For Emily Kinney, music and acting have always existed side by side.
She may always be “Beth Greene from The Walking Dead,” and even gets recognized on dating apps as Beth. Her most prominent role was Beth, but she’s also appeared on Showtime’s Masters of Sex and even guest starred on the CW’s The Flash and Arrow.
But all of this is fodder for her most personal form of expression: as an acoustic singer/songwriter, though she’s often backed by a band. And she’s just dropped Swimteam, a compelling new album.
Kinney refuses to be pigeonholed, and for almost a decade has released introspective, catchy singer/songwriter albums, starting with 2014’s Expired Love. A coincidence that this is the same year Beth died?
Kinney went on to release This is War (2015), took a detour with the electronica-tinged Oh Jonathan in 2018 and returned to roots for 2021’s The Supporting Character, one of her most fully realized recordings.
Now she’s back with the brand-new Swimteam, a mediation largely concerned with one of her oft-visited topics: breakups. The album is typically endearing, accessible, and engaging, much like her previous works. The work was created during the pandemic, though the breakup that inspired it took place just before COVID-19 ravaged the land. One of the album’s key tracks is also the first video, “B or C For Effort,” featuring one of her best turn of phrase/delivery combos, revolving around a tossed-off “I guess,” delivered just perfectly after the title line.
Kinney, 39, now lives full-time in Los Angeles. But we talked to her on Zoom from New York City, where she was visiting in preparation for a show and a session with Leesta Vall Sound Recordings.
Your music feels very autobiographical. Some singer/songwriters write from the point-of-view of characters, more like a short story. Is it fair to say most or all of your songs are about you as an individual?
Definitely. Sometimes I’ll take inspiration from other people, like the way they describe something. The reason for it resonating is because I can relate to it. Like the song “False Start” on the album, someone had described to me relationships that they had had. He said “oh I’ve had one long relationship and then a few false starts. It stuck with me. What a way to describe meeting people or smaller, shorter relationships. As false starts, you know? So I do take a lot of inspiration from other people but because it’s my point of view, it becomes about something that I’m going through.
How did you start playing music?
I’ve been singing since I was really little, ever since I was probably three or four. My parents had a Carpenters record, so Karen Carpenter was my first teacher. It was a greatest hits album, so I listened to that over and over again. Then it was Duck Tales. I would record songs from cartoons and learn them. I was really into the music my parents would listen to, music on tv. I remember I really loved Sound of Music and The Little Mermaid as a little kid. “I learned ‘Part of Your World’ and I’m going to sing it for you.” Songwriting wasn’t something I really took seriously until I moved to New York City. I was always writing in high school and college, but I really loved to learn other people’s songs. I would write poems, but I wouldn’t put the two together. The poems felt like something just for myself. When I moved to New York City and I started singing backup for a couple of bands and I met my good friend Conrad. He’s a bass player. I would send him my songs and he would say “Oh you shouldn’t sing backup, you should do your own music. At the time, I only knew how to play piano and he said “if you’re going to be a songwriter you need to learn to play guitar.”
So I started trying to learn songs. I had just gotten a tour for a play, so that was when I learned guitar. I had a lot of time. You would be in a city for a full week or two weeks, doing this play. Sometimes even a month. So I had a lot of time during the day to figure stuff out. So that was when I kind of taught myself.
When we’re kids, we all have what might be called pipe dreams. But you somehow got to live a lot of people’s dreams. When you were asked “What do you want to be when you grow up?” was it an actress, a singer/songwriter? If it was an astronaut, that didn’t work out.
It was a singer. I really wanted to be a singer. That’s what I would tell people. I started to realize what resonated with me was the story part of it. To be honest, I would feel like I was really good at acting. When I moved to New York City, I would go to auditions, and I would feel like there was momentum there. I loved stories and words and reading. So acting became the focus for me. You want to go where you’re wanted, in a certain way. Singing led me to musical theater, which led me to hone my acting skills. I started out as a music major in college. Then I quit my music major to do theater. For whatever reason that world resonated with me.
Let’s talk about the song “Avett Brothers.” It’s about a T-shirt that belonged to an ex and has nothing really to do with the actual band. But if they reached out and asked you to participate in a cover, would you do it?
Oh my God, of course! I’m such a fan. I listened to I And Love And You (2009) a bunch when I was first writing music. Like that tour, I was talking about when I was trying to teach myself guitar. So they’re a huge inspiration as far as songwriting. They’re storytellers but they’re not always sticking to form. That song is about connecting to the people you love through the art that you love. Movies that you love. When you first meet someone, friend, romantic, whatever, when you say “Oh my God I love that movie too!” It’s the same thing with music.
Speaking of influences, there’s a lot of Rilo Kiley and Jenny Lewis in your music. You’ve talked about being a fan. Tell me a little about your love of the band and what your favorite album from them is.
It’s hard for me to pick. The album Take Offs And Landings (2001) is one I listened to a lot when I was making Swimteam. Jenny Lewis (Rilo Kiley vocalist) has lots of new music. I love “Puppy and a Truck.” I didn’t know Rilo Kiley, and my roommate in college listened to them. Up until that point I was more into my parents’ music and Beach House, Mariah Carey. I loved pop, mainstream stuff. And then in college my roommate loved the bands on Saddle Creek Records. Bright Eyes, Cursive, these Omaha bands.
A lot of your songs are about breakups. On the one hand, you have real success as an actress, or a singer. On the other, you seem to have had bad luck with relationships. Is there a contradiction in having huge success with one thing, but another is a little out of your grasp?
The career itself, moving from Nebraska to New York City, trying to pursue a career that’s very unpredictable, doesn’t lend itself to the most stable of relationships. I’ve learned that relationships thrive in environments that feel safe and comfy and stable. Although I’ve gotten to meet a lot of really cool people, I don’t know that as a twentysomething I was conscious of how that would affect my personal relationships. Not even just romantic relationships. I think you hear it more in The Supporting Character, how my career has affected my family and my friendships and my ability to connect with certain people. There’s patterns. I’m in therapy, so I recognize certain patterns. Now I’m in a great relationship and I recognize certain patterns. I think a lot of times when I look back, relationships happened and fell apart and didn’t happen. You have to actually cultivate them. That’s something I learned in my last relationship, the relationship that Swimteam is kind of about, the breakup. I’ve been trying to practice cultivating a relationship. Setting aside the same time for a relationship that you do for your other personal goals.
You’ve mentioned in other interviews that you’re on Tinder. That must be unusual at times. Does anyone ever match with you and say “Hey, you’re Beth from The Walking Dead?”
I’m not on Tinder, but during the pandemic, I was on this thing called Raya. It’s a dating app that’s specifically for more people who work in the industry. So, you did kind of know. But sometimes it was odd because you would get people saying “oh my god, I watched you die!” You’re like “I don’t know if this is gonna…” (shrugs).
How did you choose “Swimteam” to be the title track?
I picked it because of “False Start.” I had written a few other songs before it, but once I wrote “False Start” I thought “This is either an EP or an album, and this is what it’s about.” So originally, I thought “False Start” would be a good name for a whole album. As I went along, I started to feel like the line “I kind of want to quit swim team entirely” just kept resonating with me and I felt like the whole album should be Swimteam. And the idea of incorporating water. There’s a song in particular, “No Man’s Land,” that’s about looking up through the water, not quite seeing things clearly.
Tell me a bit about your songwriting process. Let’s take “B or C for Effort” as an example. Walk it through from idea to the finished product in the video.
There’s a line “if love is a class he’s the one that can’t focus sittin’ in the back / We let him out in the world despite the skills he lacks.” That little stanza, I had written down in a journal to save. I knew that it was exactly how I was feeling at the moment and I wanted to turn it into something. Then I kinda forgot about it until after an interview with Tim Kasher from Cursive. I was doing this podcast called My Caffeine Withdrawal where I had coffee with musicians I liked. He had really inspired me to—I guess—not quit. Not that I was really going to quit but I was like “I don’t really have anything to say. I don’t know where it leads.” That interview in particular was especially fun and inspiring. That night, I was looking through my journal and I found that stanza. I was like “oh yes, I know what I want to say about this.” And I wrote “B or C for Effort.” This happens a lot with my songs where I have one particular line. Maybe it’s the main chorus line or maybe it’s just in the verse. But it becomes the thing that I’m building the song around. In this case, it was the idea that I’m going to give a grade to this relationship.
Your most streamed song on Spotify is “Parting Glass” from The Walking Dead. Is it hard to break out of tv and get into music? Do you ever feel typecast as Beth from The Walking Dead?
I do feel like because of Walking Dead and because they resonated with Beth or another show, then they find my music. So it brings me an audience and it brings me a lot of power in my artistry, my ability to be a musician. The music industry is different from acting, and it’s difficult in a lot of ways. There are so many gatekeepers. I feel like the success I’ve had in acting has allowed me to cultivate my own little business and my own fanbase that is unique to me. If you look at my streaming numbers, they’re not as high as a lot of people, yet I’m able to do a lot of things with my music. I have real fans who come to shows and buy merchandise. I’m really able to continue my career as an artist and support myself with it. Despite that, I’m not always in the more mainstream music world. I’m not on a huge label. Even with Spotify, I’m not necessarily playlisted with them. I find that’s given me a lot of power.
I’m thankful that I have this beautiful acting career that—in some ways—has fed my music career. Music is so fun for me. There are pros and cons of both careers. In acting, someone has to pick you. In music, I just write songs and I can play a small show anywhere, at a coffee shop or whatever. But in acting you don’t have to be the producer, the creator, or fund everything. In music, you do. You are the creator of the show. You hire the musicians that play with you. You’re not just going up there and performing. In acting, I just focus on performing. I love them both for different reasons.
Speaking of The Walking Dead, how did you feel when you read the screenplay and found out Beth was not long for this world?
I was very sad that day. I was sad until it was all done shooting. Then I was excited to do all the other things.
