My Interview With Nikki Yanofsky
This was my first telephone interview and I was over the top excited because it was with Nikki Yanofsky. For those of you living under a rock, Nikki is the singer behind the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics’ theme song I Believe (she also sang the Canadian National Anthem at the opening ceremonies). I Believe reached TRIPLE PLATINUM and was top of iTunes Canada forever!
But there is so much more to Nikki than just that: she is a child prodigy. She has performed internationally at jazz festivals and major concert venues alongside such notables as: Wyclef Jean, Celine Dion, Marvin Hamlisch and The Count Basie Orchestra.
She sang Ella Fitzgerald’s classic ‘Airmail Special’ for Verve’s We All Love Ella: Celebrating the Frist Lady of Song. She recorded Gotta Go My Own Way in English and French for High School Musical 2 and in September of 2008 she released her first full-length album (a live CD/DVD concert package) entitled ‘Ella Of Thee I Swing’.
She will be opening up the Toronto Jazz Festival on June 25th!! She is 16 years old people!! She has worked with some of the greatest musicians: Herbie Hancock, Will.i.am, as well as collaborating with Phil Ramone, Jesse Harris, Ron Sexsmith and Feist on her new album which will be in stores in Canada on April 22 and May 5 in the United States entitled Nikki. (update: the album was released in Canada on April 20 and will be released in the U.S. May 4)
She is such an incredible young lady with an old soul yet still a teenager, but the teenager parents dream about. Watch this video to see just how incredible she is. This girl is going to be a huge star!
The interview after the break.
INMF: Hi Nikki how are you?
Nikki: Great, you?
INMF: Good thank you, thanks for doing this interview
Nikki: No problem
INMF: I just want to say listening to your song for the Olympics just made it so much better. It was a great Olympics being in Canada and making medal history, but your song, it will always from here and forever always remind Canadians of what a great Olympics it was
Nikki: Thank you
INMF: Seriously, even now when I hear it it just brings back such wonderful memories so thank you for that
Nikki: Thank you
INMF: And speaking of I Believe, you’re now triple platinum!
Nikki: (drawing out the word and laughing because of how awesome it is) Yeah
INMF: How does that feel?
Nikki: Crazy. It feels amazing. I mean honestly that’s the thing I’ve always said it doesn’t matter if I’m on the charts it doesn’t matter how many albums I’ve sold I’m just doing what I love. But the fact that it is a number one hit and went triple platinum that is definitely a huge bonus.
INMF: That is really awesome (going triple platinum). I saw earlier today that you Tweeted your album was finished.
Nikki: Yeah, yesterday
INMF: How excited are you?
Nikki: I’m so excited, you have no idea, it’s been going on for probably 2 years because it’s kind of been like a growth process. My voice has changed in the process and we had to redo a couple of tracks so it’s definitely been a long process, but definitely a hard-working one and these songs, I’m so happy that they’re done because we’re finally done tracking and it’s going to be out in like a month in Canada and in a month and a half in the States, so I just can’t wait for it to finally be out and for people to be able to hear it and kind of get to know me through the music, you know? I’m just really looking forward to it.
INMF: We are too, do you have a release date yet?
Nikki: Yeah, May 4th for the States and April 22 in Canada
INMF: Isn’t that great? I can’t wait!
Nikki: (laughing) Me too I have to say
INMF: You’re going to be going on a tour with this too, aren’t you?
Nikki: Yes, I’m going all around Europe, and I’m going to Israel and it’s going to be crazy I’m so excited, so so so excited. I’ve never been to Europe and I’m going actually to the U.K. at the end of the week also to do a show there. And I’ve never been to any of these places, so it’s all new for me and so I’m very, very, very excited.
INMF: Tell me something: on your 14th birthday you sang at Carnegie Hall, (laughs, yeah) and then just shortly after your 16th birthday (happy belated birthday btw…she thanks me because she is Canadian, polite and a doll) you sing I Believe and the Canadian National Anthem at the Olympics, how do you top that? What’s happening on the 18th birthday (we are both laughing)
Nikki: Well, you know what, all of this stuff, I mean it’s definitely great birthday presents and everything and I guess it’s true when you say how do you top that, but for me everything I do is an experience unto itself, you know? It doesn’t matter the global part of it or if it’s televised or if it’s not televised or if it’s in front of a huge audience or a tiny audience. To me, the experiences that stand out the most are the ones that I can take from and grow from and those are all the experiences, so all of them are special in their own way. I don`t think I`m ever going to get tired of them, like ‘oh I already did this’, you know? It’s all part of the process.
INMF: I read somewhere that you don’t get nervous performing at all.
Nikki: (laughing) yeah, I don’t.
INMF: (laughing) not a little bit?
Nikki: Well, I get like a tiny little bit obviously like a person would right before, I`m not made out of stone, you know? But apparently Aquarius’s, I’m an Aquarius, are good at hiding their feelings. Maybe I do and I just don’t show it, but I don’t think I really do ever. I got really nervous before the opening ceremonies [2010 Winter Olympics].
INMF: (shocked) Did you?
Nikki: Yeah, I’ve never been that nervous before, I was shaking and I was cold and then I stepped out on stage and all the nerves went away, everything just kind of disappeared because it just felt natural like I was supposed to be up there, you know?
INMF: It looked natural, someone to be your age and be that poised, and you came across so calm and confident, it was beautiful.
Nikki: Thank you!
INMF: As a Canadian I’m so proud of you (laughing)
Nikki: Thank you, that’s very sweet.
INMF: You are also involved in a lot of charitable work in addition to your musical career, so how do juggle, your musical career, your school, your charitable work?
Nikki: It’s all very easy to handle because all the stuff I’m doing, I’m doing it because I want to do it, it’s not like I’m doing anything involuntary it’s just things that I enjoy doing, so I like being busy, downtime is good of course once in a while, but I get bored actually.
So I like always being busy doing something different and, you know lately with my charity and my school and singing and everything it’s been very manageable actually. My school is so supportive, I love going to school not only to learn everything but also it keeps me grounded and I’m with all my friends and it’s just like the social aspect of it too is appealing.
And then with the charitable stuff it’s just something I feel that needs to be done. If you’re doing something in the public eye, no matter what you’re doing I think it’s important to promote things that you believe in and things that you think need to also be in the public eye, and that’s why I’ve been so involved with different charities, especially children’s charities and of course I’m obsessed with animals I’m a huge dog lover.
I do SPCA and I give money to them all the time. You know, it’s just something that I think needs to be done and of course, singing last but not least that’s not hard to manage at all, that’s just something I love to do and of course I need to practice at least an hour and a half a day if not more, but it doesn’t feel like practice because I would be doing it anyways!
INMF: So do you take singing lessons or do you just practice on your own for an hour a day?
Nikki: I take singing lessons but I don’t have them every day I have them once a week, if I’m in town, if not I just sing along to tracks. Just songs that I like to sing whether they be on my album, in my show , I practice some repertoire stuff that’s going to be in my show, my upcoming show.
INMF: Have you started rehearsing for the tour already?
Nikki: Yeah, myself I have, basically we just call rehearsals a week before the show and we just practice twice or three times a week as a band, but basically we take songs that I have been doing for a long time, it might be new to the people in the U.S. all this stuff, all the material on the album, but I’ve already been performing it for a year and a half. All the standards and stuff, I’ve been singing God Bless The Child now for two years and it’s on my album that’s just coming out now, so it’s old for me. Not the actual song, but my interpretation of it is new for people that haven’t heard it yet, so that stuff, we’re pretty tight as a band in that sense because we’ve been doing it a bunch of times already.
INMF: Did you always have this vision for yourself as a little girl? Did you always know this is what you would be doing?
Nikki: Yeah. Always (very matter of fact). I honestly can’t think of a day where I didn’t know that this is what I was meant to do. Even when I was in kindergarten or Pre-K, when they would ask what do you want to be when you grow up, I would be ‘a dancer, a singer, I want to be famous I want to be an actress’. And I was always a singer, every week singing.
Even if you ask my parents, when I was eight years old I made a little cassette and I wrote, Nikki’s Latest Hits (we are both laughing at how adorable that is) and I have it of me singing, when I’m not even eight, I think I was seven or six years old, and it’s songs that I wrote when I was six or seven and it’s about Ferries on my purple pyjamas, really funny. I used to put up posters in my house like ‘come downstairs for a show’ I used to put on shows for my family.
INMF: That is adorable!! Have you heard the story of how Jim Carey years and years before he got famous wrote either himself or his father a cheque for $10 Million, I don’t remember the specific details and kept it in his wallet? Just like you with your greatest (latest) hits album he had a premonition that that was going to happen and sure enough it happened.
Nikki: Are you serious? That’s crazy. Have you ever seen the movie The Secret or read the book? It’s like attraction. If you build it they will come. If you really believe in yourself, pardon the pun with the whole I Believe hype and everything (we both laugh), if you do , if you believe in yourself it’s cliché for a reason. Believe in your dreams and they’ll come true because they really do, if you really do believe!!
INMF: It’s true and you’re a prime example because you’ve known this since you could speak!
Nikki: Yeah, I mean I’ve been singing since I could talk honestly. I’ve always been a people person, I’ve always wanted to entertain an audience and be in front of a crowd. My parents used to call me The Mayor when I was four. I would go in a restaurant and go up to people’s table and I would say ‘Hi I’m Nikki’.
INMF: That is such a wonderful story!! I understand that you are very much Team Edward?? (aren’t I just fabulous at segue’s?? NOT)
Nikki: Oh yes. Oh yes. I definitely appreciate Jacob, I do, but first love is the best you know. You’ve got to go with your gut on it and Jacob is also very hot, but Edward is like Edward you know?
INMF: So you probably know more about him than I do, you know he’s a musician, right?
Nikki: Oh, Robert Pattinson? Yes, yes he’s a musician, but I just like his character. I don’t know much about him. (we are both laughing like school girls).
INMF: You don’t want to get in on his album?
Nikki: I haven’t even heard him is he good?
INMF: He’s actually looking to cut an album in 2011 I hear. So I thought Team Edward means Team RPattz means maybe work with him musically?
Nikki: Yeah, I would love to work with him, but I don’t know if I would be able to I think I would just sit there and stare at him and not be able to concentrate on the music (we are both really laughing at this point)
INMF: I doubt that, you’re so polished and professional , I don’t think you would have a problem. In terms of genre, you seem to be very much like an old soul in that you gravitate toward Jazz.
Nikki: Yeah, you know I definitely like Jazz, I love Jazz, I don’t really gravitate to any specific genre, I guess I’m kind of recognized as a jazz singer. If you have to push me into one genre, but I consider myself just a singer, there’s no label in front of it. I’m not a jazz singer, I’m not a pop singer, not a blues singer, just a singer. I just sing everything. I love music. Any music is good music so I think that if I kind of marry myself to one genre for my life I think I’m going to miss out. I think I’m kind of shooting myself in the foot on growth opportunities in different genres and stuff.
INMF: I don’t blame you, but as a singer, do singers feel more natural to sing one over the other?
Nikki: I guess it depends on the person, but for me Jazz definitely feels natural, as does blues. Jazz and Blues are kind of like my niche. I like to sing those the best and I also love pop and I also love old school R & B. Old school R & B is definitely my niche too. I don’t know I like everything. Even just talking to you I can’t even pick just one.
INMF: You collaborated with Phil Ramone, Ron Sexsmith and Feist on your new album!
Nikki: Yeah and Jesse Harris.
INMF: How was that?
Nikki: That was amazing. I never actually got to meet Feist but just the fact that I was able to sing a song that she wrote for me is crazy! It’s such a cool song too, it’s very Countyish almost very blues/country. It’s awesome it’s called Try, Try Try. It’s really cool. So that in itself, is an amazing, amazing experience. On the demo, she’s singing on the demo, and she’s saying the horn solo like ‘bup, bup, bup’ and then they transcribed it exactly note for note into a horn solo. So you really her personality on the track too, it’s cool. Obviously Phil Ramone [14 time Grammy Award winning producer] was probably the luckiest thing ever to have someone that experienced and that wise in the business. They just know how it’s supposed to sound and they’ve made some of the greatest hits of music period. Not even necessary a genre but just from the history of music. And to have him on board and wanting to work with me and obviously vice versa I loved working with him, was definitely amazing, amazing.
And of course Jesse Harris and Ron Sexsmith, writing with them was amazing. They are the first people I’ve actually co-written with. I’ve always been writing little ditties…also always been writing poetry…I have a little poem book from since I was in grade 5, of a compilation of things I have written over the years and actually now with technology I have all of my poems saved on my Blackberry (laughing).
But with them it all came so naturally, I was able to open up to them, you know. I always laugh, I go to Jesse ‘Does it ever strike you as odd you’re friends with a 16 year old’ (laughing) and he starts laughing and I say ‘you’re friends with a 16 year old is that weird to you?’ I question it (laughing). I don’t find it weird that I’m friends with all these adults, you know? I consider him one of my friends and I consider Ron one of my friends and working with them is just like a dream, you know? We go downstairs in my basement and I start writing a love song and I don’t have to worry about being judged and I don’t have to worry that they know who I’m writing about or anything. It just comes, you know?
INMF: You’re in the right environment for that because if you’re judged, you’re going to stifle yourself.
Nikki: Yeah, exactly!!
INMF: Does your life feel surreal to you at times?
Nikki: Yeah, all the time (laughs). It feels surreal but at the same time it feels like it’s meant to be. It’s like a balance of both. It doesn`t feel fake like it can`t be real, there has to be a catch. It just kind of feels like it`s always what I wanted to do and I can`t believe I`m finally doing it. But I definitely have to pinch myself sometimes. When I hear about something great that`s going to happen I`m like `oh cool I can’t wait’ and it doesn`t really hit me.
For example, I knew the Olympics were going to be amazing. It was just going to be a great time, a party that the world was invited to. I was just very excited for the whole Olympics to start and then to know that I was going to be a part of it was also crazy. But then when I actually got to the venue and saw the stadium before and I was on NDA, I couldn’t tell anyone (non-disclosure agreement). So I get there and I walk into the stadium and they’re like ‘no pictures’. And all I wanted to do was take a picture with my Blackberry and send it to my friends (laughing) look where I am!!! But I can’t.
So it only kind of hit me that everyone was going to know when it was actually the night of. It was all overwhelming and actually after my performance I went back to my trailer and I’m like ‘okay mom and dad why don’t you guys go ahead to the green room I just need a second’ and I was in my trailer by myself and I called one of my best friends and I just started bawling. Not in a sad way, but I was just so overwhelmed and happy with joy and that I just started bawling. Why me? Why did this happen to me?
INMF: Why not, right?
Nikki: I know. I guess why not is right. But how come I got it? I always question that. How come I got this? How come I sing? Why not you or somebody on the street, or something you know? I think you’re given gifts for a reason and I always wonder what my reason is. I just think it’s to be a singer and to let people feel what I feel with music. I always say music makes you feel so much, nothing ever makes me feel like that in life.
INMF: It’s so true, and I mean it when I say, anytime I hear ‘I Believe’ I think back to how wonder the Olympic experience was. It’s always going to make people think of that time and you’re such a big part of Canadian history now and you will be even more so. Your parents must be so proud.
Nikki: Yeah, you know, I’m proud of them also. They’re very supportive and I’m very proud to be able to say that they’re my parents. Some teenage girls are embarrassed by their families and stuff. My dad is hilarious, you don’t understand. He goes out in public and he has this thing called ‘The Chicken Dance’ (we are both laughing). He bounces up and down. He does it to embarrass me but it doesn’t embarrass me because I find it funny. So I say ‘Dad it’s not working you’re just embarrassing yourself and making me laugh in the process’. My parents are the best, so are my brothers. I have two older brothers and they still beat me up and I still sing around the house and they’re like ‘be quiet’
INMF: Do they sing at all, the brothers?
Nikki: My brother Michael the oldest one, he’s 21, don’t ask him to sing because it kind of sounds like cows mooing, but Andrew has an amazing voice, my middle brother. He has a great voice. Before this all happened we all said ‘pre-pubescent Andrew had a better voice than me’. (we are both laughing a lot at this point). I was young too, you know? But if he would have worked at it, if he was really into it, he could have been great. He is great, but he could have been even better. He’s amazing.
INMF: Your family sounds hysterical. You guys must be laughing a lot.
Nikki: We are. Honestly, me and my mom laugh at the silliest things. When my dad goes out of town on business or whatever, me and my mom have sleepovers. You know those Temperpedic (sp?) beds? They’re like hard as rock. It’s not like the kind of beds you can fall into and go ‘ahhhh’. It’s one of those beds that you fall into and you’re like ‘owwww’. But it moulds to your body. My dad he’s always had this bed right and so when I was younger he would tickle me and stuff. And he’d be like ‘I’m going to get you’ and I would run to his bed and it would kill. So I’m having a sleepover with my mom and I’m like ‘You’re bed is like a brick’ and we would just start laughing. We laugh at the silliest thing we don’t know why but that was enough for us and we were laughing for a good 15 minutes at that comment.
INMF: That is so nice. That is so awesome. Who inspires you and why?
Nikki: My family is definitely a big inspiration to me. I wouldn’t say who inspires me it’s what. I definitely have my influences of course like Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and The Beatles. But what inspires me? It could be anything, sometimes it’s just Spring and sometimes it’s just thoughts. I’m a real big thinker. When I was little my mom and dad used to say ‘Nikki, put the magnifying glass away, you’re over thinking things too much, it’s not that complicated, don’t worry, you know? But now I’ve gotten into a happy medium where I just question things some times. What I do often when I listen to music is I play it and I look at the lyrics while listening and I let the artist tell me a story. When I listen to Bob Dylan I do that. Same thing with Ron Sexsmith. The other day I was thinking ‘I wish I could write like them’. And then I thought ‘wait a minute that could be a good name for a poem for myself’, so I just wrote a whole poem on that. So it depends sometimes the silliest things can inspire me. Even if I’m looking on a plane into a sea of nothingness. I did write a poem about a plane once.
The first time I ever wrote was in grade 5. I remember the exact day. I remember we were watching a movie on Greece, we were looking at a statute, and I had my book out in front of me. I looked out the window and I just started writing. I wrote about 3 poems that day. I wrote a poem called ‘Friends’ and I wrote a poem called ‘A Bird In A Tree’ and now that I look back on all of it, it’s like I had unintended metaphoric meanings in there that I didn’t even mean to write about, it just kind of happened. So I actually used some lines now of those in songs, it’s cool. My music now, the songs on the album you get to know me through the lyrics. It’s my history, it’s my present, it’s my future it’s just what I want to do.
INMF: Do you know which song will be the first release on the album?
Nikki: I’m not sure actually. I’m not really in charge of all of that stuff. I just know which songs are on the album but I don’t know how they’re going to be released. I think a song called ‘Cool My Heels’ is going to be a single. And a song called ‘For Another Day’, those are two that I think are going to be singles on the album, but it always changes. Not to sound like a big shot but with this industry things change, you know?
INMF: Has the cover art been done?
Nikki: Yup. The cover is done, you can actually see it on Amazon.com. You can see the album. It’s really cool. I love the dress and I got to keep it!
INMF: Thank you so much Nikki I have really enjoyed our time together. You’re just a terrific young lady.
Nikki: Thank you so much! You have a great day!
Nikki’s website: http://www.nikkionline.ca/
Nikki’s Twitter: http://twitter.com/NikkiYanofsky
Nikki’s Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/nikkiyanofsky
Nikki’s YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/NikkiYanofsky
Thank you to DECCA, Corpta and Elissa!
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