OCT. 2017 04 OLIVIA O’BRIEN
20 ECHOSMITH
36 CAITY LOTZ
on her upcoming ep and developing her identity
on learning to write as a threepiece and their sophomore album
on women empowerment and using her position to inspire others
06 JACK & JACK
26 PEARL LION
46 LAUV
on taking their time and finding their sound
on bringing his passion project to life and snl
on making music and falling in love with new york city
12 NEW HOPE CLUB
28 DYLAN SPRAYBERRY
50 JAMES MASLOW
on coming together as a band and touring the world
on his journey to success and saying goodbye to teen wolf
on his solo endeavors and experiences post-big time rush
16 DECLAN MCKENNA
34 LIZ HUETT
56 RACHEL CROW
on putting out authentic work and being a voice
on stepping out of her comfort zone and finding herself
on taking a break and rediscovering her voice
CATHERINE POWELL
publisher, editor, photographer, designer, writer
SAMANTHA BAMBINO writer
SHELBY CHARGIN writer
ELIZABETH FORREST writer
AUTUMN HALLE
OLIVIA SINGH
IAN HAYS
RILEY STENEHJEM
writer writer
writer writer
LIZ ZAVOYSKIY writer
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O’BRIEN
Words by SHELBY CHARGIN Photos by CATHERINE POWELL
OLIVIA
Olivia O’Brien stormed Top 40 radio as the top liner of the gnash’s biggest hit to date “i hate u, i love u.” But the 1- year-old has no plans of stopping there. Growing up writing songs for herself and stumbling into one of the quickest rises into music in 2017, she’s determined to showcase how quickly one young woman can grow. We caught up with her at her first show ever last month to pick her brain apart about Gnash, her new EP, and what her future in music might look like. How’d you get into music? I’ve been writing songs since I was like out of the womb. I have little songbook from when I was in kindergarten so I’ve always been writing songs. I just didn’t think anything would happen with it. That’s like the last thing I would think ever would happen in my life. When I was like in middle school I taught myself to play piano and guitar. And then when I was like freshman I started actually writing songs with chords and stuff and showing them to my friends and they were like ‘Oh hey these are kind of good.’ I started making covers on Soundcloud because I saw this girl make them and I thought ‘Oh that’s easy I could do that.’ What made you go with the Soundcloud approach versus YouTube? I just don’t like photos or videos. I don’t like to record myself. I mean, you wouldn’t really get that idea from my Instagram, but I have control over photos that I post there. I can edit them, I can get good lighting, I take like 100 photos and pick one that I like kind of thing. But yeah. I just didn’t want to have to worry about the way that I looked and the way that I sounded because I feel like it’s just easier to
get the sound than the look. When did you start putting out original music? My first original songs that I put out like I had them out for maybe two days because it was just a track with the piano and I remember I was on a field trip and we were on the school bus on the way back home and these two boys were listening to my songs and making fun of me so I deleted them immediately. And then “hate u love u” was the first original song I put out since then. How did you end up working with gnash? I was a fan of Blackbear and ModSun and they were going on tour and Gnash was opening for them and so I looked up all the openers and he had one song out and I thought it was good so I did a cover of it, and he heard it. He invited me to the show and put me on the list, which at the time I thought was so cool. He asked me if I had any original songs so I sent him “hate u love u” and he wanted to work with me so I went to L.A., made the song, put it on Woundcloud. I don’t know how it got on the radio, seriously. What was it liking watching that song take off last year? It was crazy, it kind of didn’t really feel real. It was weird because it was my song but it wasn’t my song. It was gnash featuring me technically so I didn’t go to all the radio promo, I didn’t do all the stuff for it that you know people usually do for songs that they sing on write or whatever. What’s it been like to watch people become a fan of you through that? It’s been cool. I feel like I still have a
lot of growing to do, and I don’t really like a lot of my old songs that I put out. Just ‘cause I wrote them a long time ago. Like I always say I hate ‘i hate u i love you’ because I wrote it when I was 15. Like when you’re young, you’re a teenager, you grow faster and mature faster than at any other time in your life. So two years ago me is so different than who I am now, so I feel like songs I wrote then don’t really match up to who I am now. I’m excited to put out new music and see my fans grow from there because they’re going to know who I am now. Like get a better sense of who I’m going to be throughout my life. How has your sound and songwriting developed? I’m definitely not afraid to actually say stuff. Like before I was like ‘Can I say this? I’m 17. Can I talk about drinking?’ just stuff that 17-year-olds shouldn’t be doing but I do anyway because we all do it. I just don’t want to be one of those people who pretends that I’m some little perfect angel and role model. I’m becoming more honest. Any songs on the upcoming EP you’re excited for your fans to hear? All of them. I had so many songs written but I could only put three on this. “Empty” is already out and “R.I.P” is already out and then there’s two possibly three more that are going to be on it. What are some of your goals over the course of the next year? People always ask me that and I don’t know. I just like writing songs. I never thought of this as a career so I’m just happy with whatever happens. NKD NKDMAG.COM
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jack & jack Words by AUTUMN HALLE Photos by CATHERINE POWELL
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new hope club
Words by OLIVIA SINGH Photos by CATHERINE POWELL
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It’s a warm afternoon in early August and the boys of New Hope Club, Blake Richardson, 18, Reece Bibby, 19, and George Smith, 18, approach a rooftop that overlooks New York City. Front and center is the Empire State Building and in the distance, the Freedom Tower stands out against the pale blue sky and puffy white clouds that are scattered across the skyline. It’s New Hope Club’s first time visiting the Big Apple, and they eagerly run toward the railing, captivated by a view they’ve only seen come to life in movies and TV shows – until this moment. In true millennial fashion, they take out their phones, ready to document the experience and snap photos that will inevitably appear on their social media accounts. New Hope Club might be a relatively new name to music fans, but with their talent and ambition, they will undoubtedly visit new cities for many years to come. Prior to forming the band, Blake, Reece and George were pursuing music individually in separate parts of England. Blake, the band’s guitarist and lead vocalist, learned to play the guitar at the age of 6. George, NHC’s vocalist and guitarist, was inspired to pick up the guitar at 11-years-old after watching a Beatles program and later became proficient in piano and bass. As for NHC’s drummer, bassist and vocalist, Reece, the interest in music began because of his father. Coming from a musical family, he picked up his first drum kit at 3 years old and
learned to play guitar around the age of 9. Though all three guys discovered music at varying ages, one thing they had in common is that singing came as naturally as playing instruments. Beginning in 2013, George started posting covers and original songs on YouTube, including covers of Oasis and The Beatles. Around the same time, Reece was uploading covers of Bob Marley and Ed Sheeran tracks, while Blake posted a cover of McFly’s “That Girl.” The early stages of the band started when George found Blake’s cover on YouTube. The idea of shifting from a solo musician performing at local pubs to being a member in a band appealed to George. “I got spotted by a potential manager who put me in touch with a few people,” George recalls. “But then I met Blake singing some McFly in his front room in his kitchen, just by himself, counting himself in with loads of energy and we met up at his house for a weekend.” That weekend turned out to be a productive one, spent watching movies, writing music and testing the waters as potential bandmates. Not too long after, George and Blake discovered Reece through his time on The X Factor. Reece had parted ways with his band at the time, but found a new place with George and Blake. “Me and George were writing for a few months and kept writing and kept being open, just gaining a really
strong friendship,” Blake explains. After meeting Reece, the three guys knew they would work well as a band. “We instantly connected because we had a similar interest in music and everything, and it just fell together.” “It was pretty much instant,” Reece adds. “We never met up and thought, ‘This has to work. You have to be a band. You’ve got no choice.’ It was a trial and error thing. As soon as we met up, we all just kind of watched films, we had the same humor – we’re really similar boys. It was just really easy. Straight away, we went home after that weekend and were like, ‘Yeah, this is exactly what I want to do. These are the boys that I want to be in a band with.’” In November 2015, New Hope Club got signed to fellow U.K.based band The Vamps’ record label, Steady Records, and toured across England with them. NHC performed their first official show at Birmingham Arena while on tour with The Vamps. “We had never performed for a crowd before,” Blake recalls. “Obviously we performed to our families, but it was to 15,000 people and we were very nervous that day. We just supported each other as we went out and I’d like to say we smashed it.” Performing for a crowd of that magnitude isn’t easy for a rising band, but NHC prepared with help from The Vamps. “They’re very talented writers and we’ve done
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declan mckenna
Words by LIZ ZAVOYSKIY Photos by CATHERINE POWELL
For lack of a better word to describe him, Declan McKenna is different. I meet with the rising star hours before his show at the infamous Webster Hall and energy is high. He’s wearing a white t-shirt gifted to him by a fan that says “Make Me Your Queen” outlined in silver glitter, dark polish on his fingernails, hair displaced just enough to teeter the line of constructed image and nonchalance. The 18-year-old is scaling the walls of the almost vacant concert hall (Webster Hall was recently bought by AEG and is clearing the venue out for renovations shortly), mounting himself on vintage looking radiators and jumping dramatically into the sky. After every leap, he pauses enough to catch his breath and then asks, “Did you get the shot?” He keeps going 16
until it’s perfect. For a thus far relatively short span of celebrity, Declan’s name has been met with some controversy, but more importantly, a lot of expectation. In the eyes of an ever socially conscious public, being dubbed the voice of a generation is a heavy burden to carry, and one that Declan hasn’t expressly asked for. “It’s never not been real. I think there’s more so been a time that I’ve come to realize what I want from what I’m doing. Though so much of what’s happened to me has been sensationalized, I think that it’s all actually been rather gradual. It’s been three years, or something like that, just building what I’m doing and understanding who I am as an artist. It’s definitely been surreal starting out and I guess involving
myself with industry types, going into weird meetings and building a team around myself. It’s all developed quite nicely. I’ve kept touring, kept creating, kept performing in a way that I’m happy. In that way it’s kind of stayed real with me, even if I’ve gotten to a point where things are very great in terms of what we’re doing. I’m very fortunate to have had a smooth-ish couple of years.” ‘Smooth’ is an understatement. Signed to Columbia Records, a subsidiary of Sony Entertainment and managed by Q Factory whose other clients include Metallica and Snow Patrol, Declan’s name is one that’s caused a rift of excitement in the industry for the past couple of years and doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. In person, Declan is thankful and ever appreciative
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echosmith Words by OLIVIA SINGH Photos by CATHERINE POWELL
pearl lion Words & Photos by CATHERINE POWELL
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For the past ten years, Jared Scharff has been booked most Saturday nights. Tucked away on the famed 8H stage, Jared serves as the lead guitarist for Saturday Night Live, which kicked off its 43rd season – Jared’s 11th – on September 30th. But lately, Jared has been bringing his guitar front and center with his passion project, Pearl Lion. Music came into Jared’s life in the third grade when he started piano lessons, but he hated it. He switched over to the drums in the fourth grade and loved it immediately. He continued with the drums, but also picked up the guitar in fifth grade. “I sucked really early on. I’m not sure why I stuck with it, but I did,” Jared admits. During the school year, he would continue to play drums in the concert band and marching band, but over the summer he attended the infamous Frenchwoods performing arts camp, where he played in rock bands alongside now-Maroon 5 members, Adam Levine and Jesse Carmichael. Come high school, Jared was playing in a jam band cover band, and he started to feel like he was getting good at guitar. He started going to see Phish and The Allman Brothers play in New York City, and had the moment of realization where he knew he wanted to do this for the rest of his life. “It wasn’t just, ‘Oh, I want to be in a rock band”. I wanted to be in a band that was playing live and truly creating and being exploratory,” Jared says. After high school, Jared attended the Hartt School of Music and studied jazz, but realized he wanted to be in the city and transferred to New York University. He was still playing in his jam band from high school, but also joined a pop band, Carbondale, comprised of other NYU students. After graduation, the group signed to RCA Records and made a $500,000 record, but due to the collapse of the music industry in the 2000’s, things didn’t work out per-
fectly, and the band ended up getting dropped. Jared began working on a new project, Jared Scharff and the Royals, where he was playing guitar, singing and writing all the music. The band was gaining some traction on sites like PureVolume, but without a record label assisting him, Jared began to feel the strains of trying to build a band up from the ground level, and started to dislike the process. “It was 2007 and I was starting to feel disheartened by everything,” Jared says, “And then I ended up getting recommended for SNL.” Before he was even allowed to formally audition, Jared had to send videos of himself playing to Lenny Pickett, the band’s co-musical director. Once approved, Jared went in and met Lenny, and ended up speaking with him for over three hours. “I’ll always remember that. It was such an incredible experience for me,” he says. He then played through a few songs in the SNL band repertoire, but says he struggled a bit because he “was not the best sight reader at that time”. “I definitely bombed the first song hardcore,” Jared admits. Following the audition, he made a point to practice reading music at least an hour a day, just in case he got called back. He did, and sat in with the entire rhythm section. A few weeks later, he got the call that he got the job. During his first season in 2007, a writer’s strike happened and Jared found himself with a lot of free time – despite finally getting a great job playing music. He started spending time in Los Angeles and working with Ross Golan, who in recent years has penned Selena Gomez’s “Same Old Love” and Ariana Grande’s “Dangerous Woman”, among others. The two began writing and learning pop music together, and when he was in New York, Jared would do the same with NY-based production teams. His life was compartmentalized: 4-5
days doing pop music, 1-3 days doing SNL, and one day off. “That was my life for a couple years, and at one point I just wasn’t happy,” Jared says. He left his production team and Jared started working with another friend, before eventually parting ways once again. And then Pearl Lion was born. “My whole life I always wanted to make this super modern, instrumental album. It was always a dream,” Jared says. He was starting to miss being an artist and doing his own creative expression, and decided it was time to “start fucking around”. Within a year, he had a buddy of his mix a song called “Sunshower” – which is Pearl Lion’s latest single – and upon hearing the mix, Jared realized this is what he’d been wanting to do for a long time. Jared started working on a double EP titled Light and Dark, that will encompass two very different vibes. It’s been a long time coming for Jared, but Pearl Lion is finally on its feet and thriving. There are currently three songs and three videos out (“Sunshower”, “NYC” and “Big Sky”) with more music on the way. In addition, Jared recently signed a publishing deal with Warner Chappell. “A lot of things are going really well and in the right direction,” Jared says. Jared has a lot of people in the industry on his side and rooting for him, and he knows that putting out music that isn’t pop music – especially without vocals – is not the easiest approach. “I’m taking on the hardest thing I could do, but my feeling is I have a great job, I’m making a living doing that, I’m going to just make the music that inspires me,” he says, “And I have to believe that somewhere, deep in my heart for that kid that grew up loving music, that when you do something from the soul and the depth of your heart, that regardless of how different it is, it’s going to do something and it’s going to affect people.”NKD NKDMAG.COM
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dylan sprayberry Words by IAN HAYS Photos by CATHERINE POWELL
liz huett Words & Photos by CATHERINE POWELL
Liz Huett was born and raised in Riverside, Cali., and was the youngest of five children and caught the arts bug early on. She dabbled in everything from acting, to dancing (short-lived, as she admits she has “two left feet”), to singing. “Music was my instinctive, go-to vice,” she says. Her mom started taking her to open casting calls, where she’d book commercials or 34
television. guest spot gigs, and really thought acting was what she was going to do with her life. But come high school, she decided to abandon acting in an attempt to have a normal teenage life. While auditions or filming would pull her out of class, music was something she could do in her bedroom after school. “Music took the front seat,” Liz says. Fast forward a few years and
Liz decided to move to Nashville to seriously pursue music and quickly realized that artists there were doing it all: singing and writing. “They feel every word. It’s about so much more than just being a singer,” she says. She was intimidated, but eager, and hit the ground running. Just as she felt she was ready to start figuring out her sound as an artist, she got a last minute phone call to audition to sing
background for Taylor Swift. Liz ended up booking the gig and hit the road soon after. It wasn’t the route she thought she was going to take, but she was fully on board for the ride. “It was supposed to be just one tour, but I quickly got put on salary and worked with her for 3.5 years,” Liz says, “It was some of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had.” She looks at that time as her “music industry
school”, because she learned so much while getting true, handson experience. But despite the fun she was having and the security of the job, Liz still wanted to be an artist herself. “After a while I had to come to terms with myself,” she admits, “I enjoyed it so much I could have wanted to stay forever.” But during her last year on the road with Taylor, Liz started to realize that there was more she wanted to do with music. So she and Taylor had the hard talk, and while Taylor said she didn’t expect Liz to come back, there was always a place in her band for her. “It really meant so much to me,” Liz says. Now, five years later, Liz had officially launched her career as an artist with her debut single “STFU & Hold Me”, which was released via Interscope Records this past August. But while listeners are loving the song (it just hit 1 million streams on Spotify), it took years for Liz to reach a point in her songwriting where she felt she was saying what she wanted to say. “I had a lot of self doubt, a lot of crippling insecurity,” she admits, “It took me a long time to even write a good song, in my opinion.” It wasn’t until her personal life “went to complete shit” that she felt her career started to pick up again. Within one month she called off her engagement, totaled her car and was forced to leave her apartment because she hadn’t resigned her lease. She put all her time and energy into writing and sent a batch of songs to her friend at Inter-
scope. A week later she played her songs for the president of A&R and signed her deal shortly after. Liz wanted “STFU & Hold Me” to be her introductory song because it is as unapologetically bold as she is. She’s fine with people writing her off because she took a risk with her first single, because she knows that there will still be people who appreciate the risk. “I’m not a polished person,” she laughs, “In relationships and in life, I mostly learn from doing the wrong thing first.” She feels that this song is an accurate representation of the “messy” side of her personality; the side that doesn’t always say the right thing and makes mistakes. “Might as well let people know with the first look what they’re going to get,” she jokes, “I’m a Gemini, and a female and a creative type so I feel like that’s just a rollercoaster.” While “STFU & Hold Me” is still fresh in listeners’ eardrums, Liz is eager to get more music out sooner than later. She’s been working diligently on finishing up her record and plans to release it sometime next year, but anticipates that a second song will hit streaming platforms before the holidays. Looking ahead at the year, Liz’s biggest goal is to have her full-length record released and well-received, and to take it on tour as she’s eager to get back out and playing consistently again. But she’s taking things one step at a time – which is how she’s always done it. “I took the long way,” she says. NKD NKDMAG.COM
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CAITY LOTZ Words & Photos by CATHERINE POWELL Hair & Make-Up by EMILY DAWN Assisted by JENNA WILSON Styling by LAUREN BROWN Assisted by SHANA ANDERSON
LAUV Words by RILEY STENHEJEM Photos by CATHERINE POWELL
Ari Staprans Leff, known by his stage name LAUV, first started playing music when he learned the piano at age 3. From there, he picked up the viola, and later settled on the guitar. “My older sisters, one played violin and one played cello, and I’m the youngest of the family, the baby, so I was like, ‘okay, I guess I’ll be cute and play the viola, we can be a trio’,” he says. But it was the guitar which really solidified his passion for music. “It was really once I picked up guitar—that’s when music started to become my life,” he explains, before adding, “Well, once I realized I wasn’t going to become a professional skateboarder, then music became my life—I didn’t have the balls for that.” 46
LAUV started writing his own songs as a teenager. “From there it just became an obsession. All I ever wanted to do was make music,” he says. It was the midst of the MySpace era, so, once he got his own computer, it was natural that he used that as a platform for his own projects and bands. Following high school, LAUV moved to New York to study music technology at New York University. “I was sure I wasn’t going to want to live in New York, because the city is just so crazy, but that ended up being the reason that I decided to move there,” he remarks. After moving around a lot as a child, LAUV decided to push himself out of his comfort zone again,
and see what New York had to offer. “It ended up being the best decision I’ve ever made,” he says. “A huge piece of my heart is in New York. If I had to go back to where I was from, the place I connected the most is probably New York.” During his time at university, he strayed a bit from writing and creating personal projects. “I was a little lost in the sense that I stepped away from the idea of being an artist and lost a little faith in myself, and I decided that maybe the better path was just to be a songwriter and producer for other artists,” he explains. For a couple of years, he focused on writing for other artists, making connections, and getting into
JAMES MASLOW
Words by SAMANTHA BAMBINO Photos by CATHERINE POWELL
rachel crow Words by ELIZABETH FORREST Photos by CATHERINE POWELL
At just age 19, X-Factor alumnus Rachel Crow has the world at her feet. A singer and an actress, Rachel began preparing for her inevitable future as a performer since she was 18 months old and belting out songs by Faith Hill. With parents and grandparents that supported her dreams, Rachel is the first to admit she has a wonderful family and couldn’t have asked for better. However, it wasn’t always easy. At six months old, Rachel was adopted. She lived in a tiny town in Colorado, and her classmates began bullying her when she was 10-years-old. “I told my mom, ‘I need to get out of here. I can’t breathe. People don’t understand why I’m a different color than my family or understand what that means,’” she remembers. From there, her mom asked what Rachel needed to change and what she could do to help. Rachel’s heart gravitated towards entertaining others, so she wanted to do television in California. Rachel’s mom took her to California for six weeks that summer. It was a bit of a culture shock, but Rachel fell in love with the city. Soon, it would become her home. Around her 13th birthday, she moved to California and her mom convinced her to audition for the X-Factor. She was hesitant at first because she didn’t feel she was
good enough to be an artist and do music. “I was like, ‘Sure I write little songs here and there and I like to sing, but that’s not enough,’” Rachel laughs. And although she didn’t win the season, she was a crowd favorite. That was six years ago. Since then, Rachel has grown up and matured. She’s thankful for her experience, even if it wasn’t always the easiest to navigate at her age. “When you’re young and everyone’s telling you how great you are, it’s really easy to start believing that,” Rachel explains. “When you’re 13-years-old, you take every word and soak it in like a sponge, whether it’s good or bad.” Rachel surrounded herself with great people telling her good things, but she still needed to take a break from it all. “I took a break because I was ready to figure out who I was without everyone telling me who I was,” she says. She was able to spend time with herself alone and to figure out who she was without any outside influences. And although she took an extended break and went through a tremendous amount of personal growth, she doesn’t consider herself a new person – just a new artist. Rachel is excited for her new music because she’s coming at it from a new point of view. Her new music deals with ex-
periences that are new to her and to her fans. “We’ve kind of grown up together in these last six years, so that’s been really cool for me,” Rachel says. She writes about personal experiences, but since many of her fans are similar in age, she understands that the feelings associated with events she’s experienced are universal. She hopes to be a voice for others that may not feel like anyone else is going through what they are. Her return to the music scene was highly anticipated by fans, but not something Rachel ever expected. “I went into this not negatively, but with no expectation because you never really know,” she says. Her newest single “Dime” served as a ”fun, returning to music” comeback. The first day it was released, even after her extended break, the music video received over 200,000 views on YouTube. “It’s already doing so well. I couldn’t have asked for anything better,” Rachel gushes. The goal is to release her EP by the end of 2017. In addition to singing, Rachel loves to act. Her newest project is an exciting role in the latest addition to the Transformers franchise: Bumblebee. This production is new to her not just because of the huge size of it, but also because the audition process was so quick. It’s Rachel’s belief that she received NKDMAG.COM
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