Artist of the Week: Kurt Freeman

Sophomore Kurt Freeman has used music as his creative outlet through writing, producing and performing songs. Learn more about his music in the Q&A below.

Q: How are you involved in the music industry?

A: “I write, produce and perform all of my own music and I also distribute it to all streaming services.”

Q: How did you get involved in music?

A: “I got into music largely because of my friend Bradley Walton. He kind of introduced me to a lot of the music that I listen to regularly. I’m also in orchestra, and I’ve been doing that since 5th grade, playing the viola.”

Q: How did you get involved in writing and producing music?

A: “When we got the iPads in 5th grade they had GarageBand on there and I would play around, triggering loops and stuff like that, just messing around with it and learning how to use it. Same thing when we had Macbooks in middle school I kind of moved up to that GarageBand and just have been using it since to throw together projects and everything. It just kind of turned into a regular thing I like to do for fun.”

Q: What do you like about music?
A: “I love how you can express your feelings without having to get up in front of a bunch of people and make a speech. You can just put it through music with background tracks and make it something that somebody wants to listen to while they work or are just hanging out. I always try to think about that when I’m writing music — ’Could you listen to this while you’re doing something? Is it going to be something that they could focus on, but won’t distract them from doing something important?’”

Q: Where do you get inspiration from?

A: “I pull my inspiration from a variety of different artists, mostly artists that are in the alternative genre and alternative rock, also a variety of hip-hop bands. I feel like if I had to pick a specific artist that has influenced me the most I would have to go with a band called Twenty One Pilots. They’re a duo band and it helps me through a lot of rough patches and stuff like that. I respect their production style. It’s a great band that has been around for me for years.”

Q: Where do you typically work on your music?

A: “I do pretty much everything in an office area in my house. I have pretty much written, recorded, produced, everything all in that one room on some equipment that I’ve acquired over the years. And then I just throw it all together on my Macbook on GarageBand.”

Q: What kind of style is your music?

A: “I’ve been really trying to keep in mind trying to branch out and get out of my comfort zone and do different genres. One of my most popular songs that I wrote has over 2,000 streams on Spotify or something like that and it’s called “Full Course Meal.” It’s the only hip-hop song I’ve ever done in that style. The rest I feel like [is] technically alt-pop, so alternative pop music would be that labeling.”