- [Crowd] Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea!

- [Chelsea] It kind of fell into my lap in a wonderfully, kind of lucky and coincidental way.

- [Crowd] Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea!

- I definitely think, you know, the universe kind of was like, "You should go do this."

What's up?

I'm Chelsea Cutler, I'm from Connecticut, and I'm about to perform at Boston Calling.

(crowd cheering) - Boston, Massachusetts make some #*#*#*#* noise!

(crowd cheering) ♪ Talk to me like you mean it ♪ ♪ Show me all of your seasons, oh, yeah ♪ ♪ Climb in my bed and hold me ♪ ♪ Walk through my fire and coal ♪ ♪ Oh, baby, yeah ♪ - I definitely didn't see myself having a career in music, but not because I didn't want to.

It's just, like, so unconventional.

So I think, you know, the average person probably grows up in a family where, you know, they're encouraged to be a doctor, or going to finance, or law school or, you know, and particularly I think, again, having kind of that privilege and very narrow at times, like, childhood experience of growing up in Connecticut, there's just such a culture of, you know, you're gonna go to a top school and then you're gonna go to law school or business school or something.

Yeah, it just didn't seem like it was in the realm of possibility for me and it wasn't really until, the more it became tangibly real, the more internally I started to kind of recognize, "Okay, this is gonna be, like, this is a real thing for me."

I'm a huge proponent of Connecticut.

I think it gets a bad rep, but I think it's the best.

You know, I got a really incredibly privileged and wonderful, like, quintessential, kind of New England childhood.

And fortunate enough, my parents' house is by the water in Connecticut.

And so growing up by the beach and getting to go.

It was so Connecticut, you know, I did sailing camp and, you know, we went kayaking.

And yeah, just growing up on the water by the beach and, you know, taking out catamarans and stuff is just the best.

So I feel really, really fortunate.

There's a song I wrote with Jeremy Zucker for a project called "Brent" that we've done and it's a song called "Parent Song" and I don't know, you know, we wrote it about our parents.

Like there's a line in it that's like, "We'll go walk the dogs at Winslow Park "'cause Westport's Perfect in the spring."

And yeah, I don't know, I just, I love that song 'cause I love just kind of giving my parents a shout out and giving Westport a shout out.

And yeah, I don't know.

I think the timeline of my career has kind of happened at like a relatively accelerated pace, which is cool.

I feel like I was just in college.

I like to put stuff on SoundCloud and kind of secretly, I would email like the songs I was putting on SoundCloud to blogs.

'Cause back then music blogs really dominated and SoundCloud really dominated.

So, you know, my friends would do their homework and I would just kind of sneak off and send stuff to blogs, and yeah, things started to kind of move organically and I got really fortunate to get connected with my manager, Jesse, while I was in college and he put me on the Quinn 92 tour.

And so I kind of had to drop outta school real quick and go on tour and never really looked back.

And I signed, I got to sign with Republic, probably almost two years after that and, and yeah, it's just been a wild ride since then.

Just a lot of touring and it's been great.

The process to signing a record deal is really tedious.

Like it takes a really long time.

Like I think we, I was, it took me like a year of meetings with different record labels to really figure out where I wanted to sign.

So it was certainly a bit of a long time coming signing with Republic.

But I'm really glad that I did it.

You know, anytime you're signing to a label that you know Taylor and The Weekend and you know, all that good stuff, the Jonas Brothers, and especially Florence and The Machine being there was a big draw for me too.

So, you know, anytime you see names like that, you obviously are excited 'cause you think maybe you'll become that at some point.

So not there yet, but we're cooking, working on it.

(Chelsea vocalizing) ♪ Safe to say I'm done ♪ ♪ You're the only one I know will ever take me und5r ♪ Boston, Massachusetts!

(upbeat music) I think my mental health has obviously been such an essential piece of this entire puzzle.

I think that if it weren't for my struggles, you know in that area, I probably wouldn't have turned to music as an outlet.

Like for me it's kind of always served the purpose of maybe journaling would, or, you know, instead of talking to my friends, like I'd rather go write a song about it.

You know, that's just kind of my preferred way of coping you know, it's definitely a blessing.

I've been able to take something that can feel so troubling and create something from that.

So that's wonderful.

The music industry is challenging, you know, it's a tough thing to navigate, but I think kind of making sure that being candid, you know, that's a big pillar for me just in terms of, not even, I don't even wanna say branding 'cause it's not like a purposeful branding tactic.

It's just who I am.

And I think being candid has kind of been a huge reason why people relate and why, you know, the songs that I write resonate with people in some way.

I think that when I first kind of like came out to the world as bi and like started dating my girlfriend, I felt a huge reluctance to kind of take on any responsibility for like representing the LGBTQ community.

And I think, I don't know, like, I think to an extent that came from this place of not wanting my like dating life to have any impact on my identity as an artist.

And I think kind of over the last five years, I've really grown into this place of now feeling much more of like a fierce responsibility.

And I think, I think a lot of that comes from just kind of internalizing like your own acceptance for yourself and this incredible community that you get to be a part of.

You know, I think any reluctance to be a part of that community just came from, you know I had to get comfortable with, with my, you know the context of my own identity.

But something I think about a lot is like so much representation is performative like, unintentionally even, but just on social media.

Like I think a lot about like, what tangibly can I do outside of, you know donating resources and stuff like that.

Like what, you know, other than speaking out, like what, you know, what am I really doing?

So I think about that a lot and I don't always know the answer, but you know what I mean?

I think just like visibility is really important.

So if I can provide that in any way, then that's awesome.

♪ I may, I may, I may, I may, I ♪ ♪ May, I may, I may, I may, I ♪ I've never been to Boston Calling so I genuinely have no idea what to expect.

And I feel like I won't really know kind of what to feel or what to think until I step on stage and I kind of get a read like, all right, what's this audience into?

How many people are here?

You know, what's the situation?

Whereas like when you're on tour and you're playing the same show every single night you know, you kind of have much more of an idea of what you're walking into each night.

But I try not to think about it too much or else I get, I kind of get like butterfly tummy, before like shows that I haven't done before.

So yeah, I'm probably just gonna like try to drink Red Bull and listen to my iPod and stuff.

My advice to any young artist, no matter where they are is to just put yourself out there on social media 'cause that's kind of where like, obviously the vast majority of discovery is happening and you could, you know, you could be in like a small town in Connecticut or you could be in Los Angeles and you know with social media you kind of have the same access to the same audience.

Challenging as it is like there, you know there are artists who like post it on social media like every single day for a year before, you know, anything started to catch.

So just stick with it and if it, you know, if it's resonating with people, then you'll know.

♪ I hate myself for giving you the things I give you ♪ All right Boston!

(upbeat electronic music)