23 year old singer-songwriter Avery Lynch specializes in translating specific emotions into songs, and her latest EP The Kids Table does just that. Capturing the feeling of being in your early 20’s, where you’re torn between being a child and an adult, Avery opens up about her own experiences during this transitional era of life.
Ahead of the release, I was able to speak with her about everything surrounding the EP, along with some shared musings about our experiences in our early 20’s.
Brigid: Just to start off, can you tell me a bit about your musical background and how you got started in the industry?
Avery: Sure! So I’m 23, and I’ve been doing music since I was a little kid. As I was getting older, and looking at colleges, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do because music was the only thing that was ever interesting to me. I was song writing and everything, and then I went to Berklee… hated it. Met a lot of good people, but I hated it there. I guess I liked it, but it stripped me of my creativity. I didn’t write a single thing while I was there. I transferred out basically immediately, and that’s when I started writing again. Then I went through a period where I was writing so much, and posting it on TikTok, and people saw it. The rest is history. That’s just what I’ve been doing, for about two years now.
Brigid: I’m glad you brought up Berklee, I was going to ask about that. I just graduated from music school and it was brutal, so I’m right there with you.
Avery: I loved a lot of the Berklee kids I went to school with, but there were some that made me want to quit my job.
Brigid: It’s so competitive.
Avery: It’s so competitive! And it makes you feel so tiny.
Brigid: I’m glad you were able to rekindle your passion for music after you left, because I think a lot of people really struggle with that.
Avery: Me too, I really accepted that music was just going to be my hobby. I transferred out to do business, because I thought I just couldn’t handle the pressure. It was just music school doing its thing. It’s now all I do, and I’m still doing it, so I think it was literally just Berklee.
Brigid: So let’s talk a bit about “Sleepover”, because that was recently released! Can you tell me a bit about the track?
Avery: It’s about me living in Boston. I met my boyfriend in Boston, during my last semester at Berklee. In the beginning of the relationship, we would meet on the train, and we’d go to his apartment, then go get candy and change into comfy clothes. Then we would go back to his apartment and just hang out, that’s what we did basically every day. COVID hit, and when we came back we lived in a house full of our friends. During that, our little tradition became everyone’s. There was a Walgreens right across the street, and we would go get candy almost every night, and all watch a movie in the living room. The whole feeling of that time, the two year span, I wanted to somehow capture, so I could keep it. That song perfectly captures that feeling, how fun it was. The lyric video is just a video of those friends, the ones that I lived with. It’s a little memory I wanted to keep.
Brigid: It’s like a time capsule.
Avery: Exactly!
Brigid: It’s a bit more upbeat than the previous two singles you put out, is that sonic variety something we can expect on the EP?
Avery: Yeah, I have one very stripped back ballad with ROSIE, we wrote it together. It’s supposed to be a mental health lullaby. Like, a lullaby for anxiety attacks. It’s just the piano and us. Then there’s a ballad that’s more produced. I also have a pretty upbeat song, then one that’s in the middle. It’s kind of all over the place.
Brigid: It’s got everything! Can you tell me about the creative process that went into this EP?
Avery: Yeah, I just get into a space… I write for each project, so I get into that zone for each project. I started with “i’m sorry if i hurt u sometimes”, the first song I wrote for the project. “Love of my Life” I had already written, I didn’t see it being on this project but it just kind of ended up on it. It had a mid tempo energy that I had never really tapped into before, I usually just did ballads or upbeat. Writing that then inspired me to write “Obvious”, which is a similar kind of thing. Then I wrote “Kids Table”, which is the title track and everything. “Sleepover” I actually wrote a long time ago, last fall. I just wrote things, and if I liked it, it went on the EP. I wanted every song to be about me, because a lot of songs in my past aren’t. I’ll just start writing something and go with it, and it probably has nothing to do with me, or I’ve never experienced it. But with this project, every song is about my life. And this time in my life, being the awkward age that you and I are in where you’re still a kid, but also an adult. You’re doing half adult things, but half things you’ve been doing your whole life, and you don’t know when to stop. When you go home for holidays you sit at the kids table still. It’s centered around the emotions you experience during that time.
Brigid: Totally. This is your latest project since your last EP in October, how would you say this project differs from the last? Besides the subject matter, like you said.
Avery: Sonically it’s very different because that EP was very ballad-y. This one is me exploring different sounds and diverse production, trying new things. I don’t think I know what my sound is, I’ll always go back to the ballads because that’s my main thing. It’s very different.
Brigid: To wrap up, what are you most excited for with this release?
Avery: I don’t know. It’s weird, I don’t normally like releases that much because there’s so much pressure behind it. My goal for this, that I keep holding onto, is that the meaning of these songs connect with people and help people. A lot of it is centered around mental health, but it’s general, I don’t go into specifics. So I think people experiencing a variety of mental health problems can feel seen. My song “could never be me” is about how in the past year I’ve become a very different person, because I have to be. Because my mind decided to make this crazy shift. I’m not able to do a lot of things I used to be able to do, and that happens to so many people. But, nobody really talks about it. I talk about it so other people know that they’re not alone. When I went through it, I thought it was only me.
Brigid: That’s meaningful art that needs to be made. When things are tumultuous like that, that’s when you really cling to knowing that you aren’t going through it alone.
Avery: Yeah, I’m just trying to do what I can to help. A lot of people that follow me use my music to cope, and that’s what I was doing with my music. I was making it to cope. I already know I have an audience that uses it medicinally, so I know that it could reach people. It also opens up a door to my life, this is the first time I’m talking about it, and putting it out there. It’s nerve wracking, I’m really going for it. I think it’ll be a weight off my shoulders, and potentially a weight off of other people’s shoulders. The people that hear it will hear it, and that’s what matters.
Listen to The Kids Table here!
