“I’d rather have longevity than virality” - Avery Kotler delves into her latest single, ‘fault line’
Based in LA, Avery Kotler is a 23-year-old musician and fangirl at heart who cares just as much about her music as she does her fans.
Having deservedly gained over 2,400 monthly Spotify listeners since her debut single, bitter released May 27th of this year, Avery’s latest single (released via Venice Music) is her best yet. With dreamy vocals and acoustic guitar, the lyrical tragedy of the song is the perfect match to it’s addictive, indie-pop beat.
A ballad for the girls who can’t quite let go, fault line is a must-add for your Autumn playlists:
Avery called it “an anthem for when you’ve been trying to make something work that just isn’t going to”, and thanked her collaborators on the fault line release day post this August 21st:
VoiceNoted had the pleasure of talking to Avery Kotler about the story of her latest single and as always, we started from the very beginning:
What first got you into music, and when did you realise you wanted to pursue it professionally?
“Getting into music was honestly through being so terribly uncoordinated at all sports. It was a process of elimination, really. I’ve always been a fangirl and I wanted to learn guitar, so I taught myself through YouTube when I was in the seventh grade. From there, I learned my favourite songs and covers (I think I know how to play every single Taylor Swift song there is), then as I got older and had more life experience, it turned into writing my own.”
On the theme of Taylor Swift, which one of her albums would your song fault line fit best within?
“Lyrically and sonically, it’s feeling Red because I wrote it when I was 22.”
…and if VoiceNoted were to compare fault line to any of the tracks from Red (Taylor’s Version), we’d say that it’s a hybrid of The Moment I Knew and Holy Ground.
How would you describe fault line and where it sits within the story of the music you’ve released so far?
“So far it’s the most me and the closest to what everything else is going to sound like going forward. Earthquake was a little bit more like ballad-y and bitter was more pop, so fault line is the bridge between both of them and I’m kind of hoping to stay in that vein of indie-pop, ‘Gracie Abrams and Phoebe Bridgers had a baby’ type of thing.”
Have you found yourself searching for ‘your sound’ as a newer artist and if so, how has it been to navigate that?
“I’m trying to make music that I would like to listen to, so at the end of the day, I don’t put too much pressure on it. If I started thinking that every song I write has to fit into one sort of sound, I wouldn’t be able to give myself a lot of room to experiment like I am at the moment. Right now, it’s like throwing a bunch of raw ideas and seeing what sticks.
Some of my newer stuff is super pop, but other songs are more folky. It’s kind of all over the place, but I think that’s also a lot of people’s music taste now, and everyone’s going through their day listening to different things.
I went to USC so I was surrounded by a lot of artists, and I’ve found that the more scared you are to just put something out and not let it not be ‘your sound’, the chances are that you’ll go three years without releasing anything.”
What was the process for writing fault line? Do you start with lyrics/melody first or was it written using a journal/notes app?
“I’m constantly journaling, and for fault line specifically, I was in a big writing phase. I remember I was playing the riff on the guitar and that I started with the line ‘maybe we hit a fault line’. For a while, I was doing a thing on TikTok for my friends only where I was trying to write one song a day. I would get stuck with one little riff of fault line, post it, then I wouldn’t come back to it. It was just that for a while until I wrote the second verse/chorus then took it to my producer, Langdon. We tore it apart and put it back together, and that was so fun.
I came up with the bridge idea and I think I wrote the melody for it in high school because I’d just been holding onto it. The whole song was very literal like ‘I’m talking to you’ but the bridge was the actual story and the truth, so making that was my favourite part.”
Are there any lyrics in fault line that are particularly special to you?
“I played you a song about what you did wrong and I watched you sing every line” is my favourite lyric. I like the sassy ones like “What a horrible sentiment you think its a lie, this song’s about you, me and our great demise.”
What inspires you most as a songwriter?
“Everything, but more specifically my friends. I write a lot of songs from my friends’ perspectives because nothing usually happens to me. I think it’s just switching from letting life happen to you, to watching life happen and being inspired by it. A lot of my friends will go through a breakup and I’ll be like ‘sorry, here’s a song though’.
I also love listening to any podcasts like Tape Notes or And The Writer Is… and hearing other peoples perspectives. I’ll be listening to those podcasts, and start writing down ideas for songs because I love hearing about other people’s creative processes. It’s a combination of friends, my own life, and other artists that inspire me.”
You’ve mentioned before that your main musical influences are Gracie Abrams, Lizzy McAlpine and Holly Humberstone. How do you find yourself inspired by their music?
“I think going deeper into that, those are artists that I sound like but I’m honestly more inspired by the music and artists that my parents raised me on like Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith and Brandi Carlisle. I was never allowed to listen to Radio Disney and in the car we’d listen to bands my dad loved like Mud Crud.
I think that when it comes to raw songwriting, those are my true influences. I took from them my knowledge of the raw structure of a song, and having the backbone of knowing all the Beatles songs was instrumental in building what I like to hear and write about.”
We then asked Avery if any songs in particular inspired the songwriting process of fault line, and she credited artists such as Sydney Ross Mitchell, Lizzy McAlpine and Mazzy Star.
Alongside some of Avery’s other favourite songs, we made them into a playlist!
We then discussed how the indie pop genre has changed within the last 5 years:
Not only is indie-pop becoming mainstream, but genre-blending is much more welcomed than ever before. How do you feel that has affected you as a singer-songwriter?
“It’s very freeing, because when I was in high school, I probably would’ve been made fun of for listening to Lizzy McAlpine, for example. People weren’t as accepting of folky, indie pop artists, so I always had this music taste that I wouldn’t play for other people if I was on aux. It’s great to see that people are really excited about indie-pop music right now, and I’m stoked that artists such as Lizzy are paving the way. Another musician I love is Role Model, and he makes some amazing indie-pop, grunge kind of music.
I literally remember playing Phoebe Bridgers’ Stranger in the Alps album in the car with my friends and they were like - ‘what is this’? I kind of credit it to Taylor Swift with Folklore and Evermore in 2020, because those albums brought back the Bon Iver sounds that I’ve always loved and made them mainstream.”
Have you got any advice for other upcoming artists or people who want to make indie-pop music?
“Don’t be so hard on yourself in the beginning stages because that’s going to be the death of most of your good ideas. It’s not about the numbers but about reminding yourself why you like music and why you make it and if a song helps one person or it helps twenty, that’s the whole point. So, I guess just don’t be afraid to make a mistake.”
Have you got plans for fault line to be in a debut EP or are any more singles in the works?
“The plan is kind of to release a song every month and a half-ish until something will move the needle. I would do an EP, but I write so much and I have so many songs, so the easiest way to get them out is to write a song, produce it, and release it as a single.”
Being an indie artist, it’s always great to have loyal fans who won’t just listen to one song, but will love all of them. With that in mind, how are you working to grow your fanbase?
“I obviously would love my song to go viral and have my song do well and labels wanting to sign me but at the end of the day, I care so much as a fangirl. In the way that I connected to Taylor Swift’s lyrics as a kid, I want to be that person for the young girls who were like me - that’s my main priority. I’d rather have longevity than virality, so I’ll go through on my socials and DM people who are Gracie Abrams or Lizzy McAlpine fans and say, ‘hey, I have a new song out that I think you’d like’. I know who my fans are and what they’re listening to, because they’re me.
I try to do as much as I can for them, like I reply to every single comment and we did a Zoom for the fault line release and I got to talk to my fans and build that community.
Nowadays, there are so many artists that go viral online but I think ‘wait - who’s singing?’. So, we’re taking the old school approach of building slowly and authentically.”
Avery’s manager, Lauren Kassin, then gave a mention to Discord as a platform for communicating with fans, explaining how important that engagement is:
“Something that’s very appealing about it is that people can say ‘I found her before she was famous’, like how people say that they followed Gracie Abrams when she was posting covers on her Instagram, or Holly Humberstone before she came out with her debut EP. People really value finding artists before they blow and up and they have that feeling with Avery, so it’s really drawing in fans because they think that she’ll be ‘the next artist to blow up’.”
Avery then added, “I’m stealing this from J. Brown, but everything is so produced and artificial these days, so what kids want now is to find someone instead of be fed someone.”
Discussing the future and any upcoming shows, Avery confessed that she’d love to open for Role Model on his next headline tour. With regards to upcoming releases, Avery said:
“I have so much backstock of music at this point that I just need to get it out. This whole year is going to be me releasing and taking the ‘you miss all the shots you don’t take’ approach. I’m going to see what happens!”
So, if you want the bragging rights of being a fan ‘from the very beginning’, we suggest you follow Avery Kotler on Instagram to stay informed of her upcoming releases, and listen to the rest of her music on Spotify:
