Kevin Walkman, a junior at Temple and a solo indie pop artist, might be the coolest people person on the scene right now in the most unsuspecting way. We went into this interview blind, and so did he, because he thought the whole conversation would be focused around his latest release as any musician likely would. Luckily, he didn’t know just how well Bre and I scheme, because he easily went along with the date premise and this turned into a conversation all about Tinder, the best parts of college, and what it truly means to be in your bag. His newest single, “3:30am” is perfect for early morning introspective listening and is featured in our collective playlist at the end of the post [a new thing we’re trying out FYI].

Do you think being a musician has helped you in the relationship department, or do you think it turns people off?

Kevin: I think when I was in high school, I thought it was helpful because I could just kind of write songs for people. And I thought that that was a cool way to get into people's hearts. I guess it’s a cliche, but now I think I'm so focused on being an artist more than just a musician that people only see on a surface level. And there are definitely a lot of things about me that I don't portray. I'm a big sports fan, for instance, and people wouldn't really see that if they looked on my Instagram or if they just look at me, you know.

Bre: What kind of sports do you like?

Kevin: I’m a huge hockey fan. Big Flyers fan.

Bre: Ah, I’m a Toronto Maple Leafs fan.

Kevin: Hey that’s like my second favorite. I’m a big Mitch Marner guy. I just love hockey overall. I watch all Philly sports overall, but hockey’s my favorite.

Bre: Do you like the Phillies?

Kevin: Oh yeah.

Bre: I’m a Yankee’s fan.

Kevin: Oh so you get to win things, that’s cool. That’s fair. Baseball is probably my least favorite of the big sports, though.

Bre: Hey - my grandpa passed down being a Yankee’s fan, so I have to stay loyal.

Have you found that people use you for your “clout” or your industry connections?

Kevin: It doesn't happen too often, but it’s definitely made me question anyone and everyone around me, which isn't a great feeling, you know. But there have been times where people in high school that I did not want to talk to asked me to produce their stuff and they’d be super friendly about it. So I helped them out with something musically and then after I wouldn’t hear from them as much. It's not it's not to the point where, like, when celebrities are like, “hey, I don't know who my real friends are,” but for me there definitely have been some points where people just kind of wanted my opinion on music and then just wanted to brush me off afterwards.

Bre: That’s about as close to “ghosting” as it gets in the music industry.

Kevin: It's definitely a form of ghosting. I'm kind of over it. You know, it's happened before. It'll probably happen again in the future. If I sit here and I worry about it all the time, I'll just be unhappy. So I really don’t want to overthink stuff like that, you know?

Emily: What’s your opinion of the Philly music scene?

Kevin: I love it. Right before I went to Temple, I got a scholarship offer for a school in Connecticut and I almost went there, but Temple got back to me just in time. I'm so happy I ended up here because the difference of just being in a city is amazing. And I think Philly has a really good indie and underground presence. House shows out the wazoo by South Philly and on campus - you can always find a free show or a cheap show. I think it's a really good time to be an artist here right now because people aren't just moving to L.A. and staying there.

Emily: That’s awesome. Absolutely.

How would you turn being a musician into a pickup line?

Kevin: Oh man I was never really one for pickup lines, they’re so corny.

Emily: Of course. I hate them so much.

[Here Bre told us a horrifying pickup line that a Tinder match sent her that I unfortunately had to redact because it was so offensive. Men, do better]

Kevin: I used to plug my stuff when I was on Tinder, and then I was on Hinge for a little bit. And under “things you might not know about me” I was like, “hey, I've written like 150 songs in two years.” And if anybody ever liked anything on my profile specifically about my music it was kinda cool to see that there was some sort of interest there.

Bre: What would your dating profile say about you? Would it be funny? Would you flex that you’re a musician? What would your bio say?

Kevin: I would mention that I write songs and stuff, but I wouldn’t ever make my “Tinder anthem” one of my own songs. I wouldn’t even say “follow me on Spotify,” because at the end of the day, I do music all the time so they’ll see that in my life. So dating someone - I’m actually dating somebody right now - it’s kind of a break away from music. I don’t have to be cool or just a musician. I can let my guard down a little bit. So I don’t think I really want to mention how music consumes my life when I’m making a profile. I like that the people in my life feel like an escape from it.

Have you ever written a song for somebody?

Kevin: I’ve written songs for people and I’ve written songs about people.

Bre: How did that go over? [from my experience on the receiving end of this, it does not go over that well]

Kevin: It was great. I’m gay - and I thought I was straight in high school, so I’d write songs for girls on my guitar and I didn’t know what I was doing then, but at the time, it worked really well. But now I kind of use music as more of a coping mechanism. I went through my first real breakup with a guy in college, and I wrote a lot of songs about him. I’m releasing some of those soon, and if you listen really closely you can hear it in the lyrics. I told him at the time as well, because I didn’t want them to come out and shock him. We’re on fine terms right now, so it wasn’t a big deal.

Bre: I ask because when you think about dating a musician, there’s always the thought of “well aren’t you going to write a song about me?” And then realistically when it happens, it’s either really great or really terrible.

Kevin: I mean, musicians are very emotional people. But I purposely don’t write about super specific topics. The last song I released and this other song that comes out at midnight tonight, are both about hookup culture, which is a broad topic. On a more specific note, it is about my ex, and it kind of goes, “I’m not busy, I know you’re not busy, we should get together even though we’re not together.” And that never works out. Never.

Emily: Never. [NEVER!]

Kevin: I feel like it’s important to make things vague enough where you don’t try to tell listeners what to do.

Emily: I interviewed Ceramic Animal last week and we talked a little bit about specificity within songs too, and he said that the best songs don’t tell you that they have the answers, but they encourage you to find the answers yourself. Super specificity can so easily become cliche even though it’s the exact opposite of what it intended. [plug plug plug]

Kevin: I think there needs to be some sort of topic. There are way too many songs about heartbreak which is just too big of a topic on its own. But on the other hand, you can only write so many “Stacey’s Mom”’s, you know.

Bre: True, R.I.P.

Kevin: Oh my god you’re right. [we went on a brief Fountains of Wayne tangent, I won’t hurt you with the details]

Bre: Some of my favorite songs are like, acoustic sad songs. But that’s because - and I like what Emily said - but I actually like when a song tells me exactly what to feel because it’s voiced better than a way that I could have said it. There’s this artist I love, Joy Oladokun, who has a song “No Turning Back", and it’s about how she’s going to love this one person whether they like it or not. I feel like I relate to that so much just for the song as it is. She has her reasons for thinking this and I have my reason, but the feelings are still there.

Kevin: Personally for me, when I can't put my emotions into words and I don't know if I can talk to anyone about it I just go to my piano or I go my guitar. Words start to flow out and then all of a sudden I’ll have like three verses of like how I feel with instrumentation to match. And that's the goal for songwriters to make other people feel something.

Emily: I think “universally intimate” is a good phrase because you write about what only you know but you hope that other people can pull something from it.

Kevin: Exactly. And from even a marketing perspective, if you don’t have some kind of connection to a song, it’s not going to sell. Not even, “this makes me happy,” or “this makes me sad,” it could even be like “I want to dance to this.” You just have to feel something from a song for it to work.

Bre: I think that’s why Noah Kahn took off. He struggles with anxiety and owns it and he just has a way to put words to these feelings. You can just hone in on one aspect that really affects you and if you’re open and vulnerable in your writing, other people will feel that.

Kevin: It’s important to open up as an artist. To me, that’s pretty scary. Writing songs that are personal and letting people in to your lives way more than the average person does it scary. Like - a song about wanting to get back together with an ex. That’s not something I would just tell a stranger about.

Do you have a favorite love song?

Kevin: I don’t think I really listen to love songs.

Emily: Okay but every song is a love song. [try writing a song that isn’t about love. I’ll wait]

Kevin: True. Okay - “Sweater Weather” by The Neighbourhood. They’re my all-time favorite band. “Redbone” by Childish Gambino is another one. It’s not necessarily a love song, but you can’t tell me that’s not a make-out song.

Emily: Right now one of my favorite love songs is “Stardust” by Petal. It’s a sad one - it’s tragic. There’s a line that goes something like, “we’re living in shitty apartments with mismatched dishes unlike our parents/ maybe we’ll make good parents, maybe not/ but I can’t say I didn’t love you.” And ugh. It hurts. My other all-time favorite that never changes is “Babygirl” by Anthony Green. It’s sweet.

Kevin: I thought positive love songs at first, I didn’t even think unrequited love.

Bre: That’s my favorite kind. [not by choice, baby!] [you and me both]

Kevin: Okay I’m also going to say “Bad Religion” by Frank Ocean.

Bre: “Jealous” by Labyrinth is beautiful and I cry every time. I’ve had it on during car rides where I’ve played it for like twenty minutes straight.

Kevin: You’d definitely like Finneas’s stuff. He has a lot of “sad boy love songs.” Listen to “Break My Heart Again.” It’s so sad.

Bre: My life is one big “sad boy love song.”

Emily: Uh huh. [re: you and me both]

Bre: I like being in my bag. I like when music can let me reflect on the shitty parts of life. I push my feelings aside so if a song can make me sit there and process it then so be it.

Kevin: Exactly. And sometimes I just need to be sad for a little bit to not be sad anymore.

When you’re trying to impress someone with your taste in music, what’s a “cool band” you say, and what are you actually listening to at 3 a.m. during guilty pleasure hours?

Kevin: Okay, guilty pleasure stuff - I really like Katy Perry. “TGIF” definitely. I’m not into “Teenage Dream” anymore. I used to be. I think I’m pretty open about what I like, but - oh. Oh. Okay. I really like jazz. I have tons of playlists with Etta James and Aretha Franklin. Anything jazz, Motown. That’s probably what I’m listening to at 3 a.m. when I’m done with Frank Ocean. In terms of like, a cool band though, I’d say this guy Brakence. His new album is phenomenal and I think he’s about to blow up.

Bre: We’re making a sad boy playlist with Katy Perry and “Stacey’s Mom.”

Emily: In-cred-i-ble.

Bre: Did you ever have those assignments in high school where you had to rework a pop song to fit the class?

Emily: Unfortunately.

Bre: I remember we did one to Katy Perry’s “California Girls” but it was about the Declaration of Independence. So it was like - “east coast represent” instead of “west coast,” and it was all about the Constitution. It was terrible. That made me think about it.

Emily: Amazing. I don’t like that.

Kevin: I remember somebody did that in my math class once, so it was all calculus and quadratic formula stuff like that. It was gross. I wish I remembered the song.

Do you have a favorite college experience?

Emily: What year are you in college?

Kevin: I’m a junior. I’m a music technology major, so it’s a lot of production and stuff related to what I’m doing now as an artist minus the songwriting process.

Emily: What stands out to you so far?

Kevin: My freshman or sophomore year we stormed the Liacouras Center because we’d just won this huge basketball game, and I’d always wanted to storm the court. Everyone was dancing and freaking out. It was awesome.

Bre: I went to two colleges - I transferred - but when I was at Albright I remember it was homecoming weekend and my friend and I were drinking on the sidelines waiting for the homecoming winners to be announced, and as soon as we heard our friends win we stormed the field too. So I’m in all of these homecoming pictures holding a rugby ball for some reason. I actually still have it.

Emily: I ran a house show house in college while I was at St. Joe’s. So for a little over a year my place and my friends’ place would trade off hosting gigs and it was the most fun thing I’ve ever done. We got some really incredible local bands. I miss that so much. [R.I.P. Greenhouse and Bath House]

Bre: Oh, this is a question - we’ve asked bands what their ideal dream date is, and mine would be going to a big stadium show but the only people in the audience are me and the person I’m with. Would you rather play a stadium concert for one person, or would you rather be the one person in the audience watching?

Kevin: I personally wouldn’t want to do either, but if I had to pick, I’d probably want to be performing for the two people. You’ve seen people crash weddings and stuff, I think that would be cool. Like, if someone reached out to me and asked if I’d play for them and their wife or something because that was something special they wanted, sure. But I don’t think I would want to under other circumstances. Playing live for crowds is something I really enjoy. When people sing your words back to you, that’s unreal.

What’s been your coolest show experience?

Kevin: I haven’t performed too much. I put out my first EP last May, that was “WasteUrTime.” The coolest thing for me was I threw a party the day after the release. It came out midnight Thursday and then the party was Friday, and when I played the song everyone was just singing everything along with me, and I was so happy. Like, they’d already listened to it so many times and it had only been out for 24 hours. It was surreal.

Bre: What about that release made it take off? Did you promote it differently?

Kevin: Yeah, it was a couple things. After I released my first EP, I rushed it a little bit. The production wasn’t amazing. But then I met a producer and we collaborated and had a really great working relationship and we bounce ideas off each other. Having someone around who isn’t afraid to say it like it is is helpful. He’s not just the mixer, he’s a collaborator. So that summer he recorded the bass line for “WasteUrTime” and helped with vocal tracking, and as it was coming together it became one of my favorite songs I’ve made. My goal was like, 10,000 streams on Spotify, which was big. So as soon as it was released, I put out a bunch of teaser videos and stuff. Then I went on TikTok - before you say anything: it’s funny, the discover page is great, and I’m obsessed with it. So I’d look at who’s using popular songs in their videos and how, and I found that this one guy, this e-boy guy, had featured my song on his playlist. That got it thousands of plays.

Bre: How would you describe your genre? Do you think it’s “bedroom pop?”

Kevin: I’d consider myself more indie pop now that the production is clearer. I think bedroom pop is like, Clairo, or artists like that. I feel like I’m at a point now where I can consider myself an indie pop artist with a little bit of jazz and R&B and alternative. I’m into pretty much everything, so you could describe my sound I guess as anything other than like, country? I try to pull from a lot of different genres.

Bre: I used to hate country music but then I worked at a satellite location of Rita’s out in Lancaster, and the only station they got all day was a country station. I used to think it was so annoying but then one day I was like, “…fine.”

What’s your opinion on dating other musicians?

Kevin: I won’t do it. Unless I really like them, then it’s not a total deal breaker. But kind of like what I said before, dating someone is an escape from the music aspect of me. I want someone to be supportive of what I do musically, but at the same time, I also want to meet someone who’s into sports or like, video games or whatever. Or if I dated a musician and they wanted to work with me, what if I’m not into what they’re doing? It might get really messy.

Emily: That’s fair. That’s a smart answer. Bre and I have not learned that lesson yet, so we continue to date musicians.

Kevin: Musicians are emotional. They open up, so it’s easy to fall into that.

Emily: My biggest issue with dating musicians isn't necessarily the emotional part. It's more of the purposeful unavailability. Even though everybody's busy, musicians are like, “I have absolutely no time for anybody but myself.” And I'm like, “how are you like a functioning person with, like, friends and stuff?” That's not an excuse in my opinion.

Kevin: I definitely did that right after I broke up with my first ex. I was kind of like, “I'm going to focus on music. So that means I don't have time to care about other people.” But I was very unhappy. All right. You need. When I was doing this single for a while I kind of felt like, “how could somebody be a musician and also be with somebody?” And now that I'm like with somebody in a good relationship, I’m like, “how did I go without this?”

Bre: One of my least favorite things about dating musicians is the lack of availability - not in the sense that they’re lying, but more of the way that they use it as an excuse to not say what they’re really feeling. There’s one quote that I like that says, “we look for signs that they love us, but really the fact that you need to look for those signs means that they aren’t really there. “ Like, they have an extra wall of protection around them.

Kevin: It just all circles back to unrequited love again.

Emily: Right - like, acknowledge the fact that maybe there are no signs rather than looking or waiting for signs that aren’t there. You can still love them but you have to understand that they might not love you. I went on a date with a musician a few months ago, and right at the end of the date he pretty much said, “Just so you know, I am way too busy and if I start to like you too much, I’ll stop myself and we won’t see each other. I don’t have the time to see anyone.” And I was like “…why are we here then?”

Kevin: He ghosted you in the middle of the date. [I ugly laughed at this because yes musicians can be this ridiculous] [I’m still gonna date them, though]

Emily: Essentially. Wait, Bre - tell him about your Tinder story.

Bre: I had a Tinder account with almost 7,000 matches, and boys got so mad that I wasn’t talking to them that they reported me and I got banned from the app. I wasn’t a bot!

Emily: The only time their feelings come out is when they’re mad.

Bre: I wanted to download it again during the quarantine because I haven’t been able to go to concerts and I’ve been looking for new ways to promote all my projects, and Tinder just released their “passport” setting so now my location is Nashville and I’m plugging all my stuff.

Kevin: That’s the pettiest thing I’ve ever heard. Men are so, so petty.

[our closing note was agreeing that men are so, so petty]

After we closed out the questions, the three of us stayed on the Zoom call for twenty extra minutes and just chatted. We knew nothing about Kevin going into this and we both agreed that this might be one of our favorite features so far. We also happened to time this interview extremely well because Kevin dropped a single called “3:30am” at midnight after we talked. Despite the fact that he’s a social media ghost, he has some TBA performance plans for later this fall that we can’t wait to hear more about.

Throughout the interview we curated a list of songs that were brought up or that reminded us of topics we talked about. If you need to sit in your bag for a while, listen to our and Kevin’s most emo songs, and end on Katy Perry to pull yourself back out.

The Date Where Kevin Walkman Clocks In His Sad Boy Hours