Emily Kinney with Melody Federer
City Winery NYC presents Emily Kinney with Melody Federer live on Monday, November 4th at 7:00 pm!
THE VIP MEET & GREET WILL OCCUR BEFORE THE SHOW AT 5:30 PM.
In competitive swim races, if a swimmer jumps into the pool before the starting signal, they could be disqualified or forced to climb out in front of everybody and start over. It’s an embarrassing scenario for athletes, but the “false start” also serves as a clever metaphor for anyone having to climb out of the pool – wet and shivering – and told to start over.
It’s an allegory the Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and actress Emily Kinney mines for inspiration on her new album, the aptly titled Swim Team. Produced by Kinney’s longtime collaborator Benjamin Greenspan, Swim Team follows 2021’s Supporting Character and 2018’s Oh Jonathan and grapples with the end of a relationship and works through Kinney’s conflicting feelings around the acting industry.
Recalling early-career Rilo Kiley, Swim Team is an expert showcase for Kinney’s vocals, which are both vulnerable and wry as she sizes up an ex on “Broken Air Conditioning”: “I’m a little tired of the measuring stick/ If I wasn’t in love, I’d call you kind of a dick/ I’m a little tired of the broken shower/ Of the IRS/ Of the lack of sex/ I’m so tired, I can’t get out of bed/ You’re sure it’s my fault/ It’s all in my head.”
“It's a breakup album,” Kinney says of Swim Team. “Supporting Character was very much more about my artistic spiritual life, and some of those spiritual themes do show up in the lyrics on Swim Team. But I would say it's more of a breakup album, and also an album about shame and embarrassment.”
Expanding on “Broken Air Conditioning,” Kinney says: "One of my favorite things about dating this person was getting to spend so much time in Nashville. I'd go there every couple of weeks; if I had to film something, I would film and then go to Nashville for a few days, and then come back to LA. I loved that part of the relationship. Even if he wouldn't be there until two days later, and I would be in Nashville by myself, I would be feeling really great. But then as soon as he was there, things became stressful pretty quickly. So, in a way the song is about my frustration and feeling that he destroyed Nashville for me."
Later, Kinney asks herself, “How can I muster the motivation to dive in again?” on the acoustic- led “False Start,” which outlines the aforementioned scenario of jumping off the swimmer’s block too quickly. “Kinda wanna just quit swim team entirely,” Kinney concludes — an all-too- relatable feeling for any listener who has faced rejection and questioned how they would ever start again.
“False Start” connects both dominating threads within the album — the end of a relationship and career doubts, as Kinney explains. “‘False Start’ was written when I was trying to date new people, and I was dealing with a lot of rejection within my acting career. I was feeling like, ‘Dang, I don't want to keep putting myself in this position. Why am I continuing to feel like a loser?’”
Elsewhere, on the delicately fingerpicked “Avett Brothers,” Kinney recalls her ex driving her to the airport as their partnership crumbles around them. “You’re a dinosaur in the museum of my brokenhearted past,” she sighs while tucking away an Avett Brothers T-shirt she held onto from the relationship. “There's always been this joke about stealing T-shirts and sunglasses from people that I date,” she chuckles. “The song started from that joke, because I still had this band T-shirt. Looking back at the relationship, we're just so completely different, but the one way that we connected was with bands that we love, and we both loved that one particular band.”
Meanwhile, anyone who has ever muttered the phrase “the bar is in hell” about mediocre men will adore Kinney’s sweetly sardonic opener, “B Or C For Effort.” Over gently chiming tambourine, twinkling synth, and shuffling percussion, “B Or C” finds Kinney mulling over how her relationship sputtered out with her ex providing the bare minimum: “At the start there was passion, parties, and praise/ By the end there was ‘what’s the point, anyways?’/ You don’t wanna hear about what I did today/ And I don’t wanna step foot on another plane/ For someone who can’t even kiss me hello/ Who has no real interest in spiritual growth/ His apathy finds a way to cut me right to the bone/ I give more, and he gives less/ B or C for effort, I guess.”
“It's my favorite song on the album,” Kinney laughs. “I think that's why I wanted to open with it. It’s like a Yelp review: I'm giving you a B or C for effort, and it's actually pretty generous, especially towards the end. I could have gone lower. I feel like it's a very kind, generous review of the relationship.”
Kinney’s razor-sharp wit trickles down to the country-tinged “It Won’t Last Through The Weekend,” which draws on carnival imagery to process the fact that her ex jumped into a new relationship immediately following their breakup. “A friend and I joked how 'it won't last through the weekend,'" Kinney expands. “But the song is more of a warning. I can see him doing the same things in this new relationship that he did with me. People have patterns.”
Finally, on the beautifully harmonized indie-pop tune “Everything On TV,” Kinney revels in post- relationship freedom and finding all the entertainment she could ever need via TV streaming channels. “I was starting to go on dates here and there,” she says, adding, “And I just didn't want a boyfriend. I had made a joke to a friend like, ‘Oh, what do you want to watch? I have everything. I got Hulu, Netflix, Disney+. I have everything on TV. I don't need anything else.”
Though it contemplates throwing in the towel in uphill battles around work and love, Swim Team is ultimately about making peace with both journeys through music. “My relationship to being an actor is very similar to some kinds of romantic relationships where I feel like acting is kind of like a bad boyfriend,” Kinney says. “I've gotten advice from older actors saying the happiest actors have some other outlet, too. With acting, someone has to pick you; you’re a hired gun. For me, music is a place where I get to own what I’m doing. I get to be the decision maker.
In other words, now Emily Kinney is the captain of her own swim team.
