Interview With Kristen Merlin

Photo credit: Matt Gleason

After placing in the Top 5 on season 6 of The Voice, Team Shakira’s Kristen Merlin has been constantly on the move, touring the country and releasing her debut EP Boomerang. As an avid fan of the show who voted for Kristen during the competition, I was excited to chat with her about filming The Voice and learn more about what she’s been up to since then.

Beeb Ashcroft: How did you connect with producer Corey Britz [of the band Bush]?

Kristen Merlin: Corey and I actually met at the wrap party at the end of season 6 of The Voice. He was involved in some of the iTunes behind-the-scenes kind of things. We exchanged numbers and he said he had a studio, and later on down the road I shot him a message to see if he wanted to work on this project with me, and he jumped on board right away so it was awesome.

Beeb Ashcroft: On your EP, all the songs are written by you except for “Boomerang”, which Corey co-wrote. What was it about that song that stood out to you so much that you wanted to record it?

Kristen Merlin: We were going through songs to figure out what we wanted to put on this EP, and he went through a folder of things that he had worked on. He wasn’t even gonna show me – [he] had kinda scrolled through and gone, “Oh, that was a really beautiful one,” and I said, “Well, which one? Are you gonna show me?” So he showed me it and I think it was just – Kara Britz [Backup vocalist in The Voice band] is his sister and he co-wrote it with Kara, and she was the one on the demo of it, vocally, and it was just amazing – it was just the piano and her voice and it was so pure. And lyrically, it moved me. I kept playing it over in my head and the next morning when I went back to the studio, it was still stuck in my brain and I was like, “Corey, I have to have that song. I wanna cut that.” He said, as long as Kara’s on board, you can have it! And all was well.

Beeb Ashcroft: Do you find that real emotional connection is important to you with a song?

Kristen Merlin: Absolutely. It’s hard to – you want to pick songs that you can actually connect to, or make sure that you can convey a message through yourself singing that to an audience member. There are songs that are just fun to sing, but then there are songs that carry a lot of meaning. So, for me I like the meaningful songs.

Beeb Ashcroft: Was it challenging on The Voice, since you have to sing such a plethora of songs and you don’t get to choose all of them. How do you find a connection with a song that, say, you’eve been given to perform but maybe wouldn’t have chosen yourself?

Kristen Merlin: You have to really live with the song for a while. And I actually ran into that a couple of times on The Voice, but certainly with “Foolish Games”, I struggled with that one a lot. And I actually fought Shakira on it. I didn’t wanna do it even though I suggested it originally! (laughs) But I gathered myself and I wasn’t feeling it, I wasn’t connecting with it; it was just a song I was signing and I was like, “That hasn’t been me this whole time on the show and I don’t wanna just do a song just to do a song.” So I went through it with the vocal coach Trelawny [Rose] and we hacked it out for like an hour or so trying to find something. And eventually somewhere along the line things clicked with me and I found meaning for it, and all of a sudden it just became alive.

Beeb Ashcroft: Tell me about the other songs on this EP that you’ve written. What was the inspiration behind them and what made you pick those out of things you’ve written?

Kristen Merlin: There were several songs that I had to kinda go through that were my own songs. Corey and I sat down and were trying to figure out which of them would go well together on one disc, and which ones kinda brought the best of different parts of me. So there’s one that was just a fun party song, “Pocket Love Song”, it’s kinda upbeat, bubbly. Same with “A Little While” – it’s the most country one, I feel, classic country. And then there were some that were just vocally strong, “Confusion” being that one for sure. And “For Now” ended up just being a beautiful song that we finished – I wrote it years ago, only the beginning part of it – couldn’t finish it, had writer’s block. I sat down with Corey and was like, “Hey, if we have time, can we see if we can get this done?” So I played it for him and he picked up his guitar and started playing, and him and Justin [Derrico] wrote the instrumental pieces to it and made it sound beautiful. And then I finished the lyrics for it and it was awesome. Unexpected song that came out of that whole trip out to LA and it ended up being one I definitely wanted to put on the EP.

Beeb Ashcroft: There was a really cute story behind “Pocket Love Song” – do you want to tell our readers how the title came about?

Kristen Merlin: I wrote this song and I always get excited when I write songs, so I immediately want to play it out at my shows. I kept bringing it around to my shows and because it was newly written, I had the lyrics in my pocket. So then I would pull it out of my pocket every time I’d go to play, until someone asked me at a show, “Well, what’s the name of that song?” “I don’t have a name for it yet.” My best friend was in the audience, and she yelled out, “Pocket Love Song!” purely for the fact that I kept pulling the lyrics out of my pocket. So it stuck, and every time someone requested it, it became the Pocket Love Song.

Beeb Ashcroft:I love it! Speaking of touring, what was it like for you performing on The Voice tour?

Kristen Merlin: Oh my goodness, that was amazing. That is something that I was so excited about, to learn that I was voted back on the tour as a fan favorite to join the tour. And then to do so many cities in such a small period of time, was crazy, but it was so fun. Constantly on the move, constantly doing stuff, and it’s a different city every day. It was an amazing experience to get to know other Voice members, people that weren’t on my season – me and Tessanne [Chin] actually became really close on that tour, and had it not been for the tour, I never would have gotten that friendship out of it.

Beeb Ashcroft: The Voice schedule is so intense – you talked about the touring schedule, but I’m sure filming the show is even more so. How do you deal with being on the go that much?

Kristen Merlin: Well thankfully, before that my life had kinda been just as crazy! (laughs) Constantly on the go, and I’m the type of person that, when I have downtime, I really don’t know what to do with it. I’m OK with being busy all the time. But along with just being busy came a lot of stress when I was on the show, because of constant work and needing to continue to grow and excel and learn and become better as an artist, and you know, it’s a competition so you want to come out on top. But, certainly worth the whole whirlwind of a year of no sleep. (laughs)

Beeb Ashcroft: What has been the most significant thing that’s changed in your life since you’ve been on The Voice?

Kristen Merlin: For me, I think the growth of my fan base was the biggest change, which was really exciting for me. I still have my crew that supported me before the show and before they had any idea that I was doing any of this stuff, and they would always be out at the shows and supporting me and rooting me on, and wanting me to do some original stuff. Then to learn of all the new fans that I acquired throughout the show was really cool. Coming home and actually getting to meet someone when I’m just out randomly, at the supermarket or anywhere I go, people are stopping me to say “Hi” and congratulations and take pictures, so that’s really cool for me. And then the next thing would be putting out my EP and having original music out there, so now the fans that I’ve built through the show doing a bunch of covers, can now grasp on to who I am as an artist, and really get involved in my career for myself.

Beeb Ashcroft: What was it like working with Shakira? Are you still in touch with her now that the show is over?

Kristen Merlin: We try to kinda keep in contact every now and then. She’s been kinda crazy busy doing a ton of other things in her career and being a mom, so I keep in touch with her manager every now and then, and they help me, they tweeted out about my EP and everything which I’m super grateful for – it’s just nice to see that she still supports me, post-show, and she supported me throughout the whole show.

Beeb Ashcroft: Do you have any plans to come back to The Voice this season to perform some of your new music?

Kristen Merlin: If I could make something like that happen, absolutely, I would love to get back with The Voice family and again, share everything that I’m currently working on with The Voice audience again.

Beeb Ashcroft: Carson calls it “The Voice Family”, and it seems like you guys really do have that camaraderie. Competing on this show is such a unique experience, and I think it would be hard to relate to unless you’d been there.

Kristen Merlin: Yeah, and it’s funny because people ask, “Is that real? Are you guys really that close?” You would just spend day in and day out, every waking moment with all these people that are going through the same thing you’re going through. And it’s such a crazy experience, and to have everyone like that going through the same thing, and lean on each other even though you’re competing against each other, it’s a really neat relationship that you end up building with people. I mean, people can listen to it, but unless you’re going through it and feeling all the crazy emotions that you go through, it’s really hard to put yourself in that position.

You can get Boomerang now on iTunes and KristenMerlin.com. For news and tour dates, be sure to follow Kristen on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.