Taylor Noelle
Nashville-based artist Taylor Noelle released her debut EP Be Around on July 14th. Featuring production by Ghosthood (FAYV, Lukr, Liz Huett), Bobby Knepper (Dreamer Boy, Houston Kendrick), and Reed Berin (GAYLE, James Droll), the debut EP offers beautiful and personal records.
The title track “Be Around”, written with Bobby Knepper (Dreamer Boy, Houston Kendrick), is a song exploring the subject of mental health and showing up for people who are struggling with it.
“It seemed only natural as I approached making a video for the song to use my childhood home videos. Directing and editing this video was very special to me. It offered me the opportunity to reacquaint myself with my childlike, goofy, creative, confident, loud, unique self. It let me witness the love of my parents and family as I grew under their care. I hope that this song can help anyone that feels small and dark and alone. The sun will always rise again. Offer yourself love and patience and kindness in the meantime,” says Noelle.
Be Around is now available on all major streaming platforms :)
Photo credit: Cowboys and Angels
Introduce yourself - what's your story?
Hi! I’m Taylor. I’m an alt pop singer songwriter originally from Los Angeles now living in Nashville. I’ve been singing for as long as I can remember and writing songs since I was eleven.
How would you define Taylor Noelle, the artist?
That’s interesting you would ask that question, because it’s been something I’ve thought about a lot lately. I do feel a dichotomy between Taylor in day to day life versus Taylor Noelle, the “artist.” And not in a negative way! Taylor Noelle, the artist, the musician, the creative director is the persona I can take on that allows me to be my most confident, confessional, colorful self. I’m not forcing myself to become someone I’m not, I’m releasing my inhibitions to create and perform and dream bigger than I could without giving myself permission to. So all that being said, I see Taylor Noelle as a nostalgic, confessional, imaginative artist with the glitter of a pop star and the intimacy of a singer songwriter.
You've just released your debut EP Be Around - how's it like to release this first project?
I’ve lived with these songs for so long that to me the project feels like an old friend that I get to introduce to the world. Most of the songs on the project have been out for a while, but even as spread out as all of them were released, to me they told a story in the way they fit together. I didn’t want to lose that just because I had a very atypical project rollout. Releasing “Be Around” as the final song to wrap up the project feels like the bow on top.
When did you start working on this EP? Who helped you create it?
I had demos for a few of the songs I had written on my own -- “What Can I Do”, “End of the Night”, and “Rely” -- by 2018 or so with the help of two producer friends of mine, Boone Wallace and Wes Rodberg, with additional help along the way from my talented friend Connor Ehman. I recorded the final version of “End of the Night” with Beats by Breakfast, who I credit with really helping me to get more in touch with the kind of sound I wanted my songs to have. As those first demos came along, I wrote “Prove” with my friend Andrew Tufano, miraculously on just piano and guitar, which is a testament to how insane Andrew’s talent is because hoo boy is that song complicated! I also demoed that out with Wes, Connor, and Boone. The last couple songs for the project were “West End” and “Be Around.” I wrote “West End” with Reed Berin and Rikki Randall in our very first session writing together. When I played some of the demos I had been working on for Reed and Rikki, Reed immediately pulled out a perfect beat he had made to start writing over that felt like it perfectly fit with the other songs thus far. And “Be Around” was written with Bobby Knepper, also in our first session together.
I played all of these songs live at shows along with a number of other originals I had written at the time, which really helped them to take shape and feel solid in my mind. I have other songs from that time that I’m still excited about and that might see the light of day one day, but these six songs really came to feel like my core expression of myself. The all felt linked in their own ways. So putting them all together on a project started to feel natural.
I had written a few times with this writer/producer in town Ghosthood and loved working with him and felt like he really understood the sound I was going for. So I brought “What Can I Do,” “Rely,” and “Prove” to him and his studio space to record with my band of Wes, Connor, Boone, and my fabulous keys player Cass Gephart. While the other songs on the project had more of a “bedroom pop” production process, all in one room with a producer arranging all of the sounds, it felt special to have the opportunity to have more of a retro, full band sound represented on the project.
What different topics are you talking about on this project?
The project spans a range of topics important to me and my story. There is anxiety and despair represented in “What Can I Do” and “Rely.” There are the flickers of budding romance in “West End” and “End of the Night”. “Prove” shows that love deepening and solidifying. And “Be Around” feels like a transcendent moment where romantic love grows to be unconditional. From eros to agape. It also loops back around to dealing with anxiety and despair. It feels like a story that can happen again and again.
What did you feel when writing "Be Around"?
Writing “Be Around” with Bobby Knepper helped me to express a lot that was on my mind at the time. Someone close to me was dealing with a really tough time with their mental health, and the main trouble that they kept coming back to was that they were alone in their struggle. So it was really weighing on me to try to make them feel like they weren’t alone and that the clouds were going to pass. When I came into the session with Bobby, he already had the chord progression on the guitar and from the moment he played it, it tugged at the heartstrings that were carrying that weight. I didn’t expect to come in and write about something so present and current in my life but the song wrote itself faster than I could decide not to. Bobby is so incredibly talented and can put so much emotion and feeling into his production, so it was such a natural, easy write for a topic that should have been difficult to talk about.
What did you learn about yourself after finishing this EP?
After this EP was mixed, mastered, and ready to go, I was so anxious for it to come out. I painstakingly tried to plot out every single promotional move I wanted to make and every goal I wanted to achieve. And right in the middle of it all, the pandemic hit. It was crushing to me to see all my plans for shows and videos and promo ideas crumble. Obviously, there were and are much more pressing issues in the world than my silly little EP. But it was personally incredibly disappointing to feel like my momentum spun away from me. But as time passed, I learned a lot about patience and adaptation. I learned that I am stronger than I thought I was, that even when things didn’t go to plan I could still find light and opportunity.
What's your favorite thing about this project?
My favorite thing about this project is the flow of the tracklist. There’s both an emotional narrative going on and a nice sonic movement to it. There is a diversity of sound between all of the songs, but also a thread running through them that make them all uniquely mine.
What made you want to name your EP Be Around?
I think that “Be Around” the song felt like such a resolution to the project that it felt right to title the project after it. The momentum of the album leads to it. I had toyed with a few other titles for the project, the final one in the running being Can’t Fight The Sound, which is a lyric from “What Can I Do.” But I really liked the title of the project being the final song, rather than from the first one. It felt a little more optimistic.
What is your goal for this EP?
Would I love to blow up on TikTok? Absolutely. Who wouldn’t? But I see something like that as fundamentally out of my control. I have all sorts of pipe dreams like that but when I really think about what I actually want, it’s not so much big numbers as much as solid connection. I want people who resonate with these songs to be able to have them in their life to serve them however they need. To dance to, to cry in the car to, to send to their friend when they’re down, to cryptically post on their story for their crush to see, to live life to.
As an artist, what is the hardest part? And what is the best part?
The hardest part of being an artist for me is drawing the line between my personal investment in my artistry and the shell I need to have around my heart and my ego. When I’m in creation mode, I need to let go of my self consciousness and put my whole heart into what I’m making without reservation. When my work comes to fruition and it’s time to bring it to the world, it can be daunting to have to put out this piece of my heart for people to possibly reject. My brain knows it’s a business and people can have different preferences but I’m still teaching my heart to not take it personally.
The best part for me is the drive home from a great write with a fresh bounce of the new song. I can tell when I’m super excited about a song because without even thinking about it, I won’t drive straight home on the highway. I’ll take surface streets and just ride all over Nashville listening to the song on a loop. If I seriously love a song, I’ll sometimes even find myself driving down Broadway bumping it at all full volume. There’s no judgement, only celebration at what I’ve had the opportunity to make. Those are some of my most precious moments.
What are your thoughts on today's music industry? If you could change one thing, what would it be?
I think that today’s music industry in many ways has the lowest barriers to entry it has ever had in terms of music creation. Music production is so much faster, cheaper, and more accessible than it’s ever been. But what that does is give thousands upon thousands more people the ability to create and promote music. Which is wonderful! But to balance that out, it seems like the barriers to actually becoming profitable and sustaining in making music are even higher. What has become more affordable and accessible in creation is matched by what is more expensive and exclusive in distribution and promotion. So what we are left with is a sea of small artists without any real path to growth and sustainability unless they win the TikTok lottery. I don’t know what I would change to give people more opportunities, but I do know that there are many individuals and entire companies that make their living preying on the lack of knowledge and experience of smaller, newer artists and making them promises they never intend to deliver on. I think that music communities that foster genuine relationships and mentorships can help smaller artists avoid these pitfalls and learn what is worth their time and money as they work on their project.
What biggest life lessons have you learned so far?
Be kind to yourself. Give yourself love and patience and attention the way you would to anyone important in your life.
In your opinion, what would make the world a better place?
If everyone in the world had access to therapy.
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