Issue Eight- August 2020:

By Mercedes Barreto

Featured in ‘People Magazine’, in ‘what to listen to over the quarantine’, Emily Keating’s music is inspired by an urge to combine her folk music roots with her love of pop. Emily brings her unique sound, voice, and message to this genre.

What do you feel separates, or will separate, you from

other artists, in terms of your potential and future success?

“I have a drive and passion for songwriting and performing that will never extinguish, and a sound that I’ve been developing for years that I hope is just as unique as relatable. I also can feel very deeply, sometimes overwhelmingly, which I channel through music. I think people feel a lot of emotion in music because I don’t hold my heart back at all. I also have a very specific vision of what my sound is as an artist. It will always evolve, but the essence of my sound is solid, and in my foundation forever now.”

When did your passion start? When did you actually start

performing and getting yourself out there?

“My passion started when I was five years old.

That’s when I started singing and making melodies. I wrote my first song at eleven. I started truly performing when I was sixteen years old in my professional youth choir growing up in NYC. When I graduated college at twenty-three, I started testing the waters with the first compositions I had written in the city of Portland, Oregon. Then I moved back to NYC and started performing constantly with my band on city stages, finally gearing up to tour right before the pandemic started. Now I’m performing live shows online, and amazing socially distant shows in Catskills, New York.”

What would be an original song by you that best describes you and who you are as an artist?

“I would say my song Daddy and my song No, that are both of my on debut EP HEART that just released a few months ago. They represent my sound, where it’s going, and how I write as a songwriter.”

If you could play for a judge-panel of individuals, regardless of who, where, and how, who would you play for? What would you play?

“I would play for Lady Gaga, Regina Spektor, and the producer Jack Antonoff. Gaga and Spektor are two artists I admire and respect the most-I feel they would understand me as an artist and perhaps want to collaborate. And Antonoff is my favorite producer out there right now in my genre of music, I would be honored for him to hear me and potentially write a song with me. I would play a new song I just recently wrote I Need a Window, my song No Longer Lonely Lonely that’s not out yet, and Daddy.”

What does music mean to you, and how has, or will, music changed your life? Will you do this yourself or will someone, or is someone, helping you achieve this change?

“Music has been the foundation of my life since I was a little girl. It’s where I can find myself amongst the chaos, where I find joy. Whenever I need to find calm, I stop and listen to the sounds around me, the orchestra the world always has to offer. When I first discovered singer-songwriters from 60’s folk to modern-day pop in middle school, it is what allowed me to understand myself amongst bureaucracy and culture, that which I always felt very different from, and outside their boxes. As an adult, music has become my work, which is the highest privilege and honor to devote myself to it. To become a better songwriter each day, to become who I am as an artist. The musicians and producers I’ve been in NY have helped me create what my sound is today, and for that, I’m forever grateful. Creating and listening to music is still what brings me the most joy.”

Questions For The Photographer:

What is your professional opinion, regarding the authenticity and the intrigue of music by Emily Keating? How does this play into a photoshoot?

“Emily Keating was like no other artist I have ever worked with before. Her music was surreal, her voice exquisite, and her instrumental ability beyond compare. She gets into a zone when performing. I was lucky enough to go into that zone with her and capture what I think is the REAL Emily.”

How would you personally, as a professional, direct a photo shoot with Emily Keating?

“If I could, I would love to photograph Emily again. This would take place in a more private setting, with better backgrounds and nothing in the way of my shoot, as it was with the previous shoot, at The Colony. It would be great to get some posed shots, and some of Emily just on the street, just ‘being Emily’.”

(Photographer Courtesy from Joe Mack of The Hudson Valley.)

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