ENTERTAINING SC: Kylie Hinze — Strong Enough to Know Who She Is

 

“You’re 14. Do what you’re told. You don’t know who you are as an artist yet. You can’t tell us what you will and won’t do as a performer.”

Don’t say any of those things to Kylie Hinze.

She’s a young artist who knows who she is and knows how she wants to entertain audiences. If you try and tell her how to do it your way, that’s fine. You might just be wasting your breath, though.

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We touched on this earlier, but if you watch talent competitions like (American) Idol, you see young singers or you hear young singers perform songs that deal with life experience that they haven’t had yet.  They’re so often critiqued that they haven’t had that experience, they don’t need to be singing that because they can’t get in the spirit of what that song is supposed to be, but your songs stay away from a lot of those things and deal primarily with things that you’ve been able to experience and older audiences can still relate to.  Is it important to write about those experiences or is it more important to have that wide cross-section of ages enjoying the music or can you make both happen?

I think you should write whatever comes to you because there are multiple songs that come to me that have nothing to do with anything I know about specifically, I guess, that specifically happened to me.  Like, it might be about something that’s happened to an adult that I know and I write with them in mind and then how I would feel if I was in that situation.  So I think it depends on what you want to do with your music so I want everyone to be able to listen to my music and I’m just going to keep writing whatever comes to me. I think there is a certain point where if you just sing about crazy things and you’re fourteen.  It’s like, “Why is she singing about that?”  I’m not going to so sing a song about sex because I don’t do that, and that’s not what I want my fans to hear me sing about. You know? I did write a song about my friend’s parents’ divorce, but I wrote in a very relatable way that I think it could be applied to any relationship, so I think I just depends on the way you go about it and present yourself.

Listening to a song like “It’s Officially Over.”  It’s easy to draw that comparison to Taylor Swift. Is that the vein where you want to be musically or do you have other avenues…

Actually, that was a CD from last year and I was kind of being pushed in a more country direction than I personally am.  I listen to country music, but it’s not my main forte.  I was being pushed in a more country direction because it was safer, but I personally am not like a country singer and I am not like Taylor Swift except that I do write songs, we have blond hair, and we look alike.  I have a ton of respect for her because she’s like an amazing singer and artist and writer and everything.

And she’s pulling in some serious coin.

Yes. My aim is not to be like her, though. My songs that I write and that I am more into now are more like pop/soul, like reggae-type stuff. I’ll actually go back into the studio later this summer, and there will be some new songs that will showcase more of my style.  So expect a little bit of surprise.

When will we be able to hear some of those?

I don’t know exact date of them coming out yet. I’ll keep you posted.

Please do. Everything that you’ve done seems so incredibly upbeat.  What do you sing about when you aren’t feeling on top of the world? I mean, are you going to come out with some Goth record?  That’s going to be you with black eye liner?

Yeah, I’m going to start wearing like Emo clothing.  No.  Life happens and you have your good days and your bad days.  I’ve always had a positive outlook because God put us on this earth to enjoy and live life, so I want to enjoy each day and live happy. Most of the time I do write music about being happy, but I do have songs about some deeper, darker things.  I mean, bullying goes on. I have songs about that. Bad sides of relationships. Things like that. Just doubting yourself … I think it’s important not to hide from those things because everyone has flaws, and there are parts of you that make mistakes, so if you just reflect on yourself and focus on brighter things in life, then I think you can be happy.  You control your mood, and you control how you perceive things.  So I perceive things happily. I definitely have my drama, and I have my breakdowns, though.

Why do I get the feeling we’re about to completely switch gears?

You want to know my real talent.  Corny jokes.  I could be a comedienne.  Want to hear one?

Sure.

Alright, just kidding they’re not that good.  What do you call a nosey pepper?  Jalapeno business.

It’s kind of an ice breaker.

Oh, I have an ice breaker corny joke.  How much does a polar bear weight?  Enough to break the ice. Hi. I’m Kylie.

That one hurt.  That was the one where you want to turn away but can’t. Where are you know compared to where you thought you’d be at this point?

Last year, at this time, I would have never thought I would open up for Colbie Callait and Gavin DeGraw.  The funny thing is, I wrote a little list of people I want to open up for and Colbie was on it.  Check.

Who else is on the list?

Oh, I don’t know, it’s long.  There’s like people like Kenny Chesney.  I love Kenny Chesney.  Cody Simpson, Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift, yes, Kelly Clarkson, I’m trying to remember other people who are on there.  Sister Hazel.  Justin Bieber, obviously.

You mentioned that your set was cut short with Colbie and Gavin. What happened?

I went on the stage like I was doing seven songs.   They had told me I had until 7:40 to finish my set.  I was like, “Alright.”  So I timed for all seven of my songs, in my fifth song, in the middle of song, I hear like the sound of the stage guy speak into my monitor say, “This is your last song, you need to get off the stage.”   I just kept singing like I didn’t hear anything. Then I saw my dad come up the side and he was like, “Kylie, Kylie.”  And I like turned, still singing, and he was like, “You need to get off the stage after this song.”  I just kept singing.  After that I was like, “OK…I’m going to sing one more song.”  I knew they wanted me off but I had to sing my closing song, you know.  You just can’t end it.

Good for you for sticking it out.  What’s an extra three minutes?  In the grand scheme of things, what’s an extra three minutes?

And, get this. I ended exactly at 7:40. It was just the sound guys because they were frustrated.  It had been a long day for them.  I completely understood, but it didn’t mean I was going to get off the stage.

That took guts.  That took a lot of guts.

Everyone back stage was really nice, and the food was really good.

You don’t look like you eat.

Oh my gosh, I eat all the time then I work out to work it off.

 

UPDATE: Back in the studio and wrapping up some new music, Kylie’s new single should be available toward the end of August.

• Follow Kylie on Twitter at @kyliehinze.
• Follow Kylie on Facebook HERE.
• Visit Kylie online HERE.

For our introduction to Kylie, click HERE. For Part 1 of the feature, click HERE.

PHOTO CREDIT: Kylie Hinze