[dropcap letter=”T”]aylor Bickett is a singer, songwriter and musician from Carmel, Indiana who has pursued her love of music at Belmont University. While in college, she’s discovered her love for songwriting and has gotten popular for her covers and original songs on Tik Tok. She collaborates with other artists, covers songs beautifully, and plays her own songs along with guitar or piano. Her first single will be released in 2021, and she has much more content on the horizon.
Tell us about your musical background.
I have always been doing music in some capacity. I started out in musical theatre camps and choir. I was in the Indianapolis Children’s Choir. I started taking voice lessons when I was nine, and have been performing since then. I was in show choir in high school, that was a big thing for me, as well as lots of musical theater. I performed a lot around Carmel and Indy whenever I could. Then I auditioned for Belmont. I knew I wanted to do music, but that was about it. Once I got into Belmont I realized that I love songwriting. I’d written a few things, but it was never really something I focused a lot on. When I got to college it was pretty much all I did. Now it’s my favorite part about music, which is crazy because I started it so late. At Belmont, I wrote a lot, sang a lot, and I performed around Nashville. Then, March rolled around and I was really bored so I got a Tik Tok and started posting. Things started taking off which was cool. I posted a few covers that did really well, then I was bored one day and had written something that I thought was good, and I was like, “Oh, this will be a filler video I’ll just post this little song I wrote.” It massively blew up. It was a big confidence boost for me and my writing because I was like, “people that I’ve never met actually think what I am writing is good, and they relate to it, and it makes them feel things.” From that point on I turned my profile into songs I mostly write. It’s been really fun. I just got done recording and setting things up for my first single which will come out in the new year. I’m so excited and going to see where that takes me.
Tell us about the mix you curated.
I chose these songs because they’re some of my favorites right now! A lot of them have really specific and unique lyrics, which is something that I’m always striving for in my writing.
What artists are killing the game right now?
I am obsessed with Lizzy McAlpine. She is a singer/songwriter and I found her through Instagram. She does Tik Tok now too, and I love her songwriting. Her career has skyrocketed in 2020. I love Lennon Stella, Chelsea Cutler, and Julia Michaels. Conan Gray, he’s a big Tik Tok artist and his music is awesome.
Tell me about your past and current music projects.
The song that I am releasing was the first one that really blew up for me on Tik Tok. I started writing it in April, but didn’t finish it until July. It took me way longer than I expected to write it and in hindsight I’m glad it did, because I think I needed that time to make the finished product. I started recording it in October and got everything done in November. I am going to send it to stores this month. That has been really cool, because I didn’t know that much about releasing music. I have written songs with two other artists that have released them, so I got to see it from that side as the writer, but not as the artist. Upcoming I’ve got a list of songs that I want to work through to release after this one. Through social media, I’ve had a photographer reach out to me and she offered to take photos for me for free just to connect and post about each other. It’s been a really cool process and made me feel like an actual artist instead of a music student.
What are your interests outside of music?
I like to sometimes write short stories. I am not very good at them, but I’m getting better. I like to practice that. I make a lot of collages. Anything artistic I like to do. I’m not very good at drawing, but I love putting stuff together and anything you can make I like to do. I also love to read, that’s something that I fell out of practice when I had to read so much for school, but I’m getting back into it.
