“I write about the growing pains of life,” said Ojai-native artist Kelsey Klein. “In each stage of our life, there are new growing pains. There are new challenges. There are new things we have to overcome. The overarching theme of the album is that even through all the growing pains, beautiful things can come from each stage of life.”
The album, La Fabrique Sessions, is the product of more than 10 years of thoughtful writing, rewriting, and reflection. Each of the songs were written at different pivotal moments in Klein’s life and reflect each of the relevant concerns at that time.
“You can only recognize those growing pains after going through them,” said Klein.
Klein is not new to music. She has been singing “as long as I’ve been able to speak” and playing piano “as long as I could sit up on the piano bench myself.” She began her classical training on the piano from the time she was 5 for about 10 years thereafter. With a piano as a centerpiece in both her childhood home and her grandparents’ home, the instrument was a childhood staple.
Klein’s grandfather was also a painter, which she draws information from. “He was always encouraging me and my sisters to express ourselves freely. He didn’t even believe in art classes because he didn’t want our styles to be influenced. He wanted to see what would come out of us organically,” Klein said.
Klein’s mother was also a music artist. During the time she was being classically trained on the piano, she saw firsthand “my mother singing and songwriting in her own natural way without the classical influence.”
At age 10, Klein started writing her own songs, thanks to her teacher’s flexible approach that allowed for individuality. By 12, she was composing her own songs. By 14, Klein was able to put together full songs with full verse and chorus.
“That value was really encouraged in my family of seeing who we truly were and that individuality was celebrated,” said Klein.
For her senior project in high school, Klein compiled a CD of 12 songs and performed shows around town. After high school, she set off for Los Angeles, where she pursued the music industry in many different capacities. She spent several years writing for other artists. However, this is Klein’s first official release.
Klein’s songwriting process is impromptu and spontaneous. If she is stuck and unable to come up with a melody, she starts playing songs she’s already written or classical pieces, which often spark subsequent ideas from those compositions. In other cases, she has even been driving in the car and will hear a melody in her head and sing it into her voice memos, courtesy of her iPhone.
Klein’s songs are based on her life perspective, ranging from herself, to loved ones, to experiences. “I really like my songs to feel almost like a film photograph. It’s capturing one specific moment and those moments, you can’t contrive them.”
Her six-track album follows suit with this sentiment, with each song covering a wide range of topics of the growing pains that Klein has experienced in her own life.
“It starts at 13 and follows the arc of a woman’s life,” said Klein. “Some of it’s about me and some of it’s about other people. But, if you follow it, there’s a beginning of a woman’s life and then you travel through darker periods when we pass into young adulthood. Then at the end, it’s about my dad and he passed away from dementia two years ago. So the last two songs are about him.”
Klein used her music as an outlet for this difficult time in her life. “As you grow up, you’ll experience these great losses. But even still, there’s beauty in it.”
With soft sounds of piano and reflective lyricism, Klein’s album is best listened to “when you have a moment to be a little bit meditative because the lyrics are really important to me,” said Klein.
The album is available for listening on all streaming platforms following its release on June 27. Klein is looking to play throughout the local area in the upcoming months and possibly add more elements into these songs in the future, which are acoustic as of right now.
“I’m not putting too much pressure on myself or on the release. I’m just letting the music be itself in the world instead of trying to have these expectations for it,” said Klein. “Music is not really mine to hold onto; it’s meant to be shared.”
For more information and links to music, see kelseyklein.com.
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