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“I just wonder what the next album or next few albums are going to come out like. With this first album, it took me three and a half years, to just sit on it, lots of late night strumming and writing in my journals. I labored so much over that last record, over what felt like such an extended period of time while I was doing school and it was just very much something I did on the side late at night, it was just my thing that I did to stay creating. But now, I very much feel like… I don’t know I guess I feel a little bit of pressure or expectation with whatever I’m going to write next and what it’s going to sound like and if it’s going to hit as hard. Obviously I will never put anything out there that I don’t feel is 100% me and honest. I’m never going to lose that emotion or whatever it is, that drove me to write that first record but I won’t have as much time.”

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“I wrote the songs for [Torres] over the past four years, and I obviously can’t take four years to write another record.”

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Interviewer: Do you have that feeling, like the saying: You have your whole life to write your first record and six months to write your next?

Mackenzie Scott: It totally applies. And I don’t think that was to my detriment at all. I actually think that forced me to more quickly decide what matters and what doesn’t matter as much. My process didn’t really change. It allowed me to be very, very conscious right from the get go of what I’m writing about, and it allowed me much more quickly, say halfway through a song, to just be able to throw it out and say, “This is shit and it’s not even worth it.” I’m having to make decisions a lot more quickly.

Mackenzie Scott: It’s a little of both. I think that probably the best way to answer that would be to say I’m sort of taking these experiences that I’ve had and tying them into more universal concepts. I’m just making them a bit more relatable on a wider scale, if that makes sense.

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Interviewer: Do your songs always come from your own experiences?

Mackenzie Scott: A lot of them, I guess most of them, I would say are experiences that I’ve had, or emotions that I’ve experienced that I feel like aren’t just my own. When I’m writing, I really try to push that experience through a filter that I think is going to be relatable on a human level. I’m very wary of saying they’re all my experiences—I mean they are but I would say more than anything they’re experiences that I know most humans have, that most humans can relate to. So that was sort of my aim with this record, just making a record from start to finish that I thought people could listen and hear themselves in. Connecting, that’s what all of this is about. Connecting with other humans. I don’t know if that answers your question.

Sunday morning jammy jamz #viaprettymuchamazing

Interviewer: Can you give me an example of that?

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Interviewer: Who and what are you influenced by, both musical and non-musical?

Mackenzie Scott: I have a lot of musical influences. Brandi Carlile, Ryan Adams, Fleetwood Mac. It’s a pretty wide array. Non-musically? Sylvia Plath, who’s my favorite author. I was really inspired by musical theater and Broadway which has definitely inspired at least my performing style. I tend to perform pretty dramatically and I think that stems directly from my experience with musical theater.

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“From the time I started writing songs, I yearned to be a daring, dynamic musician. My roots are in musical theatre, for crying out loud!”

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Interviewer: Who are your biggest influences?

Mackenzie Scott: I’ve said it a lot but I’ll say it again: Brandi Carlile first and foremost. And then, this isn’t really a who. . . maybe more of a what. I was involved in theater, especially a lot of musical theater in high school. I pretty much only listened to show tunes and was in those shows in high school, did local theater in my hometown and took acting classes. A lot of my musical influence came from things like Phantom of the Opera, Les Mis., and Wicked. . . Broadway shows in general.

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“Singing was never on her radar, but when fourteen-year-old Mackenzie saw the Phantom of the Opera film in 2004, she had a lightbulb moment. She told herself that she needed to sing, imagining herself in a sequined gown glittering like a chandelier under the Broadway spotlight. She began prancing around the house singing ‘Angel of Music’ and ‘Music of the Night’ in a feigned falsetto while listening to the tracks on her Walkman she carried with care.”

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Interviewer: Who or what inspired you to become a musician?

Mackenzie Scott: It was a combination of a lot of influences along the way, but I would say seeing the Phantom of the Opera when I was fourteen. I was obsessed with the movie. It is still my favorite musical. It was my introduction into the world of singing.

Chiddy Bang - Mind Your Manners ft. Icona Pop

Summers a' comin' so the windows will be down and chiddy will be turned up!