Columbia, Missouri native Halle Kearns has been an artist that we instantly became a fan of following the release of her 2020 debut EP “Finally” and her continued to grow after her sophomore release “Every Girl” in 2022 which has helped her to more than twenty one million global streams and over eleven million views on TikTok.
The fact that her streams reach around the world, the European audience have been eagerly awaiting a potential trip across the pond which finally came to fruition in March 2024 for appearances at C2C: Country to Country in London, Rotterdam and Berlin where she hung out with Jamie to chat about this first trip to Europe.
Well here go. “I made it, I’m finally here in Germany.”
Yeah I’m a Brit, hanging out with you who is American and we’re in Germany but you’re coming to London too which is so exciting because I know a lot of people have wanted you to come and see us. “I can’t wait, I’ve always wanted to go to London.”
Well, we can’t wait to have you but you were in Rotterdam last night, we’re in Berlin today and it must feel pretty wild to be playing in Europe for the first time. “It’s surreal, I absolutely love Europe already. I have never played here before or never visited before but this is something that I always hoped and dreamed that my music would be able to take me overseas and not just be a vacation but to actually be able to do what I love in new places that are beautiful is so cool.”
Are you also going to have time to be a tourist whilst you’re over here? “Yes, I didn’t get to explore much of Rotterdam but we had a full day in Amsterdam and I loved it, I wished we had more time there.”
It’s probably my favourite city in the world to visit, it’s just so pretty with how it’s all on water which is really normal to you because you live on a boat. "Ha-ha, of course we had to talk about it at some point.”
I just had that voice in the back of my mind saying, “you know you want to ask her about the boat, you know you want to ask her about the boat” and it was how long I could resist ha-ha. “That’s so funny someone said that yesterday about how I must be comfortable there because I’m by water but yes I do live on a boat.”
Well now that we have gone there, I guess everyone will want to know how did you end up living on a boat? “My now husband had been living on a boat for a year before I married him. When he was originally living on it, I was like, do you know what, this is really cute for you right now, this is a good little season for you to be in whilst you’re single and doing your thing. Once we got married, I thought we would move into an apartment or something after a month or two because that made sense but now that I’m on it, I love it.”
I’m sorry but you’re the first person I’ve met that lives on a boat and the eight year old child inside me has so many random questions like does it feel weird when you stay on land in a hotel now? “Ha-ha, it really doesn’t feel like you’re on a boat when you’re on it. Like on the dock and in the marina of course but it’s like an RV on water because it has a kitchen, a living room, it has two bedrooms and to me you don’t really feel like you are on a boat but maybe that’s because I’m used to it.”
Thank you for indulging in my curiosity but let’s get back to here and on land, how did the set go today? I tried girl but I couldn’t get in because the room was so full so I will catch the next one. “It was so great, like you said, it was packed, everyone is so attentive and kind. I was told before coming here that whatever my expectations are for a European crowd to get my hopes up because they are the kindest and most supportive people. They look at music like it really is the art that it is and they really care about the lyrics and stuff, which I’m definitely seeing.”
From my two days here, like everyone has heard about UK and European audiences but here in Germany compared to Britain, it is a different level with how attentive people are. We hear how good our crowds are but here the experience is unreal. “Oh okay, so you’re saying that you prefer these crowds here then.”
They are just deadly silent and so respectful where you’re on stage being so not used to it and you have that thought of am I doing something wrong because they are so attentive. People now have the expectation for it but as much as you hear about it, it doesn’t really prepare you and you don’t actually get it until you experience it for yourself. “Absolutely, there are no side conversations, disinterest or phone scrolling. Even if someone needs to get up to use the restroom, I was watching them waiting until the song is over. It’s just the way they treat a song that way and I think that’s really cool so, I can’t wait to see yours in London too!”
Yeah, London is a very different experience to here. It’s quite to describe the setup if you don’t know the O2 itself but it’s vastly different to how it is here as there is a lot more people, it is spread out a bit more just given the size of the space and pretty much all of the daytime stages are large standing spaces. It is really fun and like here, you get to play a load of times on different stages and with the way that people discover and digest music in the UK for some fans that have heard your music on YouTube or on DSP’s, in their eyes your big song could be a super deep cut from like five years ago that you have barely played live. Talking about songs that you have put out, “High School Friends” came out in January and just give us a little taste of plans for releasing things through the rest of the year.
“I have a new song called “Homemade Margaritas” coming out on March 15th, which is a fun, summery party song. It has a kind of beachy feel but it’s about homemade margaritas, so what could be better? After that, I have an EP coming out in June that will be six songs and I will probably put one more of them out some time in maybe March or April and the EP coming after that.”
With thinking towards putting out an EP in the current environment that is so driven by placement on DSP’s and numbers on TikTok, how much consideration goes into the fact that putting five or six songs out together gives all of them the same window compared to releasing them separately to give them all their own moment in the sun? “I absolutely agree with that but also, I tried to do the singles thing for a while and just lean into releasing one track at a time which really defeated me artistically. I felt very lost in my creativity because I was trying to keep up with what is the next viral thing or what makes sense for a snippet on socials rather than what is the art that I want to create. When it came to releasing another project, I knew that I wanted to do something that is a conceptual whole package thing that can stand alone as singles as well but I wanted it to be a cohesive thing running throughout this project. That is what it is going to be and it’s going to be called “Quarter Life Crisis” and it is all about the ups and downs of being in your twenties, all the highs and lows, all the crazy things then all of the great parts too.”
Cohesion is the word, where an EP or an album firstly helps brings songs together but it allows you to paint a picture of who you are right now. As you said, song after song coming out can be so irrelevant to each other that apart from having a song about making your own margaritas, people won’t really know who Halle Kearns actually is. “Totally. I understand the importance of DSP support, TikTok marketing and all of that kind of stuff but that is not the reason that I came into music, they are not my motivating factors. It’s so easy to start getting skewed by those things and changing your trajectory because you know how impactful they can be to your career but you can’t let them define your art of your creativity. I sort of let that happen like a year or two ago and I thought no, I’m going back to the basics of writing songs that I love and believe in then releasing those and letting them speak for themselves. If they get the support on DSP’s and it works on TikTok, that’s wonderful but if not at least I was true to myself.”
I love to hear you say that and for me that’s such a refreshing attitude to have because there is so much pressure for numbers and particularly for independent artists, TikTok has now become the way to get yourself out there but to me it dilutes the art massively. It is not how good a song actually is in terms of depth or telling a story, it’s have I got a twenty second hook that can take off on there. “There you go, you get it. I think if you can focus on the art first and then allow TikTok to pick up on that or use those little marketing tactics to really push your art out, I think that is the way to do it. I think it is easier to look at what is going to work on there and what is going to stick so throwing all this stuff against a wall to see what works and choose to release that way. That is something that I can’t get behind, I’ve tried it a couple of times and that’s how I know that I can say for certain that it is not for me. It might work for other people and that is wonderful but for my trajectory I know that it is not going to be sustainable.”
This has been awesome, I’m so glad you’re here, I know you will have the best time and just really hope you have fun. “Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, you’re the best.”
Halle Kearns will be appearing at C2C: Country to Country in London this weekend (March 8th to 10th) where she will be performing on Friday March 8th at The Barrelhouse in the Town Square (13:40) and in The Saloon (13:30), then on Saturday March 9th on The Wayside stage (14:00) and finally on Sunday March 10th on the Icon Stage (12:00). Full festival information and details of any remaining tickets can be found on the event WEBSITE or socials (INSTAGRAMTWITTERFACEBOOK.
C2C Country to Country Berlin will return in 2025 for three days over the weekend of March 7th to 9th where you will be able to find more details on their WEBSITE or on INSTAGRAM & FACEBOOK where you will also be able to relive highlights from this past weekend. Halle Kearns will release her brand new track “Homemade Margaritas” which to pre-save/pre-order HERE. To learn more about Halle and be the first to find out about all of her upcoming projects you can check out her WEBSITE or follow her socially on INSTAGRAMTIKTOK or FACEBOOK.