An Interview with Kandace Springs – HuffPost 10.1.14

Mike Ragogna: Kandace, it’s a real pleasure to meet you.

Kandace Springs: You too!

MR: Thank you. It’s going to be virtually impossible to keep a linear interview going with you because there’s so much stuff.

KS: Aw, okay, forget linear!

MR: Alright, let’s start with “West Coast,” which was just released. It comes off of your EP. What went into creating it?

KS: Well, first of all, “West Coast” and “Meet Me In The Sky” were done by incredible producers. They’ve worked for Usher and Alicia Keys. I went to Philadelphia and a little bit of L.A. and worked on those tracks with them and did some writing together. The other two, “Love Got In The Way” and “Forbidden Fruit” were by Evan Rogers and Carl Sturken. They’re the guys that developed Rihanna years ago now.

MR: Kandace, you got to work with Prince for a while, he being one of your musical influences, right?

KS: Yes, absolutely!

MR: What is that story?

KS: Well I like to do covers, I did a Sam Smith cover of “Stay With Me,” it was tweeted, and I guess, before I knew it, I was on Twitter and getting these messages from Prince. I was like, “This isn’t really him, is it?” and before I know it, it actually is him and he’s following me and before I knew it I was on an airplane flying out to play these parts in Minneappolis. I was playing it that weekend, it was sick, man.

MR: And he had you as part of his entourage for a while, didn’t he?

KS: [laughs] Yeah, we’re still friends, dude, we talk fairly often. He’s a really nice guy.

MR: What’s your creative process like? How does your writing come out?

KS: Well we got in the studio and we kind of came up with concepts. One of my things is I’m a huge car fanatic. I love cars, especially muscle cars, Corvettes and stuff like that I actually own a Corvette, so that’s one of the main lines in it. “I can’t forget that my Corvette is in the garage just sitting there.” It took my love of cars and the West Coast and we were just collaborating and laying down chords on the piano and cool drum mixes and we took some samples. Anyway, they killed it.

MR: Is it a little red Corvette, big nod to Prince?

KS: [laughs] I know, right? No, mine’s silver unfortunately.

MR: You were a Nashville resident for a while, you mloved to New York, you’ve been moving around a lot. What moves you?

KS: Well I was born and raised in Nashville and I figured out eventually after I got a deal that I need to be in New York, just because they understand me musically and culturally the best, so I moed here probably a couple of years ago now, I’ve been to LA quite a few times.

MR: Do you feel like that plane is landing eventually? Where ideally do you want to be?

KS: The West Coast. The weather’s beautiful, the car culture, the music, the people out there, I just love it.

MR: What got you into music?

KS: My dad is a professional singer in Nashville, he’s had a huge influence on me and he sings a lot of soul. We started playing piano when a friend of my father’s fell on hard times and she had us keep her old piano at our house. A couple of weeks later my dad got me piano lessons after he saw me playing on it a little bit. Then he started pushing me to sing and artists like Billy Holliday and Nina Simone and Nina Simone and Erykah Badu inspired me.

MR: Did he influence your choice of covers, for instance the Sam Smith song?

KS: Not much on that one, that was more of my current team, but a lot of the way I sing it… I grew up in the church so I sing a lot of gospel riffs and add more gospelly, bluesy chords to it and stuff, absolutely yes. My dad always plays a part somewhere in there as far as the musicality of it.

MR: So how do you get your muse? Do you sit at the piano and say, “Okay, come on out?”

KS: [laughs] Sometimes it’s just a title idea and then somebody will come up with a melody or a hook and somebody else starts playing chords on the guitar. Other times, people have a track that already exists and we write around that. It just depends. It’s honestly different every time.

MR: You just did an EP, so I’m imagining you’re working on an album.

KS: Yes. The EP comes out September 30th and the record should be coming out in March.

MR: Do you get nervous about performing on Letterman, etc., or are you just a big ol’ pro now?

KS: [laughs] It’s not that bad at all, actually. I used to get really nervous but this is my passion so I just feel very comfortable and natural up there.

MR: Kandace, you grew up in Nashville. Your music certainly doesn’t sound country, but what would you say you got creatively from growing up there?

KS: The songwriting there is so good. I definitely picked up on some of that lyrically, but it’s all more about music there as well. People are really into finding perfect chord progressions there, so I think I got that, too. You kind of interpret it into the music I’m doing now. Even though it’s more country there, there’s a lot of soul there, too.

MR: What about your vision? Where are you heading with this? Where do you picture yourself a few years from now?

KS: Ooh! Well I just got a tour with Ne-Yo, I’m hoping to get more of these, touring the world and performing on shows and just getting out there. My main goal is I want to keep the respect of that old soul music, old jazz for the greats out there. I want to establish that in my career and just be known as one of those artists who has sustaining, deep music. I want people to hear my songs at a wedding a hundred years from now.

MR: You want to make a contribution.

KS: Absolutely!

MR: What advice do you have for new artists?

KS: I would say stick to who you are, don’t let people change who you are as far as being an artist and write from your heart. Sing from your heart and just don’t take s**t from anybody else. I got that so much, espeically in the country world, growing up, people saying, “You should do this, do more pop stuff, do more that.” But apparently, sticking to who I was has been the best decision of my life.

MR: Yeah, it gets confusing, doesn’t it? These heavyweights are telling you, “No,” but you push through and it works out. You’ve got to be commended for hanging on to your vision.

KS: People can tell when you’re not being yourself, and I can tell that people are moved more when you are being yourself. That’s what will stick ultimately longer and what people will remember.

MR: Kandace, what do you play right now that comes out the most “Kandace Springs”?

KS: If I had to say one thing or sing one thing?

MR: Why not both?

KS: [laughs] Man. Sing from your heart. Honestly. There’s a lot of that going on in “Forbidden Fruit.”

MR: What’s a song that moves you?

KS: There’s a song by Sade called “Pearls” and it’s gorgeous, oh my God. That’s a song that inspires me. You can probably hear some of my influence from that on the EP. “Forbidden Fruit” is a salute to that song.

MR: It’s interesting, Sade will put out an album, it will be huge, then she’ll disappear for a while and come back again when she’s good and ready.

KS: She’s gone like that!

MR: But you know what that means? She’s at the point where she’s making art. She puts out what she feels when she feels like it. She’s somebody who stuck to her guns, too. There was nothing like Sade when she had hits in the eighties. I remember that personally. But enough about Sade, back to you! Is there anything left that you really want to talk about?

KS: I think we did pretty good. If you have anything anything else, feel free to ask it!

MR: What’s the immediate future? You’ve got Letterman and what else is happening?

KS: I just got done talking with Tavis Smiley, I’m opening for Chance The Rapper and Ne-Yo in six months. My EP’s coming out September 30th. Letterman is on the 3rd…

MR: Basically, the future looks really good, doesn’t it!

KS: Yes! I’m so happy, I feel so blessed and so thankful.