and that is what I will say.
Published via Returner Magazine
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