Notes read “Punch Line”
Kieler Avery released her latest EP “Punch Line” based on her personal experiences and teenage life which has had a great emotional impact on her.
Vibrations from the guitar’s tunes bounce off the walls of the room and soft murmurs of unfinished song lyrics begin to fill the room. This is what Artist and junior Kieler Avery has gone through for the past few months before releasing her latest Extended Play (EP) “Punch Line.” The EP is based on Avery’s personal experiences and overall feel of her teenage years.
“Any sort of writing that you plan on releasing to everyone is a vulnerable thing. That alone is scary because these are experiences and [feelings] that I’m giving to people, and saying I hope you understand the way I feel is probably the most challenging thing,” Avery said.
From a young age, Avery has had big ambitions to be on stage. Avery’s mother, Kerie Muller reminisced when Avery was three and saw her brother on stage, marveling where the spotlight lit. Muller described that despite Avery being shy, she had gone on stage at the age of four and auditioned with a song from American artist Taylor Swift. According to Muller, that moment had changed Avery’s life.
“We’ve [Avery’s family] known she was gonna do something with music most of her life,” Muller said. “I was pretty impressed with her. I am like oh my gosh she’s got a knack for this.”
The ambition and love she has for music are what drove Avery to cultivate her craft and release music of her own. In support of her daughter, Muller had found a studio to professionally record Avery’s music. Through some promotion and effort, Avery was able to get one of her songs, antisocial, on the radio. Antisocial was the first song to be written for the EP and focuses on expressing the feelings of growing up.
“A lot of the songs are based on personal [experiences]. But, I feel like a lot of people could relate,” Avery said. “Especially now with everything going on and growing up, people have so many expectations of teenagers to know exactly what they want to do when they’re 17-18 years old, which is so mind-blowing.”
The EP took around a year to produce and release and each song has its own unique process. Avery explains that some songs took as long as a day to write, while other songs took longer because of their emotional impact. Avery worked closely with her producer to record and produce each song, constantly brainstorming and listening for chords to improve.
“I have an acoustic song called Hurt on the EP, but that took one day [to write]. [Yet,] it was the hardest song to record because [it]’s the most emotionally vulnerable [to me],” Avery said. “It’s different with every song but most of the time, you just go in and you’re like, this is what I want, and this is what I want to do. Then you work together to make it happen.”
Despite a year of struggle to promote her music due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she continued to perform even if it was only in front of small crowds like the Pumpkin Patch Bonita on Oct. 17, 2020. Among those who watched Avery perform, her best friend and junior Arianna Ramirez was there to show her support as one of Avery’s biggest fans.
“I went to [Avery’s] very first show at the pumpkin patch. Since then, she’s been having shows every other weekend [and] I go to all of them. It’s super cool to see her engaging with the audience and telling jokes. It’s so surreal to me because I know her and she’s good at what she does,” Ramirez said.
Avery is determined to make a name for herself and have a big breakthrough. She works countless hours on her music and expresses her grand passion for songwriting and performing.
“I just want people to listen and I want them to care. A hard thing to do is to get into music, but I think I’m passionate enough. If I just keep working, then people will eventually start caring. I want to be a singer when I get older, I want to do this forever,” Avery said.
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