NKD Mag - Issue #57 (March 2016)

MAR. musicians:

actors:

04 OLIVIA LANE

06 MEAGHAN RATH

on finding her voice through song

surviving life, and hollywood

18 OH WONDER

12 CHELSEA KANE

from england to the badlands

not just the love interest

22 MOTHXR

28 MOLLY BERNARD

taking brooklyn around the globe

younger’s freshest face

30 KELSEA BALLERINI

40 HUW COLLINS

country music’s notso-secret weapon

pretty little liars’ latest suspect

42 THE WILD FEATHERS

web stars:

good ol’ fashioned rock ‘n’ roll

10 AIDAN ALEXANDER

46 TARA THOMPSON

on the internet and the real world

big machine’s newest voice

publisher: CATHERINE POWELL

editors: ARIELLA MASTROIANNI CATHERINE POWELL NICOLA PRING

writers: MARY BARNES MERISSA BLITZ SHELBY CHARGIN IAN HAYS STACY MAGALLON NAUREEN NASHID CATHERINE POWELL SAM ROSENTHAL VANESSA SALLES RILEY STENEHJEM

photography: CATHERINE POWELL

design: CATHERINE POWELL

OLIVIA LANE Words by NAUREEN NISHAD Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

“I think I’ve always had every intention of being an artist,” Olivia Lane had said with complete determination in her voice.

And that would be one way to describe her: determined. As well as confident in what she wanted. Born in Houston, Tex., she was using her lungs from the minute she came out. “I was ready for the world. I cried all the time, apparently. I felt like it was my artistic temperament coming out,” she laughs.

Around sixth and seventh grade, her mom put her into theater and vocal lessons, which she believes is what evened her out and gave her a place to put her energy into. With tons of community theater experience under her belt, she decided to take guitar lessons in eighth grade, increasing her love for performing and music.

“When I was 16 years old, I begged my parents for, like, six months and asked them to move to Los Angeles,” she says. Being in Houston started to feel like a hindrance because she felt like more people who were interested in the arts like her didn’t surround her. “I had hopes of going to a University in Southern California, so L.A. seemed like the right place for me at the time,” she says. Finally, after much convincing, her parents decided to listen to her. Olivia’s mom moved out with her to Los Angeles, while her dad went back and forth between L.A. and Houston. While attending high school there for two years, Olivia experienced a lot of rejections on the acting front and that in turn prepared her for the harsh side of the entertainment world.

Despite that, she’d managed to book a few acting gigs, as well as commercials.

It was during her time at USC that everything started to become clear for her career wise. “I took a songwriting class at USC when I finally got to college and everything clicked for me. It was like, oh this makes sense -- I need to be a songwriter,” she says. What helped push her was a cross country trip to 4

Bonnaroo after graduation with a couple of her friends where she saw Paul McCartney performing and loved everything about it -- the energy, the crowd, the vibes. The day she got back home, she started songwriting.

Prior to that, she had interned in Nashville during summers between semesters. After networking and finding a group of people she worked well with, she decided to move there.

“Obviously I had to go to Nashville because that’s where all the songwriters go,” she says.

Since then, it had been a journey as a songwriter to find her voice as an artist.

“It’s that delicate balance of ‘I want to be a songwriter’ and ‘I want to write songs about other people and other stories’, but I also have to keep my artist mentality and who I am as an artist in mind,” she says. Furthermore, it depended on whom you write with, too, and what they had in mind. Olivia has written with many people and it all depended on whom she properly clicked with. She never wants to sign on a song that she does not relate with because if there is no connection, then there is no point. “It’s an instant emotional reaction,” she said, regarding her decision process of when she hears songs written by other songwriters. Recently, she recorded two outside songs, titled, “Home in the Headlights” and “My Heartache, Not Yours” - both of which rendered her speechless or to tears.

On the other hand, she is also not afraid to stand up for her own songs. She has written

about 20 songs and is honing it down to 7-10 to release. And while she trusts her team, if she believed in a song with all her heart, she will cut it no matter what anyone said. For example, the song “Single” that she recently cut. While Olivia isn’t sure if it will be a hit, she strongly believes it will be a great live performance song. Plus, it completely captures who she is at the moment. “It validates me as a songwriter if it all works out in the end,” she says. What makes it better for her is when people come to her and say they related to her lyrics because to her that is a little piece of her heart that they are relating to.

Now, almost three years later, Olivia has an awesome team around her that supports her completely. Identifying herself as an artist first and a songwriter second, she is trying to find a balance between the two and build a business and a brand. She also revealed that this past year she went through an artistic journey and got to know what the life of a musician is.

“The last year has really been a development as to what my voice is as an artist, who I am as an artist, who I am on stage and my songs.”

She was named a breakthrough artist by both Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone and also did small radio tours to get her music out there. Spotify, which is a great place for new artists to branch out, helped Olivia as well.

Olivia made mixes and put them on Spotify along with a few demos and it helped boost her singles a lot.

In this upcoming year, Olivia plans on releasing more music, touring and hopefully getting more radio play. For the past three years during CMA Fest, Olivia has hosted an event called Diva Jam, which is a female driven event where girls that Olivia has met over the years come and perform. They’ve had singers such as Brooke Eden, Jamie O’Neal, and Meghan Linsey to name a few. It’s a great opportunity for female artists to rely on each other, make friends, network and simply support each other. “I think it’s a really cool time to be a female right now. It’s a hard time, but it’s a cool time because the pendulum is starting to swing back,” she says.

Along with more coverage and new music, Olivia would also like to do as many events as possible and make sure everyone knows that she’s sticking around. From events like the 1989 Tribute Show she participated in, as well as her own concerts, Olivia is also joining Country Cruising and the Melissa Etheridge cruise. As far as goals go, she’d love to have a song of hers on the chart that really identifies her as an artist, and continue to do what she has been doing. She envisions a career like Dolly Parton or Reba McEntire. where she can act, sing, build a brand and be here for the long run. With her new singl, “Make My Own Sunshine,” Olivia is kicking off the New Year with positivity. “I feel like this year is going to be a super strong year,” she says. NKD

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MEAGHAN RATH

Words by SHELBY CHARGIN Photos by CATHERINE POWELL Hair by DANIEL HOWELL Hair by KIMBERLY BRAGALONE

Meaghan Rath, a darling, slightly intimidating and brilliantly witty young woman began her acting career at a young age. “It was something I always wanted to do,” she says. “So my parents put me in acting classes when I was really young. I’m from Canada and my parents were really academic, so they didn’t really know what to do with me,” she adds, laughing.

It’s hard to imagine someone as personable as Meaghan not being on a path to exactly where she wanted to go. At 12, she got her first movie role from one of her acting classes, but decided to stop and finish high school before continuing on that path.

“After I graduated I did a lot of television…

The first TV series that I did I found out I got the part on the night of my prom. So it was like really right after high school,” she says. “It was ] a different path than most of my friends were taking because they were also academic, so I was just immediately separated from it and thrown into the real world.”

The real world quickly changed into the crazy supernatural world that was Syfy’s Being Human. Meaghan played the fan favorite Sally on the show, which ran for four years. It was a role that immediately attracted Meaghan. “I think it was just her vulnerability,” she says of Sally. “She was just somebody that was traumatized by what happened to her, that was like her death, she was murdered by her husband. But I love the way that she grew. I did the show for four years and I felt like I grew up also with her. She started so weak, and she ended as somebody who was so powerful, arguably the most powerful out of all of them.” The journey was not an easy one. There were times Meaghan had a hard time getting into character or rationalizing Sally’s actions, before reminding herself that this character goes beyond what the normal human experience is. “It was just like such an amazing 6

journey to go on with a character,” she says.

Part of Sally’s journey is the connection fans of Being Human have with Meaghan herself. “My favorite thing is when people recognize me from that show,” she says. “I love the way that they act with me. They’re protective almost.”. It’s the “nicest feeling in the world” to Meaghan. “It makes me feel like, ‘Oh well, people really connected with that character,’ and it makes me feel amazing,” she says.

After Being Human ended, Meaghan continued to work on drama television shows for the better part of the next year.

Although she seems to have a knack for drama, Meaghan’s heart has always lied in comedy. “I felt like a lot of the times I would be funny in a drama, especially Sally, she’s pretty funny and ridiculous,” Meaghan says.

She booked a recurring role on New Girl, which was her first step into the comedy world, and then started working on FOX’s Cooper Barrett’s Guide To Surviving Life, which aired early this year. “The show came along and it just felt like a really great fit. It’s really nice that coming off a really heavy drama at the end of the day I can kinda like shake it off and not like cry myself to sleep,” she says, laughing.

On Cooper, Meaghan plays Kelly, who is Cooper’s main love interest in the show.

“I relate to her because she presents herself as the tough girl,” Meaghan says. “She’s kind of unaffected by things and has her career together, life together, but really you know she’s just as lost as the rest of them in a sense.”

Playing Kelly allows Meaghan to really see her own life and channel some of the things she’s actually gone through. It’s Kelly’s vulnerability that makes her so special to Meaghan. “When it comes to relationships she’s really guarded, like obviously there’s something between her and Cooper but she values their friendship and doesn’t want to lose that,” Meaghan says. “She doesn’t really know how to be in a serious relationship, you know? I like the fact that she’s tough but soft on the inside. She won’t give you much but you really have to get to know her.”

Meaghan’s relationship with her character is a close one, and it’s easy to understand why she’s able to channel Kelly so well. “I really like the direction they’re going with her,” she says. “She’s, in a sense, one of the guys, but she also grounds the story lines in some way…she’s sort of grounded by her vulnerability.” NKD 8

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AIDAN ALEXANDER Words by SAM ROSENTHAL Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

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Making the big move from a small town in Boise, Idaho to the intimidating city of Los Angeles, California sounds challenging enough - but making a name for yourself in a city of millions sounds even more strenuous.

Aidan Alexander has already made a name for himself as a social media star, actor and musician, all at the young age of 16. Although he had prior training at a performing arts school with an amazing drama teacher who inspired him move to the big city, he wasn’t sure what to expect after he took the leap of faith. “I was really nervous and I didn’t really know what to expect, I’ve heard horror stories but I decided to try it for myself,” he says. After being apart of the L.A. scene for quite some time now, Aidan still has feelings of doubt. “The industry in a whole is still so confusing to me and there’s so many aspects of it that mind boggle me all the time. I think I’m slowly getting a grip on it,” he says.

If you are a social media fanatic, or binge watch YouTube videos, you have probably come across Aidan’s channel. Having been a traditionally trained actor, Aidan wasn’t too fond of the whole idea of being “social media famous.” “Initially, I was frustrated be-

cause I had been around traditional actors so long before that, and I see how hard they work, for these parts and how much they train and how much they really sacrifice to do these things and get these auditions,” he says. After spending time with social media stars and putting himself in their shoes, his viewpoint shifted. He now believes, “the people who are big on social media, they still had to work to get where they are, they just worked in a different market. I realize that there’s a place on both sides of the fence. It’s a balance,” he says.

After working in both the professional acting and social media industries, Aidan started to see an overlap in the importance of social media. “It’s funny, I got a breakdown awhile ago and it was like, ‘social media following necessary’ or required for something for an audition and it wasn’t even a digital movie, it was like a very mainstream traditional film. And I was like, ‘that’s so weird’, and it took me a little bit to realize social media helps with them marketing the movie, publicity, it was very weird to me,” he explains.

Social media is very easy to get involved in, but very difficult to stand out and be different in. This may come as a hardship

for many people but it was a simple task for Aidan to overcome - even though he didn’t have the mindset of becoming a social media star. “I kind of tripped and fell into it to be honest, I didn’t even really think about it. I wasn’t like ‘oh, I want to be a YouTuber, oh I want Instagram followers,’ it just kind of happened. I guess I posted content that people found relatable,” he says.

Although social media is a big part of his life, acting and music is where he finds himself making a name for himself and continuing to make into a career. Just landing his first lead role in a film recently, he is preparing for it and getting ready for his big break. When he first got the script, he was surprised at the amount of dialogue he had. “I was nervous because you never want to let anyone down but my excitement completely outweighs my nerves for sure.

I found out who got cast along side me, so it’s super exciting to see that an see how everything comes to light and how it’s built up,” he says.

Continuing on about his passion for for music, Aidan explains that his music is in “full-blown effect”. “I’m going for it. It’s always been something I’ve wanted to do.

I’ve been so passionate about it for so long, that now it’s finally coming to light and I’ve really been able to write about things that matter to me,” he says “I really wanted to write about teenage life without exploiting it and write about it without be cliché.” Being a perfectionist, he is making sure that the music is absolutely perfect before finding the right label to release it with. “I can’t be super choosy [when choosing a label] because a label is a label. Of course I really want my music to still be my music, I want my choices to still be my choices,” he says.

When creating music, his biggest inspiration is the upcoming band Wet, who just released their debut album. “I’ve been posting about them mad. I want them to blow up so bad, they’re so incredible,” he gushes.

As far as his own sound, he knows exactly what he wants. “I want it to be edgy and real but not melodramatic and not deeper than it needs to be. It’s supposed to be something you enjoy and I want to capitalize on that,” he says.

Aidan has a jam-packed year ahead of him filled with auditions, meetings with producers and more content for his YouTube channel as well. “It’s been a super busy start of the year and I’m sure it’s going to be a really busy rest of the year,” he says. NKD

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CHELSEA KANE

Words by VANESSA SALLES Photos by CATHERINE POWELLL

If you’ve been keeping up with Baby Daddy for the last four years, you’ve probably had this very question run through your mind: “WHO WILL RILEY END UP WITH?” You are not alone. In fact, even Chelsea’s admitted to wondering the same thing… until the Freeform series answered all questions with the Season 4 finale: Riley and Danny are meant to be. “For me, the biggest thing that happened last season had to be when Riley, after all these years, came to the realization that Danny is the one for her,” Chelsea says. “How did she miss it all this time? She dropped the ‘L bomb’ and then it ended with a major cliffhanger: Danny proposing to her in the middle of Bonnie and Brad’s wedding. I think that definitely had to be the biggest moment.”

With the show making its return early last month, Season 5 picked up right where it left off. “Now that Riley and Ben are officially done, Danny and Riley can finally pursue their feelings for each other and try to figure it all out,” she shares. “The fans have been sticking with us for several years and so I think they’re excited that something is finally paying off.” The new on-screen relationship offers a new dynamic on the show and gives fans the chance to see a different side to their favorite characters. “I think that, because NKDMAG.COM

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Danny and Riley have been friends for so long, the fans are really going to get to see them full-steam ahead in their relationship,” she says. “They’re living together and they’re very much a couple. It’s fun because no one’s really seen them like that. The fans have never seen them fight like a couple or be affectionate with each other so there’s a lot of that coming up for them.”

Although the cast has always been super close, changing things up onscreen meant finding a whole new groove with each other off-screen. “It was very different because we had already gotten into this certain rhythm,” she says. “Riley and Danny were always buddies but now we’re more romantic and affectionate; it definitely meant that Derek [Theler] and I had to find this new rhythm in our scenes together.”

The dynamic between Riley and Ben also changes with Season 5. “A lot of the Ben and Riley scenes have been so dramatic where they’re either breaking up or having some heart-wrenching scene,” she says. “Now, Riley and Ben get to go back to being best buds and having the kind of friendship with someone that you have when you were childhood friends. It’s a lot of fun and it’s very reminiscent of their friendship in Season 1.”

Season 5 marks the beginning of new relationships, rekindled friendships, and ultimately, the end of a love triangle. “For me, it was kind of sad to close that chapter,” Chelsea says. “I can totally see why Riley was so torn between the two boys. Even I am! I always thought, week-to-week, that I would know whom I wanted Riley to end up with but then the writers would have the characters do something really sweet and I’d be torn again.” Fans of the show are just as torn. “The fans are actually pretty split down the middle whenever I post something about the love triangle,” she says. “The comments on my Instagram and Twitter are very much divided between whom they think Riley should be with. The love triangle was such a constant and interesting storyline but, at the same time, how long could Riley have dated those brothers without being the most hated girl on TV? I know that, for me, it was getting to the point where I was like 16

‘Alright, we’ve got to pick a side here before the fans think that they should both dump Riley!’ So, I’m excited that there’s finally a clear decision.”

When it comes down to it, Chelsea has some thoughts on both Wheeler brothers: “I think, romantically, Danny has always been the winner,” she says. “He’s always been there for Riley and he’s always been so dependable. However, I do think that Ben has always been Riley’s equal when it comes to wit and sense of humor.

They’re always finding themselves in some crazy predicament and so I think they were a lot alike in that sense. Also, I think there’s something so sexy about a guy stepping up to the plate to take care of his daughter. I think that’s such an amazing quality in Ben. I loved the idea of stepping into a little family with him and Emma.” Now that Ben is back on the market, the show has brought in some new, reoccurring, female characters. “We have Daniella Monet and Jonna Walsh,” Chelsea shares. “It’s been really nice having a little more estrogen on the set.”

Along with new faces comes new storylines, which happen to be a bit edgier than Baby Daddy has become known for. “With the new name change from ABC Family to Freeform, I’ve definitely noticed a lot of edgier material in our scripts,” Chelsea says.

“It’s been the same group of writers for almost all five seasons, which is rare on TV. They’ve gotten to know us because we all hang out and have personal relationships with these people and sometimes, I feel like the lines get a bit blurry. There’ll be times where Riley, or any other character, will say something/have a certain reaction, and I just think, ‘Wow, that’s exactly what I would’ve done, too!’ It’s nice to have that connection.”

Chelsea also has that connection with her on-screen alter ego.

“What I’ve always loved about Riley is that she’s driven, smart, and can stand on her own two feet,” she says.

“I’m kind of a guy’s girl myself and so I think that we’ve very much alike in that sense, while still being very feminine.

I like the way that she dresses too but what I especially love about her is how real she is. For a lot of women on

TV, especially if you’re playing a love interest, there’s a sort of a false sense of perfection or high standards that your character has to live up to. I love that there’s been a slow leak in Riley’s crazy balloon and as the seasons go on, the writers have allowed her to be insecure, jealous, and all the other stuff that girls go through. I think it’s fun to see that crazy side of her because I definitely have that, too.”

In fact, the entire cast is very in-tune with their characters, set homes, etc. “If you came and visited the set, our living room is literally where we spend the most time,” Chelsea says.

“Jean-Luc [Bilodeau] takes naps in Ben’s bedroom in between scenes and we all use everything that’s around us.

In Riley’s apartment, all the drawers are filled with my own lipsticks and makeup that I use before scenes. Everything is very lived in and we’re just a big family there.”

When it’s time to work, Chelsea admits it’s more laughs than anything.

“Luckily, we get to rehearse from Monday to Wednesday and we’re able to get a lot of laughs out of our system,” she says. “If Jean-Luc and Tahj are in a serious scene together, it usually takes them 20 minutes to get through it because they’re always cracking up!

Melissa [Petermen] is obviously a comedic genius and we usually just let the cameras roll and let her do her thing.

That’s always the highlight of my day; she’ll usually always gets me to break character, too!”

Even with all the laughs on set, shooting Season 5 was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster for the cast. “This season was very emotional for us,” Chelsea says. “We had an impromptu hiatus in the middle of it that no one was really planning on. When we came back, our entire crew had returned.

We weren’t really expecting that since crews behind-the-scenes usually switch out but when we saw that everyone still wanted to be there, it was emotional.

The cast ran out for a curtain call at the beginning of the show and it was the first time seeing the whole crew; every single cast member was crying. I think that was my most memorable moment while filming, seeing that we really NKD have something special here.” NKD

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OH WONDER Words by RILEY STENHEJEM Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

Pop duo Oh Wonder started as a side project for London musicians Josephine Vander Gucht and Anthony West. Josephine is a classically trained vocalist, pianist and violinist, while Anthony’s musical training is informal. “I’ve been playing music my early teens, I was in lots of bands when I was in school, coming out of school I went straight into producing bands and getting into the production side of it while touring, and met Josephine,” he says.

Their differences in musical training are what make Oh Wonder unique. “I think that’s the reason we work so well together, because I approach music from a very theoretical, classical point of view,” Josephine says. “[Anthony] is, in the greatest way, ignorant about what’s supposed to happen and what we’re supposed to do. We end up doing these weird and wonderful things that I would never dream of.” Anthony agrees. “We have different strengths and different weaknesses, so we just kind of amplify each other’s strengths which is why it works,” he adds.

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When writing together, the pair start with Josephine playing some chords on the piano. “Once we’ve kind of got four chords we’re happy with, we figure out a narrative and just write the melodies and lyrics, and it’s always quick,” Anthony says. “We generally write in, like, 20 minutes, then leave it, make sure we’re happy with it, and then we start production a few days later. They never roll into each other, it’s always separate.”

Their debut album is a narrative of sorts, based on stories inspired by characters both imagined and real.

“We’re hugely inspired by people, and our vicinity. We write about little characters that we meet in London, or we write about imagined characters and imagined worlds, so we watched a bunch of documentaries on loads of different things,” Josephine says.

“One was really interesting which was on gambling in Las Vegas, so we watched that documentary and then kind of imagined what it would be like to have a gambling addiction and write a song about it.”

The two are also inspired by big cities, like London and New York, and the extremes and polarities found within them. Josephine says, “You’re gonna have Trump Towers and a homeless dude sitting at the bottom of it, and you’re going to have people who come to New York to make it, and do make it and succeed, and then those that don’t. Our songs examine that idea [that], amidst these extremes and polarities in life, what unites us all is that we’re all human, and that we all feel the same things, we all feel loneliness, we all feel happiness and euphoria, we all need other people to enhance those feelings and to comfort us. I guess that’s why our songs are very human and reflective on what it means to be a person.”

This narrative style is something they’ve created and mastered together, one totally different from their personal writing or their work for other projects. “I always approach Oh Wonder with a totally different headspace,” Anthony says.

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slowly – one song each month for a year. “We’ve always been releasing music, and we always work toward EPs or albums, and you only really give the chance to one song, the single of the album, you have to pin all your hopes on one song, and hope that one song makes the album successful,” Anthony says. “We thought, let’s try to release one song a month and try to put the attention on one song every month. For us it was writing 13 singles that we gave each one as much attention as the next, and gave them the chance they deserve.” Josephine adds, “We wanted to challenge ourselves and see if we could write thirteen singles.”

They also self-recorded and self-produced the entire LP, in order to maintain the artistic integrity they strive for. “As a creative artist, sharing your art with someone is a big deal, and it puts you in a very vulnerable position. It’s taken Anthony and I 10 years to find each other, to understand each other, and be able to remove our egos from a room and do what’s best for the music,” Josephine says.

They aren’t opposed to working with a producer in the future, but it’s a matter of meeting another artist they connect with on that deeper creative level. “If we met somebody, a producer, who understood what we wanted to do, then I think that would be a different conversation,” Josephine says. “But as of yet, we’re not interested in going into a room with someone we just met like, ‘Nice to meet you, let’s make a song. That’s not what we make music for. For us it’s very important to keep control and make the art we want to make, that’s not compromised because of someone else.”

The wild popularity of Oh Wonder is something Josephine describes as inadvertent. “I feel like it’s not real, because if you set out to achieve something and then you achieve it, you feel like it defines you, but because there was no expectation or plan, the fact that it’s happening is like, ‘Am I awake?’” Josephine says.

Every show the duo has played

in the US has been sold out, their current tour included. “Touring is a totally different thing to being creative in a studio, but it’s glorious because every evening you get to celebrate your music with a room full of a thousand people who know all the words to all your songs, so it’s one of the most gratifying and affirming and very humbling things you can do as a musician,” Josephine says.

This summer they’ll be opening for Halsey’s arena tour, which includes a stop at New York’s Madison Square Garden, after playing in Sydney. These shows will be different for them, since they’ll be playing for an audience who’s there for another artist. “It’s going to be a challenge. I think there’s going to be something quite difficult [about playing] to a room full of people who don’t know who you are, and they’re not there for you. All the people we’ll be playing for will be Halsey fans, which is awesome, so I think it will be very different to what we’ve done before.

I will really relish it, because I love that, like, ‘Ok, I’ve got to convince all 10,000 of you at once that we’re good,’” Josephine says. Anthony adds, “We have to be more captivating.”

After a couple more months of touring, Josephine and Anthony are planning a move to New York to write their second album. “We sat down and kind of wrote some plans, and the funny thing is that normally your plan is, to like, make music and be able to pay your rent that month with the music you’ve made. Not that we’re rolling in money, but we can afford to feed ourselves by performing, which is amazing. To me that’s success, so trying to come up with new plans is actually really hard,” Josephine says.

She’d love to win a Grammy someday, either as Oh Wonder or through another project, but for the time being, she and Anthony are focusing their efforts on the second album. “That’s the main thing for us right now, just finding the headspace to write,” Anthony says. Josephine adds, “That’s our goal for the minute, just to keep sane and continue being productive and creative.” NKD

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MOTHXR Words by STACY MAGALLON Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

In 2014, four men in Brooklyn decided to start a band.

But that’s not where I am right now.

Below a few inches of fresh snow, I sit in the lower level of the poorly-lit Berlin bar in Alphabet City. In a few hours, indie-band MOTHXR is scheduled to preview songs from their upcoming album, Centerfold. The back green room -- ironically dimmed by fluorescent, hot pink lights -- is freezing. The walls are lined with stone and faded brick. And in front of me, four musicians sit snuggly, passing around an almost empty bag of Skinny Pop. “Someone needs to take this bag away from me,” bassist Jimmy Giannopoulos says, after stuffing a handful of popcorn down his mouth. “I’m going to eat it all.” The band is dressed in an almost purposeful all-black palette, but that might’ve been the only thing they’ve done on purpose in a while.

“It all goes back to Brooklyn,” says frontman Penn Badgley. He, Jimmy, guitarist Simon Oscroft, and keyboardist Darren Will all have that borough in common. They met at different times, but the location was always the same.

Forming a band together was an almost “instantaneous idea” from the first note they played as a group. “We all agreed that this was worth continuing and so we kept it going,” Penn continues. The band set out to make an album, though their sound and their vision was impossible to predict at the time.

“The future wasn’t very clear for us,” Simon says. They didn’t have a name or an identity, but agreed on one thing. They wanted to create an organic sound that could be recreated for a live show. Within five days in a studio, the band managed to record five songs -- among those was 22

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“Easy,” the first song they released on Spotify and SoundCloud. MOTHXR’s indefinite forthcoming was outweighed by their motivation. “I never had the opportunity to pursue music that single-mindedly up until that point and I was fucking terrible at the beginning,” Penn says, laughing.

“Singing these kinds of vocals over this kind of music was a nightmare for the first year.”

Their freshman album Centerfold was released in late February, and MOTHXR is on the cusp of finally holding down a full-time job. The band of four full-time creatives are often diving into other projects and expanding their artistic horizons.

“Technically I’m an actor,” Penn says. “But when was the last time you saw me act?”

We all snicker. Jimmy and Penn most recently filmed and wrote an 8-episode web series, but are always looking to contribute to a work of art. Jimmy, in particular, doubles as a producer/drummer for LOLAWOLF, an electro-pop trio consisting of himself, James Levy, and Zoe Kravitz.

“I’m actually going to draw a chalk mural at this vegan crepe place I go to,” Penn continues. From the moment any of them wake up, there’s always something to do.

It’s all a matter of what becomes priority that day.

With a band of four passionate, art-loving people, what’s the writing process like? Much like that of a hip hop artist’s.

“We tend to just write while we’re in the studio,” Jimmy says. “No one’s showing up with an already written song they worked on at home.” Centerfold was written with a lot of improvised feelings and thoughts in mind. Many times MOTHXR would step back, twist a lyric, and rewrite it to make sense. One undisclosed song took a year to perfect.

On multiple accounts, Jimmy admits to forgetting when his band mates are in the studio with him when they’re in there for too long. “I’m usually focusing on wherever the energy is and where it’s going,” he says, “Everyone knows how and when to jump in.” Working on Centerfold was a very dense and potent vision that took place over time. Since their initial fivesong jumpstart, their process has slowed down. “We dialed it back, tweaked things, and have worked very, very slowly,” Penn says. For MOTHXR, it’s all about subtlety.

They try a million different things, and when that doesn’t work, they revisit it latNKDMAG.COM

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er. Simon compares the process to a jigsaw puzzle. “Everyone has a lot of opinions,” he says. “But we all know when to shine and when to let someone else shine.”

Centerfold felt complete after their recent trip to Chicago to mix the record.

MOTHXR pride themselves on their specific sound -- deep, smoky vocals mixed with tight chord progressions and synths. There are songs that will surprise you, and songs you might have heard before. It could very well be a concept album as all of these emotions stem from the same place. “We want people to realize it’s the same band, same production, same writers, and the same vibe,” Jimmy says.

“It feels fresh to us, but could be a mix between the future and the past,” Penn says. Simon stares at him blankly before saying, “That is the most ambiguous thing you’ve ever said.”

It took MOTHXR a long time before partnering with a label. The band was content with releasing music independently until they found a label that wanted to support their ideas. “A lot of labels offered us money to change shit up,” Jimmy says.

“But we’re all grown men and we’re going to do what we want to do.” Compromising their artistic integrity was a deal breaker.

One particular label stood out.

“I feel like Washington Square and Kitsuné were unequivocal in encouraging our vision instead of manipulating it,” Penn says. “We felt like every other label wanted to step in and put their fingers in our work and they have no idea what the fuck they’re doing.” They are now signed to Washington Square Music, an imprint of Razor & Tie. Their international partner, French company and lifestyle brand Kitsuné will be releasing Centerfold in Europe.

MOTHXR are not offended by the generous yet unattractive offers. It’s just business. “It’s been that way since the ‘30s and ‘40s since the industry began,” Simon says. “And before that, there were dinosaurs,” Penn interjects.

MOTHXR are hitting the road immediately. They have 12 scheduled dates in Europe with The Neighbourhood, followed by a U.S. tour from April into May. Their future is a lot clearer than it used to be, but a very valid question still stands.

Has Penn’s singing gotten any better? He smirks before simply stating, “You can let me know later.” NKD NKDMAG.COM

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MOLLY BERNARD Words & Photos by CATHERINE POWELL It takes three people to get Molly Bernard into her dress for Younger’s second season premiere party. The custom-made garment is sparkly, unique and a stand out – much like Molly herself.

Acting has been in Molly’s blood from day one: her grandfather, Joseph Bernard, was a highly respected actor and acting teacher. Molly grew up having him as a resource, and eventually her acting talents took her to Moscow to study at the Moscow Art Theatre school. While she was not at all fluent in Russian before moving to the country for school, Molly still feels she was able to fully utilize the school and her surrounding. “The thing that’s sort of amazing about Russian actors is that they’re clear. They’re a lot clearer. There’s so much nuance in American acting,” she says. In Russia, emotions are much more important than words in acting, so Molly was still able to communicate with her peers in scenes even though she was still learning Russian. “The language barrier wasn’t really an issue,” she says.

Following her time in Russia, Molly moved back to the U.S. to continue her acting education at the Yale School of Drama in New Haven, CT – which was a different sort of challenge. In Russia, Molly felt like her instructors were excited about the fact that she was not necessarily a traditionally trained actor, and she took the mentality of “letting [her] freak flag fly” to Yale with her. “I had to become comfortable with being a weirdo,” she says with a laugh. That mentality was quickly challenged at Yale and she was continuously given scenes that did not necessarily allow her to embrace the actress she wanted to become.

After graduating from Yale, Molly moved down to New York City and put everything into her acting career. She had gone on quite a few auditions and booked a handful of small roles prior to graduation, and was ready to dive head first into New York’s acting scene. Not long after, 28

she applied for the Leonore Annenberg Performing Arts Fellowship and won – which she says changed her life. She still has a few months left under that grant and continues to utilize it today. As soon as she booked Younger, she hired an acting coach to help her with each episode so she could be at the top of her game in each scene. “I had been working in theatre for 20 years. That’s all I knew,” she says, “My coach really taught me how to translate everything I know about acting [on camera].”

Clearly, Molly’s decision to go the extra mile paid off. What started out as a quick guest star role in the pilot episode of Younger turned into a reoccurring role for the entire first season. When Molly was first presented with the audition, she was “super cool” with the fact that the part was only six lines, but mildly concerned that they were all about “Sutton Foster’s bush”. “I called my agent and was like, ‘I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to talk about Sutton Foster’s bush on national TV’,” she says. Her agent pushed her to go to the audition, suggesting the part may grow throughout the season. So Molly agreed, and went to audition in front of the show’s creator, Darren Star – most famously known for creating Sex and the City. “it was a long audition for a six-line scene,” she notes. Molly could pick up that Darren was interested in her right away,

because he immediately let her know that the way she chose to say a line was different than every other girl he had seen that day.

Molly filmed the pilot, but it did not guarantee her role in the series. So she re-auditioned for the part for the rest of the series – and eventually booked it.

What Molly loves about her character, Lauren Heller, a sassy, super observant publicist, is that she is the “least judgmental person in the world”. “She’s like the greatest person. I wish she was real,” Molly says, gushing. Lauren quickly became a fan favorite throughout the first season and was brought back for Season 2 as a series regular.

Season 2 has given the show’s writers a chance to explore who each character is when Liza (Sutton Foster), Younger’s protagonist, is not around. This is especially true for Lauren, whose love life is explored for the first time this season.

Lauren gets into a relationship with Maggie (Debi Mazar), Liza’s longtime best friend and roommate – who is also 40, but not lying about it, like Liza is. “I think it’s really, really brave and great that Maggie and Lauren are openly in a thing together, and Liza and Josh (Nico Tortorella) are not. They’re still a secret,” she says.

Younger centers around Liza’s secret of her age, and while Josh found out at the end of the first season, Liza’s newfound

26-year-old pals – Lauren and Kelsey (Hilary Duff) – as well as her bosses – Charles (Peter Hermann) and Diana (Miriam Shor) – are still in the dark.

“Little Liza is always walking on thin ice,” Molly says of the situation. While she bites her tongue on giving away spoilers, she suggests that there are a lot of moments throughout the season where Liza cuts it very close and almost spills her secrets. Molly truly thought that Lauren – being the overly observant person she is – would be the first to find the truth.

However, as of this point in Season 2, she has not. With a third season already confirmed by TV Land, it could be another year before Lauren figures it out. Molly is kept in the dark until she gets a script, so she has no idea what will be happening moving forward.

While she does not have a start date for Season 3 yet, Molly is anxious to return to set. She has been finding her experience on Younger incredibly valuable in many ways. “Season 2 was really about me realizing that this is my job,” she says. During the third episode of Season 2, Nico came up to her and said, ‘You deserve to be here. You’re amazing. We love you, the fans love you,” which helped reassure Molly that she was doing something right.

“That was a wake up call for me. I realized I’m really, truly, deeply apart of this cast,” she says. NKD

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KELSEA BALLERINI the first year Words & Photos by CATHERINE POWELL Location THE DREAM DOWNTOWN

“Do you think people will show up?” Kelsea Ballerini asks me a week before her headlining show at the Starland Ballroom in New Jersey. I reassure her that people will and she nods. “I hope so!” she says. I’m immediately reminded of our first interaction 10 months ago. Roughly six weeks shy of releasing her debut album, The First Time, I asked her how she felt. “I just hope people like it,” the then-21-yearold said.

To put it simply, they did. The First Time has sold over 100,000 copies to date. Her lead off singles, “Love Me Like You Mean It” and “Dibs” both went to No. 1 on country radio, and the album has been certified Gold. She’s been nominated for five different country music awards and one American Music Award – on top of the Billboard Women 30

in Music award she accepted in December. She also celebrated a birthday and acquired and redecorated a new apartment. For Kelsea Ballerini, the aspiring singer/songwriter, this has all been a long time coming. But for Kelsea Ballerini, the much-needed millennial voice of country music, this is just the first year.

I meet Kelsea at the Dream Downtown hotel in mid-January and she is exhausted. Rightfully so, though; yesterday she performed on both Good Morning America and Late Night with Seth Meyers. Immediately after our shoot she’ll fly back to Nashville for a few days before kicking off a full year of touring. I’d be yawning too.

“It’s crazy to even process,” Kelsea says when I ask her to recap the past year. She released “Love Me Like You

Mean It” in September of 2014 and pushed it all the way to No. 1 in June 2015. The song crossed over from country radio to Radio Disney – earning Kelsea the honor of being named Radio Disney’s N.B.T. (Next Big Thing) in January. After hustling that song at radio for almost nine months, having it go to No. 1 was an emotional accomplishment for Kelsea. “I forget what city I was in, but I knew it was sitting at [No.] 2 and that week it was either going to go No. 1 or it wasn’t,” she recalls. “I was trying to emotionally prepare myself for either.” When it became official that it had indeed jumped to the top spot, Kelsea’s label, Black River, called her and she immediately started sobbing.

“It was just a huge victory as a team,” she says. “Not only was it my first No. 1 as a writer and an artist, but every other

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writer on that song, and the producers, and my label – it was our first No. 1 together.”

“Love Me Like You Mean It” marked the first No. 1 by a debut female country artist since Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus Take the Wheel” nine years ago. The victory was especially sweet because it came just a few short weeks after radio consultant Keith Hill declared that female singers were the “tomatoes on a salad” and therefore unnecessary on country radio. “I love bro-country,” Kelsea admits. “I’m totally not one of those people who’s like, ‘Get the guys off the radio.’” She notes that the excess of male voices on the radio was a trend for a long time and now there’s a new wave of female voices taking over, but in a few years, the men will be dominant again.

She’s aware of the cycles that music – in all genres – goes through and is excited to be a part of this new generation of female voices in country. “It’s been so fun to watch and be a part of with Cam, Maddie and Tae and RaeLynn,” she says. “It’s been fun to swing the pendulum back over with them and see the change happen.”

Because many of the upcoming female country stars have had to push extra hard to get their voices heard, now that there are so many of them blowing up they’re all making a point to support each other. “There’s no room for anything but community. There’s no room for jealousy, there’s no room for an ego. You have to help each other and you have to love each other,” Kelsea says. “It’s really cool when you’re doing the same thing, you’re around the same age, you’re walking through these steps of life that are so abnormal… and it’s cool to be able to call any of them up or

text them and be like, ‘Are you feeling this? Because I’m feeling this.’”

It also helps that Kelsea is a massive fan of what women in country are doing right now – in particular Cam. “I love to know everything that’s going on in Nashville, so any time an artist puts out new music I stalk it,” she says, laughing. This was the case with Cam when she released her debut EP last spring. “I remember listening to ‘Burning House’ and being like, ‘This is the best thing I’ve ever heard,’” she says.

When the two performed at the Women In Country event during CMA Week in Nashville in June, Kelsea begged Cam

Kelsea, so is having women who have earned their stripes. Both Taylor Swift and Hillary Scott of Lady Antebellum have been massive supporters of Kelsea and her career – which is surreal for Kelsea. “When I went to my first CMA Fest when I was 14, the two people I waited in line to meet were Taylor and Hillary,” Kelsea recalls. “As a fan, that was who I connected with the most. So I think it’s by no accident that those are people that are my friends now.” She thinks that being able to connect with their music made it so much easier to connect with them as people. In the past year, Kelsea has been able to share the stage with both of them.

Growing up, Kelsea never missed one of Taylor’s tour stops at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.

So getting to sing “Love Me Like You Mean It” with her during her most recent 1989 Tour in September was beyond special for Kelsea. She had gone to Taylor’s tour stop in Pennsylvania earlier that summer when Little Big Town was her special guest, and watching it all made her want to be a part of it – but she was still a new artist and didn’t think it was possible. A few months later, Taylor texted her asking her to do the show in Santa Clara, Calif., but Kelsea had a show that night and couldn’t – so Taylor insisted they find another day to have her out. Kelsea had already planned on going to the Nashville show, and Taylor was more than happy to take her on stage that night. “It was stupid cool. I cried when I got home that night and watched the video,” she says, laughing.

While country music can sometimes be a bubble that artists have trouble existing outside of, Kelsea has bro-

“IT’S REALLY COOL WHEN YOU’RE DOING THE SAME THING, YOU’RE AROUND THE SAME AGE, YOU’RE WALKING THROUGH THESE STEPS OF LIFE THAT ARE SO ABNORMAL... AND IT’S COOL TO BE ABLE TO CALL ANY OF THEM UP OR TEXT THEM AND BE LIKE ‘ARE YOU FEELING THIS? BECAUSE I’M FEELING THIS.’” to let her sing harmonies on “Burning House” – to which Cam obliged.

Watching Cam have so much success with “Burning House” – a single that’s rather unconventional for country radio – has given Kelsea more confidence to take risks with her songwriting. “It shows that when you do take risks, and you embrace what you want to do fully, even if it’s super left of center, that works,” she says. “And it doesn’t just work, it ‘goes to No. 1 works.”

While having girls in the same position as her be a part of her support system is incredibly valuable to

“I GREW UP AS A FAN. I GREW UP WAITING IN LINE TO BUY CONCERT TICKETS OR WAITING IN LINE TO MEET SOMEONE. I LOVE THAT MAGICAL FEELING OF SEEING THE ARTIST THAT YOU LISTEN TO, RELATE TO AND LOVE.”

ken that stereotype this year. At many events – like People magazine’s Ones To Watch event and the Z100 Jingle Ball – Kelsea has been the only country star in the mix, and has been able to mingle with artists of all genres. “I kind of feel like I get to represent Nashville, but also be there with everyone and kind of watch how it all works with every other genre,” she says. Her current partnership with Radio Disney is similar, as she is the first country star to be named an N.B.T. The Billboard Women in Music award was one of the most special moments of Kelsea’s last year. She was awarded the Rising Star award, which has been given to artists such as Lady Gaga, Nicki Minaj and Ariana Grande in the past. Kelsea is the first country singer to get the award. For Kelsea, the award symbolized a treacherous year of fighting for herself and her voice.

“When we picked ‘Love Me‘ to be the first single, I was kind of deciding what I wanted to be about and what I wanted to talk about, and I decided I wanted to be a girls’ girl,” she says. “I wanted to try and be empowering and I wanted to be confident, because I’m not.” She constantly needs to remind herself to be confident and be empowering, so she decided the best way to do that was to sing about it. “To be able to be recognized for that, by women, this early, was super special,” she says.

Choosing singles that empower women is important to Kelsea because she wants young girls to feel confident and know that they have a voice. “I love all ages shows because I love when the little kids come out,” she says, grinning. “The reason I love it is because that’s me. I grew up as a fan. I grew up waiting in line to buy concert tickets or waiting in line to meet someone. I love that magical feeling of seeing the artist that you listen to, relate to and love.”

Being able to create that experience for people is extremely rewarding for Kelsea, because it was just two years ago that she was the one in the audience singing along to her favorite artists.

Meeting fans is extremely important to her and she makes a point to do meet and greets – organized or unorganized – at every show she plays, time and venue regulations permitting. Lately, 36

she and her band have been hosting post-show dance parties with fans when she plays standing room shows with a big dance floor. “I’ve always said from the beginning that I want to be an approachable artist,” she says. “I want there to be a consistency that the same person that’s on stage, is the same person that’s at a dinner or doing an interview. I want it to all be the same.”

After a year like Kelsea had, it’d be easy to get caught up in it all. But Kelsea doesn’t see that happening – partly because her mom would never let her.

“She gets excited with me, but she’s also the one that’s like ‘let’s not talk about music today,’” Kelsea says. “She’s really, really good at encouraging me and supporting me in music when I need that, but also being a really solid reality check in my life.”

2015 was the busiest year of Kelsea’s life, and 2016 is proving to be even busier. She kicked off her tour with Billy Currington at the end of February and in addition to lots of headlining and festival gigs – and a trip to Australia – she’ll be joining Rascal Flatts on tour this summer. “The Flatts I feel like – in my whole lifespan history of country music – they’re a part of it,” she says. “I feel like they have so gracefully been relevant through every evolution of country music.” She’s eager to learn from them and see how they do that, and is stoked to be a part of their annual summer tour.

In addition to touring, Kelsea has already started writing her sophomore album and will be getting into the studio at some point this year. For The First Time, it was extremely important to Kelsea to have her voice on every song – and therefore she wrote or cowrote every track on it and did not take any outside submissions. For her second record, that is equally – if not more – important to her. “The first record I feel like really does capture me from 12 to 21, which is what I wanted to do, but I feel like just naturally in the last year I’ve experienced so much life that I feel like I have a different perspective that I’m so excited to share and talk about,” Kelsea says. She anticipates an obvious shift in her songwriting, and thinks it is becoming more defined. Before writing The First Time, Kelsea had never really

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played live shows or shot a music video, so when writing songs, she wasn’t thinking of those things. “Now, when I write a song I think ‘What would the video look like?’ or ‘What would this be like on stage?’” she says. Having these things in the back of her head has forced her to “laser focus” on her songwriting and take it to a new level.

Looking back at The First Time after a full year of touring, Kelsea realizes that it’s not really a live album by any means. While songs like “Love Me” go over well live, she has never played “Secondhand Smoke” live because she feels it’s just not a live song. “I think there are golden songs that you kind of just let live on the record,” she says. For her next album, she wants to have more up-tempo tracks that are “fun to groove to live”.

While Kelsea has had a small taste of crossover success via Radio Disney, she has no plans to make the jump to straight pop music. “I really believe that I’m supposed to be country. My roots are in a farm in East Tennessee,” she says. “Even though I have pop sensibility in my music and that’s all over my record and my single, I think that will continue to grow because that’s what I love, but I’ll always stay grounded in country.” She knows she has an incredible support system in Nashville and wants to continue blazing a trail. “The artists that I’ve always been the most interested in are the artists that just go and do their own thing, like Sam [Hunt] and Cam,” she says. “That’s what I want to focus on this year, just staying in my path and blazing my own trail.”

A week after our interview, I’m standing in the back of Starland Ballroom listening to Kelsea close her show with “Love Me Like You Mean It” to a crowd of over 2,000 people – all there to see her. Scattered around the room on the tops of shoulders and bar stools are little girls in cowboy hats, staring wide-eyed at Kelsea and singing along.

Chances are, one of them will one day cite Kelsea as the girl who inspired her.

With the help of an incredible team – but mostly just incredible songs – Kelsea has become the kind of artist who inspired her when she was young. What comes next will undoubtedly be great – after all, this was only the first year. NKD NKDMAG.COM

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HUW COLLINS Words by MARY BARNES Photos by CATHERINE POWELL Hair & Make-Up by REIVA CRUZE

Acting wasn’t exactly what young Huw Collins had in mind when he pictured his future as a kid. The Pretty Little Liars star originally dreamed of becoming an athlete. Huw, born to Welsh parents in London, grew up playing rugby with his parents and brothers. He had no idea that his career would take a drastic turn from professional athlete to actor.

“No one in my family was theatrical… it just wasn’t in our stratosphere” 40

Huw says. “My dream was to play sports since it was indoctrinated in my family.” For his Welsh family, the sport was everything. “It’s very institutionalized. Wales is all about Rugby. It’s like a religion,” he says.

Huw went from family rugby matches to high-level sporting, when he attended boarding school on a sports scholarship. From there, he went on to play professional rugby but quickly decided on a career change. “[Rugby] was

a family thing,” Huw says. “But when it gets to a professional stage, it’s kind of a brutal sport.” Rather than settle for a desk job, he chose to move to Prattville, Ala. to play American football when he was 23.

Huw traveled across the U.S., working with different coaches to improve his football skills, in hopes of becoming a kicker in the NFL. “Kicking in American football and rugby were kind of similar,” he says. “But there are

obviously acute differences.” Just like with rugby, once his dream of becoming a professional player came close to fruition, he realized it was unattainable.

Having not attended college in America, he was unable to gain the experience of actually being on the field, leaving him at a disadvantage. With that, he moved back to England. “I thought I would go into a really solid, stable profession and picked acting,” he jokes.

Though acting may seem like a far cry from the athletic career he originally sought, Huw felt it was a great opportunity. “I acted in school and stuff and enjoyed it, but I wasn’t attached to it,” he says. The then 26-yearold figured he would give it a try and if it went well, he would continue. If not, he could always choose another career. Luckily for him, his acting career started off on a good foot. “People really responded to it,” he said. “I kind of waited for someone to say it wasn’t going to work out and no one did.”

Huw’s years of athletic training aided in his quick rise to fame in the acting world. “Sports is an expression physically and I think that acting is an expression creatively and a bit more spiritually,” he says. The discipline and commitment he learned during his athletic training gave him a leg up on his competition, including those who has been in the business for many years longer than he had. Huw used that dedication to work toward his goals and improve his acting skills. “You can’t just sit home and wait for the phone to ring,” he says.

Despite his late start as an actor, Huw didn’t feel that drama school was the right choice for him at that time in his life. “I had lived all over the world,” he recalls. “I had a lot of life experience.” Experience, he felt, would help him succeed in the field.

Soon after he started pursuing acting, Huw was cast as the lead in a stage production of The Picture of Dorian Gray in England. “I was so fresh… it was a great baptism,” he says of his first role. “It just kick-started everything.”

He saw this as a test to see how well he could handle acting as a career. “If I’m half decent, I’m starting from a good point,” he says. This role gave him the confidence to pursue acting full time.

After the production, Huw moved back to the U.S., eventually finding himself in Los Angeles.

“L.A. is a funny place,” Huw says.

“It’s a great place to be because the lifestyle is fantastic.” It was in L.A. that he booked his role, Dr. Rollins on Pretty Little Liars.

“There really wasn’t time to worry or be anxious or anything,” he says of landing the role. Almost immediately

after being offered the role, Huw was on set ready to film. Dr. Rollins, Huw’s character, is Alison DiLaurentis’ (Sasha Pieterse) new love interest. The series picks up at a time-jump of five years, leaving the show’s original high school setting behind while adding in some mysteries of the past. “[The show] feels like it has a new lease on life,” Huw says. “It’s fresher. It’s a new chapter.” He feels that the time jump made it easier to incorporate his character into the show. “You have this five-year backstory that isn’t explicit but it’s kind of there.”

One of the many mysteries of the show is Dr. Rollins’ relationship to Alison. When the two characters first meet, it is a doctor and family-member-of-a-patient relationship. “I think that some people are a little perplexed at how we can end up being married – which we obviously aren’t yet,” Huw says. More will be unveiled later this season, as his character develops further.

Huw believes there is a place for his character in the show’s seventh season.

“They got back into the writers’ room,” he says. “As for my character’s role, I think it is something that will be discussed in a little bit.”

Since Pretty Little Liars, Huw has worked hard to create a social media presence. The show has a large following on social media, and he feels it’s important to embrace that part of the show’s popularity. “It has this crazy little niche in the market,” he says. “It’s just social media crazy and I think it’s just this perfect little storm.”

Huw always makes it a point to interact with his fans on social media – not only as a way to boost his career, but as a way to pay homage to the show and the fans. “Their passion and enthusiasm and their love for the show is the only reason that it’s successful,” he says. “I’ve kind of felt like there is a fairly good mutual respect between me and most of the fans.”

Huw is excited about the progression of his character on the show, saying that he will be in every episode through the end of the season. “I really love the character I think he’s really fun, and I like the way it develops throughout the season,” he says. NKD NKDMAG.COM

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THE WILD FEATHERS Words by MERISSA BLITZ Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

Four southern gents make up Nashville-based rock band The Wild Feathers. The guys, Ricky Young (guitar, vocals), Joel King (bass, vocals), Taylor Burns (guitar, vocals) and Ben Dumas (drums) have a passion for creating music and making it heard.

Ricky and Joel met and became friends through the “backstage, underbelly of Nashville,” according to the pair. They were down in Texas one weekend when they met Taylor. They say that whether it was initially for the purpose of finding another talented musician to add to their band or just to find some weed, it was fate.A few years down the road, after many trials and tribulations, they met their current drummer, Ben. “We were like, fuck this is the most amazing drummer we’ve seen in our entire lives,” Joel says, and from then on the four were inseparable and in musical harmony.

The band was first signed to Interscope Records and had an A&R rep who was very nurturing and took the band under his wing.

He ended up moving jobs to Warner Music Group and took The Wild Feathers along with him. To the outside world, The Wild Feathers took flight fast but for the guys, this was a long time coming. “We were thrilled to death,” Taylor says. “We’ve all been doing it on our own forever, you know ever since we were like 15 or something, so it didn’t feel like it was over night for us, but I think the outside perception was like, ‘Holy shit these guys just like, right away, have some label interest.’”

The band put out their first, self-titled

album in late 2012. The album is heavily influenced by their time in Nashville, with swingy country licks and soft rock beats that could be best listened to during long drives through the desert in a convertible with wind blowing in your hair.

To promote the album, the band had a sort of residency throughout the southeast US, playing at dingy dive bars and late-night clubs. “We had dark days there,” Taylor says, explaining that they played shows in Memphis four days in a row and filled the room with an average of six people per night.

“That’s the kind of stuff that bands have to go through to get good and you have to struggle and be like, ‘What are we doing, are we banging our heads up against the wall?’ and [you have to] go through despair and total utter, just hopelessness.”

“You just have to fly your flag and see if anybody kind of salutes it in the way that you just play your shows and hope that somebody comes out and try to get the name out there, but you just can’t help it in some places,” Joel adds.

Struggling through a first tour like that can make or break a band but The Wild Feathers stuck it out through it all. “You either bond together or fall apart and we definitely bonded together as a band and as brothers and everything else,” Taylor says.

They didn’t care how many people came out to their initial shows, they just cared that the people who came out liked what they were hearing. Since most of their fan base has come to be because of the many live NKDMAG.COM

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shows they’ve played, it seems like the band has succeeded.

In today’s music industry, musicians can get caught up in marketing themselves online and on social media. Some put more heart into that than into their music. That’s not the case for The Wild Feathers. “If you get some video that gets huge then whatever, but I feel like for us, we’re about the music and about playing shows and the craft of writing songs, that’s what’s most important to us, not like some gimmick or whatever’s hot right now,” Taylor says.

Joel adds that, to him, it seems like bands nowadays aren’t seen being together and writing songs and putting out records anymore. “We just try to be the most regular rock and roll band we can and we say normal rock and roll and that’s totally not normal these days,” Joel says.

Playing live and sharing their songs with 44

an audience will always be the band’s favorite part about being in the music industry. “[Going to concerts was] what we grew up loving,” Ricky says. “You always talk about the excitement of your first concert and what amps the guys were playing, what guitars they were playing and the excitement of them walking out in the dark and [the light] comes up and it’s a song that you know and it’s everything rock and roll that we grew up loving before rock and roll was kind of obsolete.”

Joel remembers that when he first started playing music, all he wanted to do was run to his friends and go play what he learned at a party or at a club for an audience, which eventually made him want to write his own songs and get some friends together to share them live. “I think that for all of us, and where we all come from, playing live, that’s how you start a band, that’s what you do.”

Taylor believes that the band’s live show is where they thrive. “The thing that I get off most on is playing live and getting in front of people and sharing energy and doing all that stuff. That’s what wakes me up,” Taylor says.

Taylor says that his love of performing comes from being on the road so much and starting to learn what crowds like and dislike, which helps the band create the foundation of what they kind of musicians they want to be.

“There’s something magical when you’re midway through a tour and everyone’s clicking and you can just complete each other’s sentences musically and you don’t have to think anymore and it’s just this effortless thing and when it comes together, it really comes together,” Taylor says.

Because there’s a heavy focus on the Internet for music at the moment, Taylor believes that some extremely talented bands are struggling to retain an audience because

people just expect everything to be free and instant nowadays. However, the guys don’t think that the excitement of the live performance will ever die. “Just because movies came out, Broadway’s still thriving, people didn’t stop acting on stage,” Joel says. “There’s an experience there and the live experience, it’s a great magical thing and some people get it and some people don’t get it.”

The band also uses their live performances to try out new songs to get that “instant gratification from a crowd.” “There’s no better way to tell if a song is good or not than playing it live,” Taylor says.

The band even tried out a few songs from their upcoming album, Lonely is a Lifetime, on their last tour. This was a good test to see how their audience reacted because this album is completely different than their last. “The last record was very organic, and this record was different,” Joel says. “I think

that everything else on [the last] one was swing-ier. Everything on this one is more of a straight attack and that just comes from playing electrics and trying out songs at sound check, and we ended up being more of a rock band than we thought.”

Through touring and playing as many shows as they’ve played, the band has grown and developed a new sound that they’re really happy with, and they wanted to show that in their new record. “We wanted our music to reflect, on a recording, that we’ve become a different band just by touring alone and all the songs that we’ve written, and all the ideas we’d come back and forth with, it’s like, after a while, you don’t want to be the same band or even the same person after so many years of traveling,” Ricky says. “You just want to grow.” “[With the] last record, a lot of people called us a country band and that’s fine, it

had some country influence but we were like, we’re much more than that,” Taylor adds. “That was the vibe of the record we were doing because that’s the mode we were in at the time of that first record, but we can also do this.” “[What I want is] for us to be a band that continues to grow and evolve and not be the same kind of band, to make our fans happy and pissed off at the same time, to always grow and do things that we want to do and be ourselves, and let people fall in love with that and catch up with us,” Ricky says. “You kind of have to feel that way in order to create something that you believe in.”

At the end of the day, they want their music to be heard, and for those who listen to be touched by it.

“All I ever hope to accomplish with any piece of music I ever record or play live is to make people feel something,” Taylor says. NKD NKDMAG.COM

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Words by IAN HAYS Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

TARA THOMPSON Tennessee native Tara Thompson is country through and through. You can hear it in her first single, “Someone to Take Your Place.” She exudes the down-home country sizzle that is either in your blood or isn’t. And for her, it’s there in strides. But, while she may be cousins with Loretta Lynn, getting signed to Big Machine Records wasn’t easy. Recording and writing her debut full-length album 46

took grit and years of paying her dues.

At 13 years old, Tara knew she wanted to be a singer. “My mom would always take me to this place called Big Momma’s Little Karaoke Café. Which is hilarious because I was always so afraid to go up on stage,” she recalls. At first, Tara would spend her time in a little recording booth at Big Momma’s, recording her-

self singing the same covers over and over again. But with a little encouragement, she got up on stage and sang for the crowd. It was then she knew that this was what she wanted to do.

At 18, she moved to Nashville.

While she did give college a try, the pull of being a country singer led Tara in a different direction. She found herself working at the renowned honky-tonk, Tootsie’s. “I was there for

six years, singing for tips,” she says. “I was there on weekends for four hour shifts. And I would do triple shifts…

Sing four hours, go home, take a nap, sing for four hours…and during the week I would do a shift a day.”

Tara’s work ethic eventually paid off. Singing day in and day out allowed her to find her voice, even while singing covers. While many singers have to wait until after their day jobs to do music, music is essentially all Tara did. It was while working at Tootsie’s that she met her manager, Spoon, and that partner-

ship blossomed and helped polish the skills she had been honing from years of working.

But, when it came time for her to work on original songs, Tara was a bit skeptical about writing her own material. She had never planned on being a songwriter. In her mind, she would sing the songs seasoned professionals wrote for her. But Spoon and her fellow music companions convinced her this was the route to go. And she dove in head first – but on her terms.

“I have some rules – no man-bashing, no sappy love songs, and be country,” Tara says of her songwriting. This speaks to her character. Tara is not out to fill some persona – she is here to sing songs that embody her spirit, even if that does break the mold. With her songs focusing on real life experiences, it’s to be expected that there is a little hesitation from the family. She wrote a song called “Pregnant at the Prom” referencing her own mother’s pregnancy with her.

She even wrote a not-so-nice song about one of her sister’s weddings, which didn’t go over too well at first.

But, Tara’s family also knows that this kind of spunk and wit is just in her nature.

“I was born a middle child…I was always the hyper, energetic kid, always gettin’ blamed for everything,” she jokes. Tara wrote 10 of the 12 songs on her debut album. The other two? Well, Tara swears the writers somehow creeped into her head and wrote the perfect songs that represent her.

At this point, Tara had her demo songs recorded and was ready to shop around to various labels. And while she and Spoon did not restrict themselves to who they shopped around to, they knew from the beginning they wanted to get the blessing from the big man himself: Scott Borchetta of Big Machine – the label that gave Taylor Swift her first deal. Through a mutual friend, they were able to get the demo album to Scott, and he liked what he heard. He had Tara come to offices to interview and sing live. “After we were done, he just kind of got up and was like, ‘Good job. I have a race to go to.’ And he just kind of left.

I was like…well strike three,” Tara says of their meeting.

But, just a few days later he called her in again and let her know he wanted to sign her to Big Machine.

Everything had finally fallen into place. In September of 2015, Tara officially became part of the Big Machine family. She quickly began to re-record her demos for Big Machine.

These are the songs that will comprise her debut album. While she does not have a release date slated, she says the album is in its final stages of mastering. But until then, Tara will be keeping plenty busy – she’s playing on CMT’s “Next Women of Country” tour. For Tara, this is still a surreal experience. She is performing with Jennifer Nettles and Brandy Clark, and fellow newcomer, Lindsay Ellall of whom have made a name for themselves in country music. “And it’s funny because when I would sing in the bars, I would always sing Sugarland [Jennifer Nettles’ band] songs and Brandy Clark songs,” she says.

Tara feels that she could not be coming up as a female country singer at a better time. “It’s cool because I feel like it’s our time as women,” she says. “I feel like women have a different way of writing and are coming up with new material and a new way of saying what they want to say.”

There is a paradigm shift happening in the music industry. Females in the industry are getting more of the recognition they deserve. While there have always been revered female musicians and writers, any underlying sexism is being brought to light and not tolerated anymore. This is where Tara’s choice of song narratives comes into play. She is writing what she wants to write about. While there is a time and place for ragging on your ex or singing a saccharine love song, it only matters if it’s genuine. And for Tara, writing on her own familial experiences is as genuine as it gets.

So, what does Tara hope for the future? “This time next year, I hope to God to have played the Ryman and the Opry. And I hope I get to meet Willie Nelson,” she says. Given her track record, she shouldn’t be too worried about these reaching goals. NKD NKDMAG.COM

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