INTERVIEW: Kameron Marlowe on his debut EP

Kameron Marlowe is a fast-rising singer and songwriter from North Carolina, who found fame on Season 15 of The Voice. Since then, he released his debut single, “Giving You Up” last year, ahead of the release of his self-titled EP this year.

Hello! How are you holding up?

It’s been a wild ride but I’m holding on in there.

I can imagine that this is not how you envisioned the release of this EP. You must be thrilled though to see the reaction to it, even if it is online rather than in person?

Absolutely. It’s been a blessing for sure.

How long has this project been in the works? It’s so well-rounded and there’s so much lyrical and sonic depth in there, so what’s the journey been like to get here? 

So, all of these songs are songs that I wrote before my record deal, these have been in the works for about a year and a half, so to finally get them out is amazing. I’ve been wanting to get them out for a while, so I’m very blessed to have them out now. They’re all songs that just embody the path that it took to get me to Nashville, a lot of heartbreaks, one or two party songs too…

‘Giving You Up’ was the first song of yours that I heard, when you hear the entirety of the project that’s when you can kind of see who you are as an artist. ‘Leaving To Me’ is just a different sound, you’re creating so many layers to your music. Can you talk a bit about that track?

Yeah, so ‘Leaving To Me’ was actually the first song that I wrote with a co-writer in Nashville. I wrote it with a guy named Kyle James, we were trying to write a different title and it just wasn’t clicking. We stepped outside and smoked a cigarette and we were trying to figure out what we were going to write that day. He had this story about a friend of his who was going through a break-up, he didn’t really want this girl to leave but she had already cheated on him. We took that idea of that story and wrote the song, so it just came out of nowhere to be honest with you.

You’ve clearly always had this gift for songwriting, but have you always had that country sensibility in there or have you ever had times when your songwriting leaned into other genres?

I write mostly country but I do enjoy writing pop and rock music. I do broaden past country as well. I would love to have music in all genres, or at least my name attached to them – hopefully one of these days…

A big change in your career came on ‘The Voice,’ what do you feel like you learned from your time on that show? Everyone always talks about those shows and how much you learn in a short space of time, so what were your key takeaways?

What I learned was I guess not what everyone else learns there, I learned that I wanted to do music for the rest of my life, that was kind of the point where it switched for me and playing music was my only option. I had worked in bar jobs before and that was going to do it. (laughs) Once I left The Voice, it was full head down to make this work.

Were you in Nashville before that or was that the point when you decided to make that move? 

I had been to Nashville maybe once or twice and I had met a lot of songwriters when I was out there, those were the people that I relied on when I started going back and forth to Nashville and had a place down here.

Everyone again says that being in Nashville does change your songwriting and artistry, because you’re surrounded by musicians all day and everyday. Do you agree with that, do you think that it did change the trajectory of your sound? 

Absolutely. It definitely taught me a lot more about songwriting, I came in as a rookie, I had no idea what I was doing. I just knew how to put words on paper, but being in Nashville helped me learn how to write songs properly and songs that would impact more. You can write a hook but if you don’t set up the hook well enough, then it doesn’t impact the way that you want it to. Learning how to do that was the main step that I had to take here.

How did you go about picking the songs then for this project? How many songs got left by the wayside?

I think I have about 40 demos of songs that are still waiting, but these were just songs that I felt embodied my path to Nashville and embodied my story, so that’s why I went with the songs I did.

So do you think these songs will be a part of a longer project?

This one is probably going to be the end of this one, then we’re going to put out another EP or a couple of other single releases then maybe a full-length after that. I want to keep them separate, because every piece of music I put out is a story in and of itself.

Have you managed to write a lot this year or have you found it really hard?

So we did the Zoom writing quite a bit, which was a challenge for sure. One of my favourite songs out of the whole year though I wrote over Zoom, with Jessi Alexander and Dan Isbell, we wrote a song called ‘Steady Heart’ and I just recorded that with Dan Huff. Hopefully that’ll come out sooner rather than later, but it has definitely been a challenge to really connect over Zoom, you get those awkward silences and you can’t fill out the room. It’s hard to get in the same headspace over the computer.

I can imagine it’s more ok with people that you’ve met already? 

Absolutely, and I had so many new writes and I was at the point where I was like ‘I don’t know how I’m going to do this.’ So I focussed on writing by myself and just trying to hone in on my own personal skills.

Obviously you are first and foremost a songwriter, so how do you decide when to take those external cuts?

On this project, I have two external cuts – ‘Sober as a Drunk’ and ‘Goin’ There Today’ – and as soon as I heard ‘Sober as a Drunk’ I knew I had to record it, because it’s honestly a part of my story. I think it embodies what other people had felt as well, I felt like it was important to incorporate what people have actually felt. It takes a while to find the right songs when you’re looking for outside cuts and I wouldn’t actually say that I was looking for outside cuts – we just took the meeting and in the meeting they were just playing me some songs and that song came on.

Well, we can’t wait to hear the new music and when all of this is over, hopefully get you over to the UK because I think your music would go down so well over here. Thank you Kameron for taking the time.

Thank you, enjoy the rest of your day.

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