On a sunny afternoon in Boston, Kaylee Federmann and I meet on Zoom. Federmann sits anxiously in her apartment, the exposed brick wall framing her in string lights. We exchange chit-chat before I ask her about her background in music. These conversational elements become transparent as she begins talking about her craft: she is bubbly and wide-eyed—the young artist is eager to speak about what drives her greatest passion. Federmann’s work is poppy but casual, honest, and has uniquely conversational elements.
With a background in youth choir and theatre, Federmann got into music when she was only nine years old, growing up listening to The Beatles and AC/DC. After breaking away from the theatre scene in late high school, she found freedom and comfortability in performing at live gigs—traveling to New Hampshire, Amherst, wherever she could get hired by the hour. It was then that she came into her own and found her sound.
After being recommended to visit Nashville, Federmann felt naïve and discouraged after record labels denied listening to her EP. “I knew nothing about anything,” Federmann remembers with a laugh. “I saw it in a Taylor Swift documentary, walking down Music Row and handing out your stuff. I thought that’s how the game still works.” This experience was the driving force for Federmann to do her research on the music industry, and she used it to shed the naivety she once had.
Federmann feels that music is what she connects to most. “I love the storytelling aspect,” she tells me. “I love listening to and creating stories.” With influences like Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, and Lewis Capaldi, this love of storytelling shines through Federmann’s work. When I ask her what her own process is for creating these stories, she tells me that it all begins by picking up the acoustic guitar. “I’ll start with a bunch of chords,” she says, “and I’ll have the theme or idea that I’m already going for. I’ll start writing from there. Melody always goes with lyrics—I can’t think of lyrics and then put a melody to them.”
On February 26, 2021, Federmann released “Her Song,” a catchy, head-bobbing pop track that unravels a coming-of-age story of a young woman trying to make her way in the world. “I wrote that song during the summer,” Federmann shares. “I never planned on releasing it. It’s something I wrote for fun—I took different stories from different people and pulled them together. I had a few friends who were trying to figure out what they wanted in relationships and [the ideas] overlapped.” Federmann held onto the song for a long time before deciding to upload it on Tik Tok, eventually garnering praise for the track. “I guess people really liked it,” Federmann gushes. “I wrote it very quickly because I had so much content to work with. I feel like it wrote itself, honestly.”
Since Federmann’s freshman 2018 EP, By Your Side, she feels that she’s grown exponentially as an artist. “I feel like my writing has matured a lot. I didn’t live enough or have enough experience. I was writing what I thought sounded good, rather than what I actually wanted to say. Now that I’ve written so many bad songs in the past, I know how to write the good ones.”
What’s next for Federmann? “Get back on stage,” she laughs. “Go on tour. I would love to be able to start opening for some more people. Eventually, I’d like to start filling venues by myself—but first and foremost, I want to make more music that people can connect to.”
Catch Kaylee Federmann’s live stream on VEEPS on April 10th at 7 PM, where she will perform an acoustic set from Boston. You can find a link to tickets at https://kayleefedermann.veeps.com.
Tickets are on sale on April 2.