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Boone is magnetic to watch interact with people, the way he can make a person instantly feel like he knows them down to the core and puts them at ease.
“Well, I know you’ve piqued a lot of fans' interest with that one,” she says, peeking down at her phone before directing her attention to me. “Now Scarlett, speaking of collabs, I understand that you got your career started by collaborating with other artists?”
I nod.
She pauses for a beat, clearly expecting me to elaborate.
I don’t.
She looks down at her phone again, rattling off a list of songs that I wrote for other artists, many of them Top 100 singles with a few breaking the Top 10 and one number one. “You’ve written so many incredible songs for other artists. Why not keep those as your own from the very beginning?”
Easy.
“No one cares to listen to what a nobody has to say. And that’s who I am. Or I guess, I was,” I correct, the weight of my past anonymity settling deep into my bones. It’s not like I wasn’t aware that choosing to sing my own songs and put my face to my work would undoubtedly unlock a whole new world that I previously was able to stay away from by selling my songs to other artists.
But I still squirm a bit under her gaze and watchful lens of the camera.
“It’s easy to write songs for someone else, let them take the public stage.” I don’t add that it’s easier to keep your own emotions and baggage settled deep when you don’t have to face it every day through the words you cut yourself open with and bleed into the songs. Let someone else take those emotional burdens on through the music.
I also don’t add that when you come from a family like mine, they aren’t exactly jumping for joy when their oldest daughter wants to write songs and sing anything other than hymns. Oh no, no. It wouldn’t be suitable for the preacher’s daughter to step out and muddle the family name with such things.
It’s why I’ll never use my full name for any of my work.
Sensing I’ve lost myself in my head, Boone pipes in, “Scar was one of the most relentless people when it came to bugging me to listen to her music, that it basically came down to blocking the poor girl or listening to what she created.” He gives me a warm smile, which I return.
Early memories of sending Boone DMs with my latest mixes and vocal cuts flit through my mind, hours upon hours I would spend hunched over my laptop in Ableton, mixing really shit mashups together that at the time I thought were pure gold.
Boone sends an elbow into my side, jolting me out of memory lane and back into the interview.
“I don’t know if that’s really how it happened.” I clear my throat, wishing I had grabbed water before sitting down. I pick at one of the holes in my jeans, looking for something to do with my hands. “Boone just happened to be the first one to respond to any of the DMs I sent to a few of my favorite artists, trying to get them to listen to my mixes.”
Boone chuckles, remembering those early days too.
“And did he? Listen to them?” Jada clarifies.
“He did,” I say.
“They were shit,” he responds at the same time.
My turn to sock an elbow into his side, which he dramatically overexaggerates the aggression, even getting an eye roll from Naomi who sits off to the other side of the room, watching the interview with an encouraging smile.
“So how did you come to be on this tour with Boone?”
I tilt my head, thinking about it. Thinking how such a short question could be answered in such a long, long way. How did I get from where I was at eighteen years old, couch surfing from here and there, working on music all day and drinking all night, stumbling my way through life, to now twenty-four years old, being interviewed for my music, about to do my second show for thousands of people on a huge nationwide tour, with my best friend by my side, and sober?
I could give her the logistical answer of how we share the same manager so the contacts for the tour were already there. And how I don’t really have a lot going on for myself outside of working on music, so I didn’t have to do much schedule rearranging.
But that’s not the only reason I’m here. I’m here because Boone vouched for me, over and over, year after year, screwup after screwup. And he never left. He believed in me until I could start believing in myself.
So I answer as honestly and simply as I can. “He took me under his wing at a time when no one else cared if I even woke up that morning.”
9
WALKER
“I think I speak on behalf of all Whisper Me Nothings fans when I say that I am so stoked to see the show tonight and watch you guys back up on that stage, doing what you do best.”
Jada, a woman from one of the local radio stations, leans forward in her chair, resting her elbows on the table in front of her. Either purposely, or accidently, but my money’s on the former, pushing her chest out and letting her top slip a little more than what would be professionally acceptable.
