It's only been a year since Kate Voegele released her debut album, "Don't Look Away." Now, the 22-year-old singer-songwriter is embarking on a spring tour to promote her sophomore record, "A Fine Mess," which hits stores on May 19. Voegele describes the new disc as more edgy, yet still poetic, sincere and lyrical.
"It's a departure in a couple different ways but I think it flows nicely from the work and the vibe of the first record," she said.
Metromix caught up with the young starlet before her show in Chicago to chat about her recurring role on the CW network's teen drama, One Tree Hill, her "Lift Me Up" tour, which makes a stop in Cleveland on Wednesday, May 6 and the leading man in her new music video for her first single, "99 Times."
Your new album is now on Interscope Records. How did that come about?
The deal I signed was one that involved an upstream. I signed to MySpace Records knowing at some point I could be upstreamed to Interscope. It was really cool because MySpace Records kinda did their thing … and used their resources to promote the record. And once a bunch of buzz started happening and there was a lot of press going around and things were going great with One Tree Hill, they upstreamed me to Interscope and they started working their major label magic all around it. It’s really this cool, two-headed monster of awesomeness. It’s really awesome to have that combo. I’ve been enjoying working with everyone over there so, so much. They’re just amazing.
Now I heard that Dancing with the Stars pro Derek Hough is going to star with you in your new music video. Did you get to choose your leading man?
We just kinda looked at a bunch of different people … and Derek just seemed like a good fit because he just seemed like a talented kid and we just loved him on Dancing with the Stars and, moreover, he’s a great musician and has got a really great band. He’s cool, he’s a cute kid and he seemed like he’d be a lot of fun. We figured we’d go for it and so it was really awesome when he said he’d do it. We had so much fun. We just dropped the video last week in LA. It was great. There’s not a nicer kid on the planet. It was really, really fun.
Are we going to see any lip-locking in the video?
Oh, we just might! [Laughs] Yes, we definitely have a little bit of a brief video makeout. You know, a music video isn’t a music video unless there’s a makeout. I sorta feel like that’s the label’s point of view. Frank Borin directed it.We gotta heat this up. We just all had a lot of fun. It was such a fun day.
Your One Tree Hill character, Mia, has a love interest this season. Was Chase (Laguna Beach's Stephen Colletti) your first on-screen kiss?
Yeah, One Tree Hill has been the home of my first on-screen relationship and first on-screen kiss just because I haven’t really done any acting in the past before. So it’s been great. Stephen is so much fun to work with. I’ve been so lucky—all these people I’ve gotten to work with are just so nice and so much fun. It’s never even weird. Everyone’s always asking me if it’s weird, and I’m like, “it totally isn’t!” It all comes down to the people and Stephen’s a sweetheart. He’s just so much fun to hang out with. We have a great time working together. Mia and Chase, they’re getting together on One Tree Hill. It’s a fun storyline.
So who's the better kisser: Derek or Stephen?
I don’t know if I can really answer that with a concrete response.[Laugh] It’s kinda tough to say. They’re sorta different things, you know? Me and Derek, it was very much like a quick, sorta steamy kiss, and at the end of the video there’s this whole domino effect where it happens. Derek starts to domino, so I have to kinda kiss him real quick and then give him a little push. Stephen and I have had multiple kissing scenes … so I don’t know. It’s two different things, but both are great. I definitely give both guys props in the kissing department. It’s not a bad thing to get paid for.
Now that you've worked with Derek Hough, do you think you'd ever participate in Dancing with the Stars?
You know, I don’t know. It seems like it’s been such a great thing for (Derek) and he seems to enjoy it so much. I think it’s so much fun to watch. I was captain of my dance team in high school way back in the day, so who knows. It’s definitely something that seems to be kind of making a lot of headlines and catching a lot of people’s eyes these days, that show, so who knows? I’m excited to see what opportunities down the road might come about and yeah, whether it’s that or something else that involves TV or acting, that would be really cool.
Who would you rather be dance partners with: Derek, or his bandmate Mark Ballas?
I think I would have to be biased and say Derek because he was in my video and we got to hang out all day. I didn’t get to meet Mark, but he seems like a really cool guy as well. I think I would have to pick Derek and say no hard feelings. He showed me a couple of moves already. There’s no way I could stand up to Lil' Kim, but I could try. [Laughs]
