Friday Fives: Kristy Hanson
By LinLori | Leave A Comment

Welcome to the first edition of Friday Fives! I track down artists and ask them five questions – some music related, some just for fun -get their answers and come back to share them with you! Everyone wants a peek at the artist behind the music and now that has become my mission!

This week’s featured artist is Kristy Hanson. Her latest album, Into the Quiet, features Kristy’s sweet yet powerhouse voice and sharp songwriting on twelve incredible pop/folk-y tracks. It’s an addictive album, I promise you. Kristy was kind enough to lend her answers for this first edition of Friday Fives. We talked about LA, songwriting, working with her husband, and more!

1. You spent your formative years in Miami, and now you’re in LA. What’s the difference, to you, between the two cities?

It’s hard to really compare them because I spent my childhood in Miami and I’m really settling into adulthood here in LA. In some ways, the cities are very similar but while you’ll find lots of great music in Miami, it seems to me that the music industry is still really based here. LA has allowed me to meet and work with people I idolize and I’m very grateful for that!

2. What, in your opinion, makes a great song?

A great song doesn’t have to tell a story literally but it makes the listener bring his or her own story to it. A great song prompts a memory, changes your mood or becomes a part of what you might be going through at that moment. When you connect with a song it’s like meeting someone you love, something just clicks!

3. Your husband is also your bassist. What is it like working with your significant other?

In addition to playing bass for me, Mike has been my recording engineer, programmed my websites, called radio stations for me, you name it. He put my first band together and made my first album out here in LA happen. Because we’re both seriously stubborn, opinionated people, it’s not always smooth sailing. We value each other’s opinions, and we both want to be better musicians, so we tell each other the truth, even when we know it might be hard to hear. Ultimately, working with him makes everything I do more rewarding. Any success I have is his too, and it’s so great to be able to share it.

4. What is your favorite part of performing in front of a crowd?

I love playing with bands – particularly my current live band of Mike Chiaburu, Tim Young and Aaron Sterling. Music is an incredible form of communication, and when a whole band feels a moment of a song together, there’s just nothing like it. I love for example, when Tim will play a guitar part slightly differently, and it just makes my ears perk up and I hear the song in a new way. That exchange is completely indefinable but it’s what keeps people playing and going to shows.

5. One thing you haven’t done yet – climbing the pyramids, skydiving, etc – that you would like to.

I’m not a particularly ‘daredevil’ type of person. I’d like to rock climb. I tried some rock climbing as a teenager, but just a little. My dad climbed the Grand Tetons in Wyoming before I was born and I always thought that must’ve been awesome. I hope I’ll be able to take the time to do something like that someday!