We recently connected with Kaylen, Kelsey & Kristen Kassab K3 Sisters Band and have shared our conversation below.
Kaylen, Kelsey & Kristen Kassab, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?
Kaylen: “When people first discover us, it is normally from the TikTok ‘For You Page’ or from our weekly livestream concerts that are broadcast on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. After years of development, our worldwide reach is now peaking on TikTok and YouTube respectively. TikTok continues to be the leader where we enjoy regularly providing original content to 2.5 million followers. Our YouTube Channel has recently exploded to top 313,000 Subscribers and with the advent of Shorts is growing fast. We post videos almost every day with certain key captions, hashtags, and family friendly ‘click-bait’ thumbnails. This process is a small part of our efforts to cast a wide net to reach as many people in as many countries as we can. The hard work, and creative determination is paying off big time!”
Kelsey: “Yes! People eventually find out that our work goes beyond playing music every Saturday and posting Harry Potter or music related videos, however, since these two areas of concentrated effort is what people see the most, let’s start with this online connectivity! Expanding on what Kaylen mentioned, YouTube just this year rolled out ‘Shorts Feed Ads’ allowing YouTube Shorts to be monetized. This earnings potential has made it possible for creators like us to increase our revenue streams. We also receive super chats and super stickers from our top fans who want to give us ‘appreciation tips’ at our livestream concerts.’ But unlike many bands, we return 100% of all these tips from viewers right back to our fandom that has come to be affectionately known as the K3SB FAM in the form of free band merch and postage.”
Kristen: “Clearly, TikTok has been a great friend to our enterprise. Despite the recent publicity, we are grateful that TikTok continues to deliver their pledge of giving its top creators revenue from the billion dollar TikTok Creator Fund, this in addition to facilitating us receiving gifts as tips during our frequent live stream concerts, chats and meetups. As a result, the K3SB Fam continues to grow internationally, and so does our merch store! We have invested in creating a pretty wide range of band merch for those interested in purchase as well as for our weekly free give aways during our shows and concerts. We run our own website k3sistersband.com where our fans and interested friends are able go to stream for free all of our extensive original studio and live recordings as well as all of our hundreds of past concerts, Also, they can watch exclusive behind the scenes videos which show that we are really playing the instruments, and truly desire to share the ups and downs of life with people of all ages, cultures and persuasions. We are all in this wonderful world together!”
Kaylen, Kelsey & Kristen Kassab, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Kristen: “Kaylen, (23) Kelsey (22) and I Kristen (19) formed the K3 Sisters Band in 2009. We grew up on stage in our parent’s band, as well as on stage acting, dancing and singing for numerous charities and non-profit organizations that they have served over the years. Since those early years of learning the ropes of the entertainment business, we have gone on to produce, record and perform hundreds of concerts and original music. Incredibly, as of now we have generated over a billion worldwide views across our social media channels. This, as a totally ‘do it yourself entity!
Kaylen: Our latest studio album titled “13” was released on Friday the 13th, 2022. This has become our most popular album perhaps because in addition to the original songs, it commemorates 13 years of performing as a five member family band, and it is our 13th album released to date on the Bruce Ray Productions (BRP) independent record label which we control.”
Kelsey: “We write and perform relatable songs which include lyrics about dreams of love, laments about having to navigate the hurdles in life all of which are chocked full of symbolic language and sounds in the style of historical folk and contemporary pop music and movie overtures. Critics often write about how our repertoire is washed with Celtic, bluegrass, country and Americana themes in addition to our danceable high energy rock ballads.”
Kristen: “In addition to being vocalists who learned the art of 3-part harmony from our mom, my sisters and I are multi-instrumentalists. We play electric and acoustic guitars, electric and stand up bass, fiddles, mandolins, drums, harmonica and have recently added keyboard to our live concerts. As I mentioned earlier, we owe a lot of our instrumental skills, vocal styles and music production versatility to our parents who are both long time artists and producers. Our mom Jamie, who has been dubbed ‘K3 Sisters Momma’ and our dad ‘The Bruce’ have taught us so much over the past 16 years. It has been a great advantage to us to be guided by them as they have seen ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’ that surrounds the music and entertainment business. Their views are appropriately colored by the fact that they are both highly skilled instrumentalists, vocalists, producers and award winning artists with No. 1 and high charting songs.”
Kaylen: “So, as a result of the guidance Kristen just referred to, we have seen the pitfalls and dangers of signing a recording/performing contract with a major record label or entity. Sadly, there are many. We have made the decision to continue with our ‘direct to fan’ business model and remain a fully independent ‘underground act,’ This means that we retain full creative control of all of our work, recordings and video content; as well as receiving 100% of current and future royalties and performance fees. So far it is working like a charm as we daily connect to fans in over 50 countries! It bears repeating, that the K3 Sisters Band’s expanding international reach is fueled by live streaming our interactive concerts and meetups on line in lieu of high overhead road shows, festival appearances or arena touring. Also, our music is not on any of the popular streaming services like Spotify or Apple Music.”
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Kaylen: “The chorus from our song ‘The Train’ is, ‘Come all aboard the train across the world to see and hear things you’ve never heard before.’ We think of our journey like a train ride that people can join to enjoy the sights, sounds and fun that the K3 Sisters Band creates. Keeping the train going however, is not easy at times, but we encourage each other constantly to persevere and stay true to our vision and commitment to make the world a better place in which to live.”
Kristen: “We constantly discuss new ideas, technology and new experimental ways of doing things even if they don’t work out the way we anticipated, because we often discover valuable methods and processes. This is a shout out to the power of serendipity. A moving vehicle covers and can evaluate more ground and valuable detours with less energy than a parked vehicle starting a cold engine.”
Kelsey: “Some habits we have developed contribute greatly to our success in live streaming concerts, meetups, and video premieres. One is that we chat live with attendees no matter how many or few attend. Don’t let the ‘numbers’ discourage and prevent you from getting ‘in front’ of fans on social media. Do regular and unannounced ‘pop up’ streams. A very important component of what motivated us and our fans to support each other is our #K3Motto which we try to live by.”
Kaylen: “Oh wow! Yes, the #K3 Motto has been a game changer for us and the K3SB FAM. It has three parts: *I will always believe in myself and celebrate my life and the lives of others. *I will respect the music and customs of others as long as they are not harmful to anyone. *I will stand against bullying of any kind and choose love over hate. Having said that, another habit we have developed is to regularly practice different instruments and explore writing different songs. This keeps us reaching forward.
Kristen: “Also, another tip that has helped us withstand the dangers of appearing unprepared during live or pre-recorded television, online or radio interviews is to rehearse meaningful answers to actual and hypothetical interview questions. We do this all the time both mentally and together out loud. The world is always experiencing interesting twists and upheavals so we try to be ready for questions or opinions that are relevant to the ‘here and now’ as well as the past. We feel our viewers and readers deserve authentic and well worded informative answers and viewpoints that reflect how we feel.”
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
Kelsey: “Some advice right away to aspiring influencers is to respond on a timely basis to comments and questions. Make an effort to stay in touch with your audience on social media, and with all entertainment industry contacts like reporters and promoters. It’s not always a direct one on one contact. It could be a group email or newsletter. Creating a list of people for future action is a good idea. Just make sure to use it!”
Kristen: “As previously mentioned, TikTok changed everything for us. But what led up to it was quite unexpected! Before the band even made a TikTok account, I created a cosplay account just for fun to post videos and to see what this new app was all about. I was dabbling in cosplay and acting so it was a natural investigation. What I witnessed on TikTok was an incredible overflow of people just like me who wanted to share their passions in various creative ways. I just knew there was a large audience who would enjoy the content we were creating and could continue creating. It didn’t take long for me to convince my sisters and the team to create the now world famous @k3sistersband TikTok account.”
Kaylen: “Yes. And we also keep in mind that it is impossible to ‘be all things to all people,’ so we focus on the fandoms that we like and appreciate. In the process of creating content that specifically arouses the attention and delight of the fans of these fandoms such as Harry Potter, we further connect with like minded friends around the world. We try to stay active on creating content for several social media platforms instead of singling out the one that appears to be getting the most attention at the moment. We recommend that you stay diversified in social media. And, watch for what is coming next!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.k3sistersband.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/k3sistersband/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/k3sisters/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyd1FQbwxPyOACQuYgFzsJg
- Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@k3sistersband
Image Credits
Bruce Ray Productions