Erin Kinsey, a rising country artist, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, signed with RECORDS Nashville, a division of Barry Weiss’s joint venture with Sony Music, in 2021. Since then, she has released two EPs and multiple hit singles, garnering over 110 million streams. Kinsey plays seven instruments, including guitar, banjo, drums, and piano. As a songwriter, she co-wrote ‘Pink,' a charity single recorded by Dolly Parton and others, benefiting Susan G. Komen® for breast cancer awareness but it is on new EP ‘Getting Away With It' that it feels she is really beginning to come into her own as a multi-faceted and talented artist.
‘Getting Away With It' is a spirited and powerful project that serves as a platform for Erin Kinsey to showcase her exceptional vocal range, creative lyricism, and knack for crafting impactful and unforgettable choruses. Infused with a blend of passion, resolve, and an infectious sense of enjoyment, this album stands as a definitive piece that cements Kinsey's position in both the vibrant Nashville scene and the wider landscape of country music. Read our review of it right here. We were thrilled to catch up with her to talk all about it.
It's great to talk to you today, Erin, thank you for your time.
Yeah! I love it, thank you for talking to me!
Congratulations on ‘Getting Away With It' – I am absolutely blown away by how good this EP is.
You are so sweet. Thank you. I'm so excited about it, very pumped. I'm so glad you enjoyed it, it means the world to me to hear you say that.
Let's start with the title. Why ‘Getting Away With It'?
The reason is that that title is how I feel about my music right now! (laughing) I'm airing out all of my drama and saying whatever the first thing is that comes to my mind and I'm making music that I think is cool. Further to that – I'm playing shows I wanna play, wearing what I want to wear and posting what I want to post on social media! It feels like it should be harder and that I should be having to fake it till I make it, right? Somebody should be stopping me but they're not – I'm getting away with it! (laughing)
The actual song I wrote about my sister, who is the coolest person I know. Everywhere I go with her, every boy falls in love with her, every girl wants to be her best friend. I love that for her.
What does the rest of your family think about the song?
(laughing) What's funny is that I sent the song originally to my family without telling them it was about Avery and they were all, like, ‘Is this about Avery?' (laughing) They knew. She was honoured. When we were choosing the songs for this project it went through a million different versions and at one point the song wasn't on the EP and Avery was, like, ‘Where is my song? Why isn't it on the project?' (laughing)
I love the guitar sound on that song. It's got quite a meaty, rock sound. Is that a sound you particularly like yourself?
You know? I do. I love playing it live. That's one of the things I'm so excited about with this project – playing the songs live. Even the saddest, slowest song on there isn't really even that sad or even that slow!
Spot on – it's uptempo banger after uptempo banger.
That's what I like to do, I mean, if we're not having fun then what are we doing? (laughing)
Did you grow up in a musical household and when did you know you wanted to do this for a living?
Ok. I got a guitar for Christmas when I was about 12 or 13. I got it because I wanted to quit piano lessons! My piano teacher, bless her heart, was trying to teach me classical things and to be honest, I wanted to learn Carrie Underwood, I wanted to learn Taylor Swift.
I asked for a guitar for Christmas and the second I started playing along to songs I was hearing on the radio I knew that that was it for me. It was all I wanted to do, especially when I started writing my own songs. My family were super-encouraging although my dad works in finance and my mom was a math teacher, they got me lessons at the local music shop and they did everything they could for me. They just wanted me to love something.
You moved to Nashville at 18 years old. Did you have imposter syndrome when you first got there?
I still have imposter syndrome now! (laughing) I can't quite believe that anybody lets me do this stuff! It's funny because there is a ‘fake it till you make it' vibe in Nashville where you have to go into rooms with other writers and musicians and appear as though you know what you are doing but I've learned that nobody really knows what they are doing and everybody here is just a regular person. I've had people at meet-and-greets say that they could never do what I do and I'm, like, I promise you could!
There's a through line all the way through the EP of female empowerment and strength. Was that intentional or did it just emerge organically?
You know, it kinda just emerged, honestly. I made this project through a big growing up season of my life. I went through a break up a couple of years ago that I wrote a lot about. For a while I was sad, for a while after that I was mad and then after that I realised that people can overcome absolutely everything and achieve whatever it is that they want.
Even the sound on the EP – for a while there I thought I was just a cute little blonde girl who should be making sweet music but I learned that if I threw heavy guitars into a song, or a drum solo, no-one is going to stop me! It's cool to learn how free you truly are and that you are your own person. There are no rules, there's consequences but there are no rules! (laughing)
How much of your own personal experience and story is in songs like ‘Matchmaker' and ‘I Ain't Crazy' or have you added a little creative licence in there?
Unfortunately, every word of those songs is true! (laughing) Every detail. I sing about them getting married in the spring and they DID get married in the spring! I didn't know that at the time, I just guessed. I wrote those two songs and thought that they were so specific to me that no-one else could possibly relate to them until I learned that a lot of people have ex boyfriends and girlfriends that end up together!
It's been funny to have that trauma bond out on the road with the crowd. When I'm singing it I can tell who has lived it and who just is singing along! (laughing) It's created this community of, especially, girls that have come around me and my music and I've been really grateful and blessed because of that.
The ‘Matchmaker' video looked like a lot of fun. Do you enjoy being in front of the cameras?
You know, yes and no. The performance aspect of it comes pretty naturally but whenever I have to do some acting………..I'm so uncomfortable. We always do these shoots in the morning and I just can't do that thing where we're throwing back shots for the filming! Videos are definitely an area of growth for me and I'm lucky to be surrounded by a team of people who are there to support me on things like that.
I think ‘Trouble' might be my favourite song on the EP. Have you got a favourite?
I think you might well be right! (laughing) The four songs that have been released from this project so far, I feel like I have already had my own special little time with each of them. I'm excited for people to hear the new songs, like ‘Trouble.' That was the only song on the EP that I didn't write, it was brought to me by my team who thought I would sound great on it.
I've been a part of the Nashville writing community since I was 15 years old and I feel a responsibility, as an artist, towards the writers of this town, who spend all day, every day writing songs and producing art. What happens to all those songs if there doesn't happen to be artist in the room? I wanted to take a song from the writing community and make it mine and ‘Trouble' is that song for me, I feel so much of every word of that song, I can't believe I didn't write it! (laughing)
What was it like writing with an artist like Sarah Buxton?
Oh my gosh, she's incredible. We wrote two songs for this project together. ‘Best of My 20s' and ‘Wild' and they could not be more different from each other. She is such a wise writer and fun human, I had the best sessions with her. If we weren't writing together I would just go and hang out with her, I love her so much!
‘Best of My 20s' gives me Taylor Swift vibes and then when I saw she was a co-writer on that song it made sense.
Right. She's such a strong writer. Josh Kerr was the other writer on that song, it was him that brought the idea in and we just ran with it. To be able to have Trousdale on that song with their harmonies was so cool too. It created such a sense of ‘everyone gets through their 20s,' right? I am, they did, we all did! (laughing) I'm about to turn 24 next week and to me, I was being told that 21 is your best year. I was dating this guy back then and there was a sense I got when we broke up that I might have wasted the best year of my life! It made me wonder if the whole relationship had just been time wasted but the truth is, you grow so much from those experiences and become a much more well rounded person so to be able to share that idea and the words and the melodies with everyone creates such a sense of community.
What's the plan in terms of getting this music out to as many people as you can this year and next?
Well, we're coming over to Europe in December with Restless Road. I'm posting and creating a lot of content for it and we're hoping to get some more shows on the books over here. You pray to get on playlists and to get on the radio as well but I'm ready to go deliver it by hand to anyone that is willing and ready to listen to it! (laughing) I'm so proud of this music and these songs. I've released a lot of music over the years but I never knew that I could be as proud of my music as I am with this project.
Check out Erin Kinsey's fabulous new EP ‘Getting Away With It' which is out today in all the usual places.
