As a musician you must always be open to inspiration. Whether it be individuals or places, always keep your eyes and ears open and ready for experiences to share. Combining these influences and sounds is what gives an artist their own unique sound. We recently discovered the beautiful music of Abby Sevcik. I was able to sit down with her and get some insight into how she reached this point in her career and what is on the horizon. Enjoy the interview below:
What first drew you to music and singing?
It’s hard to pinpoint the start of my love of music, but I guess I would have to point to when I was really young, singing along and figuring out piano melodies to my favorite songs from the radio.
How would you describe the unique Abby Sevcik sound?
My sound is piano and vocally driven with lyrics woven in that are emotional, heartfelt, but with just the right amount of pop-influences to be relatable.
Which artists have influenced your musical development most?
I love Ingrid Michaelson’s sound; even if our stuff doesn’t sound exactly the same, she’s definitely had an impact on the way I write vocal melodies and lyrics.
And of course piano-playing female vocalists like Adele and Sara Bareilles have always inspired me.
You have spent time in some pretty different music scenes. How has that helped develop your music?
Absolutely! I love so many different genres and I love travelling so I’ve been exposed to and have played lots of types of music. D.C. has it’s own unique awesome sound, as does Nashville, which I spent a bit of time in, and even Iowa City, which was where I went to school and grew up around. I’ve moonlighted as a jazz singer, am currently in an Indie Rock band, and my solo career tends to be categorized as Pop, so I’m kind of all over the place. Starting out, that honestly made it hard to generate a specific sound that wasn’t just influenced by what I was exposed to at the time. But I think as I’ve developed all those influences have kind of gone into the mixture of what my specific sound has become.
There seems to be real emotion in your songs. How do you open up to your listeners?
It’s hard putting yourself out there, to be completely honest. I think in the end, I have to look at it as the song speaking for itself, rather than speaking for me. And knowing the end goal is that someone could relate or be inspired by the song makes it a little less scary to lay out an emotional truth or story- like the song has it’s own purpose and goal it’s gotta accomplish.
Your newest single “Escape Plan” tackles an interesting emotion. Tell us about how the song came together?
For whatever reason, this song really just bubbled up out of me. Usually it takes me a few days to come up with all the ideas needed for an entire song, but the melody, lyrics, piano part all just came together within the span of like an hour or so with “Escape Plan.” When I showed it to Dylan Byrnes, my good friend who’s also the awesome producer behind this track, he worked on it and made it into the song you hear now. I’ve worked with him on almost everything I’ve released so far; he always knows how to fill in the blanks instrumentally for any song I throw at him.
What is next for Abby Sevcik?
We’re actually shooting a music video for “Escape Plan” and hope to have it out by the end of the year. We’ve got two incredibly talented dancers and a beautiful shooting location- I’m so excited for everyone to see it. I’ve also been writing my first full-length album, which I’m hoping will be ready to go by next Spring. We’ve pushed out 2 great songs from it already, “Open Windows Closed Doors” and now “Escape Plan,” and I can’t wait to share the rest of them!
What advice would you give to other singer-songwriters pursuing their passion?
Keep going! Being a musician can be so fulfilling, but is so rooted in emotions so the lows are just as present as the highs. Don’t ever expect to feel like you’ve “made it”. In a lot of ways, you don’t want to have that feeling, because there’s always some place further you could go. If you’re doing it because you love it, there’s no way you can fail.
Keep up with more news and music from Abby Sevcik on her FACEBOOK
