Kylie Rothfield – Everyone Else
ARTIST NAME: Kylie Rothfield
SONG TITLE: Everyone Else
ALBUM TITLE: Ghost
RELEASE DATE: July 2nd, 2021
GENRE: Pop
iTunes
Spotify
Website
When one hears Kylie Rothfield‘s voice, there is no denying the timeless, raw sense of emotion in her delivery. Crafting songs that combine elements of soul, blues, and pop, Kylie’s music is unique, honest, and expressive. Although her vocal ability is undeniable, she is also an accomplished self-taught guitarist, capable of supporting her captivating live show as a solo acoustic performer or with a full band.
“When I was twelve years old, I wrote my first full song with a No 2 pencil and a tattered notebook, performed it clumsily for a small crowd, and experienced a feeling that I’ve never been able to forget,” says Kylie. “Since then, music has confounded me, frustrated me, defined me, and saved me; and I’ll probably spend the rest of my life being completely infatuated with it.”
Her passion for songwriting began in her hometown of Danville, CA, eventually leading her to Boston when she was accepted into the Berklee College of Music. While attending Berklee, she was the recipient of the prestigious Berklee Songwriter’s Night Award, the Performing Singer/Songwriter Award, and the Jack Maher Award/Scholarship.
She was also the featured Berklee Artist of the Month in April of 2012 and was selected to perform at the citywide Springfest festival in downtown Boston.
At a private clinic/master class, singer-songwriter Paula Cole said: “Kylie completely captured me. I’ve never heard a voice like hers, and her songs broke my heart in the best way.”
In the spring of 2012, at the age of nineteen, Kylie made the decision to move to Nashville, TN in pursuit of a career as an artist. As soon as she arrived, Kylie began frequenting local venues to listen and learn from the incredibly talented songwriters the city is known for. She took every gig offered, starting with one-song sets at tiny open mic nights, and eventually performing sold-out shows at premier Nashville music venues.
Kylie quickly started garnering the attention of industry professionals such as Grammy Award-winning songwriters Steven Battey (Madonna, Bruno Mars) and Victoria Shaw (Christina Aguilara, Garth Brooks) and renowned steel guitar player Russ Pahl (Elton John, T Bone Burnett). She was also invited to open for Irish legend Dominic Kirwan and country duo Joey + Rory during their tour of Scotland in May of 2013.
She started out 2014 with a Northeast/Midwest spring tour and performed at festivals throughout the summer, opening for Mary Lambert, Betty Who, and Lisa Loeb.
In July of 2015, Kylie signed a publishing deal with Terrorbird Media and Elephant Lady Records/Kyle Andrews. Together, they had five placements on national television in their first year together (NBC, E!, ABC, MTV).
In September of 2016, Kylie was selected to be on The Voice (NBC). Alicia Keys, who coached her throughout the season, and carried her through to the Top 20 Live Shows in November, chose her. Her performance of “Hound Dog” in the knockout rounds garnered attention by many media outlets and was called the “dark-horse breakout performance of the season”.
She also recently gained a sponsorship/endorsement deal with Epiphone and is currently playing shows around the country, producing music, and writing for her next project. She has over one million combined streams on Spotify & Apple Music from recent independent releases and was recently featured on NBC’s Songland S2 (06/08/2020), working with Ester Dean, Ryan Tedder, and Shane McAnally to pitch a song she wrote to Tony and Grammy-winning artist Ben Platt.
Everyone Else
Credits:
Producer- Kylie Rothfield
Producer- Bret Paddock
Co-Producer- Cooper Leith
Mastering Engineer- Cooper Leith
Songwriting/Publishing:
37.5% Kylie Rothfield
37.5% Bret Paddock
25% Cooper Leith
LYRICS:
All my friends keep on moving forward
Building houses I can’t afford to
Spending weekends like they’re supposed to
Summer weddings I showed up drunk to
But now I’m older and the party’s over
I don’t remember 23
Dancing solo in every photo
Wishing my friends were more like me
But now I can’t stop thinking bout everyone else
Finding someone while I’m losing myself
And it’s harder
When I don’t know what I did wrong
To make me different than everyone, everyone else
Everyone else
High school glory was made of plastic
Gave us feelings that never lasted
All the fast ones,
They grew up slowly
While the smarter ones grew up lonely
But now we’re older and the party’s over
I don’t remember 17
Dancing sober in the corner
Wishing my friends were more like me
But now I can’t stop thinking bout everyone else
Finding someone while I’m losing myself
And it’s harder
When I don’t know what I did wrong
To make me different than everyone, everyone else
Everyone else
Driving through my old hometown
Where concrete dreams have broken down
Hoping things that don’t work out
Weren’t meant for me right now
But now I can’t stop thinking bout everyone else
Finding someone while I’m losing myself
And it’s harder
When I don’t know what I did wrong
To make me different than everyone, everyone else
Everyone else
To make me different
Feedback: I’m always deeply grateful when people tell me that they connect with my music… when it makes them feel understood or less alone.
Production: I produced this with my friend Bret Paddock and we sent it to our other friend Cooper Leith for a couple of added production elements and a solid mix and master. Basically, we started with a piano vocal and then slowly added in production elements to build it up – high octave reverb electric guitars, some drum patterns we created using splice samples, a few synths here and there, and some pitched vocal elements using Soundtoys Little Alterboy. I had this vision of an arpeggiated synth bass to give it a lift and some fun 80’s vibes and that ended up working great. It was really fun experimenting with fuller production at first and then taking elements away to feel like it built up more starting from the intro to the drop in the first post-chorus.
Mood: I tend to create the best songs when I’m connected to my feelings and being completely honest and vulnerable with myself. I don’t like forcing it. I write best when I’m inspired.
Collaboration: I’ve been fortunate enough to work with and be coached by artists/writers like Alicia Keys, Ester Dean, and Shane McAnally. I also wrote five singles for Alisan Porter (NBC’s The Voice winner) on her latest album and played guitar in her band, which was a really awesome experience. My favorite musicians and writers I’ve worked with though have been my close friends – I’m lucky to have a really great community in LA and we all support each other as much as we can!
Performance and Recording: The first time I performed with a band on stage was when I was eleven years old at a summer camp called SDC (now called uCamps). I will never ever forget the pure joy and adrenaline I experienced and I credit.
Songwriting: I tend to start with singing a melody with random words or sounds and then fill in words that fit whatever mood the melody makes me feel. Or sometimes on a particularly emotional day, I’ll write out little poems or lyrics and then eventually add melody. I just want it to be genuine and I want the melody and rhyme structures to flow well and be compelling.
Multi-Genre: As someone who has been influenced by so many different genres, I think it’s really important to experiment, explore different sounds, and constantly challenge yourself to make something different so you are always growing as an artist. There is no one way to make a good pop song; there’s no one good way for hip-hop or country to sound. There are so many different perspectives and that’s what makes music so great.
Inspiration: I just love it too much to do anything else. The human connection you feel when being vulnerable on stage and performing something that means something to you in a crowd full of people who feel the same way or have experienced the same things…nothing else compares.
Vocals: Currently, I’m lucky enough to have a Neumann U87 that I run through an Apollo Twin. I like doing a few full runs through and then going section by section until I start to get the vocals I think are strong enough to comp. My basic vocal chain is a CLA-76 compressor with some parallel compression, Valhalla Vintage verb, a de-esser, some low cuts, and high boosted eq, a Waves vocal rider, sometimes a bit of Vitamin Meter or Renaissance Vox.
Software: I’m slowly building up my repertoire of software. Valhalla, Soundtoys, lots of the Waves and UAD plug-ins. I’ve been starting to mess with Splice samples, especially for drum sounds, quite a bit lately.
Song: “Everyone Else” was basically written about the feeling of never really fitting in. I remember being seventeen years old, wanting to stay in my room and write songs instead of partying like my friends and wondering why we wanted such different things. I’m twenty-eight now and it seems like everyone else around me is getting married, working a stable job, buying a home, etc. Basically doing what they’re “supposed to” be doing at our age…and sometimes I wonder if I’m strange for not having achieved those milestones yet or if it’s just not quite my time. A lot of musicians/artists I know especially feel like we sacrifice things like solid relationships and stable income in the pursuit of our dreams, but I think I’ve realized in writing this song and having open conversations about it that everyone moves at a different pace and that’s completely okay.
Album’s Title: “Ghost” is the name of the EP and the latest single is called “Everyone Else.”