Feral for real: an interview

Kelsey Ferrell, or “Feral,” a member of UC Berkeley’s very own Songwriting at Berkeley, is a bona fide artist with much to say, in her debut album, Trauma Portfolio (2018), and a lot more coming in both song and stand up comedy. She has just come off of winning the title of the Daily Cal’s Best Local Artist for 2020. This is an interview with one of Berkeley’s most original songwriters. 

Q: How long have you been playing music? Did you start with lessons or are you self-taught?

A: I’ve been writing songs for as long as I can remember. When I was in preschool I used to stand in the corner and sing songs I made up on the spot instead of going and playing with the other kids. When I was 10, my parents finally let me take guitar lessons after a few attempts at piano lessons failed. I took guitar lessons for many years growing up in Santa Cruz and started putting my words to music between 5th grade and 9th grade. Around 9th grade I started getting really self conscious- none of my friends wrote songs and I felt embarrassed of my work. So I stopped writing songs for the rest of high school.

That worked, for a time.

But when I started freshman year at Berkeley, I was completely broken as a person. I had just had a completely brutal breakup and I was more lost than I’d ever been. So first semester of freshman year, I saw songwriting at Berkeley on Sproul and I grabbed a flier. I didn’t go to the meetings right away. I just kept the flier on my bulletin board, hoping I’d be brave enough to make it to a meeting one day.

Finally my second semester I summoned up my courage and went to a meeting, where I met a group of people just like me- who loved to write original music. I was shy at first, just performing covers and not being super proud of anything I’d written.

By the time sophomore year came around, I gave myself a rule: for the year, I wouldn’t play any songs unless I had written them myself. This self-imposed sentence pushed me to create more than I ever envisioned for myself. But after sophomore year, I suddenly had enough songs for an album!

So that summer, after being encouraged by a friend who knew a producer, I started recording in Santa Cruz at The Loud House with Ian Pillsbury— an amazing producer who brought my music to the next level. We recorded and eventually Trauma Portfolio came out in October 2018. 

Q: You’ve performed stand up comedy at open mics alongside your songs. To you, are both of these part of the same set or two separate artistic ventures?

A: Love this question! I think they overlap, for sure. I always try to put a “zinger” in every song and I love to make people laugh. Some of my songs are deeply satirical and ironic and nearly everyone has a play on words at the very least. To me, I think laughter is the most genuine reaction people can give to something. Everybody will clap at the end of the song no matter how good it was, but people don’t fake laughter. It’s the most rewarding thing a performer can receive. So I try to make my songs funny as an extra challenge— can I make this audience laugh, too?

Plus a lot of people tell me that my music makes them cry— so I try to add some comic relief to balance that out.

Writing comedy makes my music better and writing music makes my comedy better. Both are exercising the same skill set in my brain, so doing one really helps with the other. I write satire for The Free Peach and make memes too, and I think it’s all the same creative muscle that’s being exercised.

Q: Do you have any comedic heroes?

A: Hmm, I think I’d have to say Nate Bargatze is my biggest inspiration comedy-wise. But I also love Bo Burnam and his musical comedy! Definitely inspiring.

Q: How has quarantine affected your life? Online classes seem to keep some busier than usual and some with nothing to do. Do you find you have more time to practice and write?

A: Quarantine has definitely affected my creativity. I started a YouTube channel and I’ve gotten back into baking (my first rendezvous with baking was the baking decal I took back in 2018). I also did some GarageBand recordings of some of my newer, unreleased material and came out with an EP that I called The Quarantine Demos. That’s available on bandcamp only. 

I have been writing more music than I did before quarantine, but about the same percentage of it is good/useful — I find that usually half my stuff is up to standard and half is better left unreleased.

Q: Would you say the Quarantine Demos are indicative of where you’re taking your songwriting, or are they just a product of a rampant recording session? Has quarantine allowed you to explore new parts of your past or reflect on what you haven’t had time to ponder?

A: I think they’re a small sample size — they don’t capture the more punk sounding tracks that I have yet to record. They definitely showcase the more singer-songwriter side of me. Quarantine definitely has me exploring the past – I’m in my childhood bedroom and it’s bringing memories up closer to the surface. That’s not to say that’s super unusual for me though; I’m quite an introspective person and I think about my past more than most people. I never healed from any of my wounds, which has provided unending material for songs.

Q: Often artists treat their music like their children. Do you have a favorite, or a couple few that don’t get old? On the other end, are there songs that have fallen out of rotation?

A: There’s definitely some I avoid playing, like the more punk tracks because they sound so sparse without percussion. Others I avoid playing because I feel like they need more context to be understood and I usually don’t have time to go into all the backstories- like “Soup” that’s about being bullied in high school for reporting a pedophile but it’s such a long story that I rarely play the song. 

I think generally my favorite songs are the ones that have best encapsulated feelings I previously was unable to articulate. Then once I found my words, it brought me a certain peace. So personal favorites from the album would be “Guest House” and “Lonely Planet.” All time favorite is “Native Speaker,” and you can hear the demo on the Quarantine Demos.

Q: Are these songs still works in progress or are you moving on to others still in the oven?

A: I think the songs on The Quarantine Demos are 100% done lyrically, but I have a lot of work to do production wise to take them to the next level. But that won’t happen until the next time I hit the studio. I’ve moved on to write more new material and that’s my current focus. I won’t tweak The Quarantine Demos songs until I’m actually recording in the studio again, and then I highly doubt I’ll change the lyrics. 

Q: Any words of wisdom or inspiration to those would-be songwriters now relieved of any excuse not to pick up their guitar and strum?

A: What I say to anyone thinking about writing songs is to go for it because you’re the expert. You’re the expert on your own life and your own experiences. No one is better equipped to write a song about your experiences than you. If people kind of realized that and got a little confidence from it I think we’d have a lot more songwriters!

Feral is only getting started, and as her senior year is interrupted by the ongoing pandemic, her last answer should be a battle cry to the “I would if I had the time” kind of music dabbler. This unfortunate situation has already provoked a response from the music community, and hopefully they will continue to shed light on a darkened world. As our interviewee says with a touch of humor and a bit of grace, let’s not be such “lonely planets.”

Article by Stanley Quiros