Kira Kosarin: Life in the limelight

She describes her sound as a cool mixture of R&B with some modern production elements to it.

For most of her adolescence, singer-songwriter Kira Kosarin was known for her role as Phoebe, the other half of the twin heroes from hit Nickelodeon series The Thundermans. It was considered to be her big break after debuting at age 14.

Since 2013, after she finished high school at 15 up until she reached her 20s, Kira had always played the iconic superhero. Her social life was built around the sets and being Phoebe was all she had ever known.

So, after the show ended in 2017, the American singer-actress focused on the next chapter of her life — making music.

“I think I spent the first two years after we finished shooting trying to figure out who Kira was, and I think the way that I did that originally was by going so far away from Phoebe — to break away that I went to the other direction. I released a kind of sexy music and, like, was being a lot more than like I’m an adult, I’m a badass — which I am, don’t get me wrong,” she shared.

But after that, she came back and found a middle ground between her two worlds — acting and singing. “I’m still kind of Phoebe. I’m sort of half and half; I am her and she is me. I’m just a different version of her,” she said.

This 2019, however, she is starring in an American supernatural web thriller series Light as a Feather as Nadia.

As per switching on her headspaces, Kira admitted that it’s her most favorite thing to do as both an artist and actress. “They require exactly opposite things. As an artist, you get to listen to your voice and your vision and try to speak that loudly and truthfully. As an actor, your job completely is to serve the story and to serve something outside of yourself and want to be malleable and flexible and work in a way that helps the production and you’re just a piece of the puzzle. And as the artist you are the whole puzzle, if that makes sense,” she shared.

Kira has been writing songs since she was little with the influence of her parents. Her father is a musician, director and artist. Her mother is a singer and an actress on Broadway. She used to sing a lot inside their house and had already written her first song at the age of five. “It was terrible,” Kira joked.

“… But my parents always encouraged me to write music from when I was little and my dad taught me songwriting, structure, chords and stuff,” she added.

Before releasing her debut single in 2018, “Spy,” she wrote hundreds of songs with the other 50 collecting dust in her laptop that hasn’t been released and a YouTube channel where she posts her songs and music covers.

Even after a short time, she feels that her music transitioned and is still transitioning with herself.

“I think that there’s some sort of two paths happening, the evolution of my songwriting, which, you know, has changed since I was 15 or 16. And there’s the evolution of what I’m able to do in terms of production and the people I can work with and all that stuff,” she said.

At the Nickelodeon slimefest held recently.

Kira also wants to pursue music production in the future. “I have so many plans. I’ve literally just started working on and learning how to produce music and that’s something that I’m hoping in the next few years I would really like to do a self-produced project. Like lock me in a studio for six months and just make a project. That’ll come. Right now, I’m still enjoying collaborating with some artists,” she shared.

The singer-songwriter also wanted to work with Khalid in the future, given that their songwriting styles are a bit similar. “I think we can make some good music together,” she said. Normani, Ariana Grande, Ed Sheeran, DJ Muster, Zedd and other cool EM producers and hitmakers are few of the people with who Kira wants to collaborate.

Like other artists, she gets her inspirations from her life and from the music that she listens to, places that she has traveled to and people that she meets.

She describes her sound as a cool mixture of R&B with some modern production elements to it. “I’m still playing with a lot of different kinds of sounds, too, because I love so many different kinds of music. So, you kind of has different things and everything you listen to. The guitar and the lyrics, I think are the free line for everything,” she said.

Her debut album, Off Brand, was released last April. Kira admitted that she put a lot of work into the album and that it was a collaborative process.

“Sometimes we’d start with the track and just start making melody ideas, and built the song that way, sometimes we’d start with a story and a lot of sessions start with them sitting down and be like ‘So, what’s going on in your life?’ And I have to tell my intimate secrets to these people,” she shared.

During the time she was writing the songs on the album, Kira was struggling to find her confidence and wanted her fans and listeners to overcome their fear and be confident along with her and her music.

“I wanted that for Off Brand, I wanted people, girls in their bedroom singing, ‘You Can’t Back It Up,’ and just feel so cool. With more vulnerable music, I also want people to get their own stories and emotions. It’s hard to know how music is going to feel to people I just hope it means something to them,” she shared. “I had a few albums that I listen to and I would sing and rap every word, and I would finish the album and just feel like the coolest person, where I could feel like I could handle everything,” she shared.

“Take This Outside” was her favorite to work on out of all the songs on the album because it was a fun session. She admitted that she hadn’t done a song like it. It is one of her favorite songs to perform onstage because of its upbeat tune. Another song she loves performing is “Fly Away.”

In her future projects, fans can expect a more intimate, vulnerable Kira in a lot of the acoustic songs she wrote. Although she doesn’t know when to release them, she still wants to share them in the future.

“It’s a bit scary (because it’s me). That’s probably why I kind of put it off for this long because it’s me and just me. But honestly though, it’s just all different parts of me, different things that I want to jam out to,” Kira said.

Kira also expressed that the music business was tough for her and that she has trouble worrying about the music people need to make.

“Creatively, the hardest thing to figure out has been how to take the vision in my head and my writing and turn it into the music that people hear,” she said. “I guess the hardest thing was not to let music become stressful for me because it’s my job. It used to be my escape, and now that it’s my career, it’s a lot of hard work and sometimes it gets very stressful and I have to kind of try to bring myself back to the fact that I love it and enjoy it.

“Sometimes when I’m writing music I tend to stop myself and be like, oh, but people are going to hear this and I have to remind myself to go back to the way it was when I was a teenager just writing in my diary and kind of write for me to create more authentic music,” she added.

Last 24 September, Kira Kosarin had the chance to perform at the Nickelodeon’s biggest slime festival in Asia and sang her hit songs along with artists like IV of Spades, Thai-German singer Jannine Weigel, Carol Hanson and 11-year-old rapper Alex Bruce and hip-hop dance troupe the Philippine All-Stars.

She also got to host the event besides Pinoy Big Brother host Robi Domingo.

For the first time, kids and kids-at-heart got to meet Nickelodeon stars Spongebob Squarepants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, PAW Patrol and Dora the Explorer. It also featured unique and engaging activities for families to bond over, not to mention the experience of the ultimate childhood dream of getting covered in green slime.

Since its inception in 2012, in Australia, Nickelodeon’s SlimeFest event has been a global success with sold out shows in United States, South Africa, Italy, United Kingdom, Spain and now in the Philippines.