ANAHEIM, Calif. - Tori Kelly didn't make the final cut on American Idol; instead, she found fame via YouTube.
After getting eliminated from Idol, she retreated to her bedroom, where she began singing songs into her webcam and posting them on YouTube. Now she has a record deal and a high-powered Los Angeles manager who also oversees the career of Justin Bieber. We sat down with Kelly recently at a music industry conference and talked about the role technology is playing in helping new artists break through.
SOCIAL-MEDIA PLATFORM
During her shows, she turns her iPhone to the audience and records 15-second video clips of fans hooting and hollering and posts them on the spot. 'I rely on Instagram, Twitter and Vine to get myself out there. Before, the traditional way was to get signed, and go through all those types of things, but now you can literally do it with a webcam, your cellphone and just a love of music.'
Vine is the Twitter-owned app that lets people get creative in making 6-second video clips. Six seconds for a music clip? 'I put out this one jingle thing that kind of exploded on Vine.' It garnered more than 725,000 views. She was driving, arrived at a stoplight, and made up a little song that she sang into the iPhone. 'Then it was, 'Oh my gosh,' people started re-Vining it. People started coming up to me, `Aren't you that girl from Vine?' It was crazy.'
ACOUSTIC VS ELECTRIC
Unlike many young musicians who use computer technology, drum machine beats and plugged-in guitars, Kelly uses an acoustic Taylor guitar. She likes the raw sound of the instrument. 'It started out by not having the budget to have a band, so I just did shows with a guitar. Now I feel like even if my style changes over the years, the raw, acoustic vibe will always be woven into my music.'
She composes songs by humming melodies and lyrics into the Voice Memos app on the iPhone. She also likes:
* Awesome Note, (Apple, $3.99; also available for Galaxy Note) an organizer, for keeping track of her lyrics. 'It gives you folders, makes it organized and stuff. You can put a password on there so people can't steal it.'
* Afterlight (Apple, Android, 99 cents). She uses the app to edit and pretty up camera phone images. 'It has cool filters and stuff; I just like it.'
* Candy Crush Saga (free; Apple, Android.) She can't let go of 2013's most popular game. 'I'm an addict. It's bad. I play it every night before I go to bed. It's therapeutic. It makes you feel like you can forget the world for a second and get lost in Candy Crush.'
Tori Kelly(Photo: Jefferson Graham)
Follow @JeffersonGraham on Twitter.
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