When FaceTiming with the Arkansas-born and Texas-raised Kennedy Evans through a drive-thru at McDonald’s, one may feel like this is a common occurrence that takes place among a generation that’s infatuated with their phones. However, many don’t know that she’s a talented artist who has taken a leap into the world of dream-pop and alternative R&B musical genres — one a subgenre of alternative rock and the other pushing away from the traditional characteristics of contemporary R&B.
Evans, whose professional name is Elaine, started producing music back in December 2018 from her bedroom. However, she’s been writing music her entire life. She plays three instruments — guitar, a bit of piano, and violin. Her hobbies outside of music include gaming and writing stories and her major is marketing, so Elaine’s sense of creativity isn’t surprising.
The songs that she releases aren’t for “kicks and giggles.” While speaking with her, she stated the ultimate reason why she wanted others to listen to her music: “I really wanted to make stuff that other people could hear.”
But she doesn’t stop there. She wants her music to reach everybody from different backgrounds. Most importantly, she wants to target those who are like her the most. “I want to target everybody. But mostly the people that are like me. The people that don’t know how to get their words out.”
When asked about her music career, she describes it as being relaxing but says that her worst pains come from writer’s block. She even expressed wanting to switch things up a bit in the future with the songs that she creates after I asked her if she wanted to stick solely with dream pop and alternative R&B. “I would love to expand my horizons. I love all genres. I think it would be awesome if I could make something super cool.”
On August 9, Elaine’s EP Unhinged was released on all streaming platforms. As of October 2019 on YouTube, each of her songs from the EP has between 600 and 1,000 views. The inspiration for the EP’s name was described as a form of removal and reveal. “It was like taking the door off. Breaking it off. Unhinging the door, and just letting everything out. I feel like my conservative upbringing and growth are shown in my music, me just pretty much getting loose, after being tight all of these years.”
Elaine says her favorite track off of Unhinged is “Beauty.Brains” — “I’ve been dreaming about this person my entire life. The person that I just saw as being the perfect person for me and I feel like I wrote about this person, even though I’ve never met them at that point in my life. I just wanted to get it out, put it on a page, put it into a song, and produce it.”
When speaking about her most meaningful track, she paused for a moment and quickly stated it was “Love Disease.” “The song is about my sexuality and figuring out who I am. The struggle of feeling like I genuinely had a disease. That I needed help. Not knowing what to do and slowly figuring out that it’s okay to be breathing the kind of air that I breathe.”
For songs outside of Unhinged, however, she was unable to come up with a definitive answer on what her most important piece was. “I think all of my songs have been quite important to me. It feels like I’m writing down a piece of me every time I release something. As much as I do love certain songs, I feel like all of them come together to make something bigger.”
When thinking of places to perform, Madison Square Garden isn’t at the top of her list. She even asked if she could include somebody she would want to perform with. “It’s so long-shotty, but can it be with someone? Okay, I would love to perform at a music festival and have Florence + the Machine. That would be a milestone. That would make me feel accomplished. That’s all I want.”
Her dream collabs consist of Conan Gray, Lorde, Florence + the Machine (a level where she feels that she wouldn’t even be able to breathe) and Boy Pablo.
As our conversation came to an end, she mentioned a new song that she has in the works. “I’m actually working on this one song right now, that I plan on releasing on SoundCloud. It’s pretty much about me meeting the girl of my dreams.”
For more updates on Elaine’s work, you can check out her Instagram, Spotify and Soundcloud!