We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cammi Mcdermott a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Cammi, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

Last year, I wrote a song called ‘girl’ after seeing the ‘Barbie’ movie for the first time. I was incredibly touched by the message of girlhood and sisterhood but felt a bit disconnected from the overall story due to my gender identity. I first began to question my connection with womanhood as a teenager but pushed down those feelings due to being discriminated against and bullied for the way I expressed myself. It was difficult for me to see a movie about the deep connection women everywhere have due to shared experiences and connect with that emotion while also feeling like my experience with gender as a whole differs from cisgender women.

I had written the last line of the chorus a year or two prior, but after seeing the movie, the rest of the song spilled out in my notes app. I was able to put it to music in one sing-through – it all came together as if it had already been written. I sent it to a few friends who I thought would be able to relate and they loved it.

From there, it took over a year to finish recording it top to bottom, but it was incredibly important for me to produce this song with people who understood what it meant to me. The song is especially special because some of my closest friends worked on it; Soraya Rafat, Hope Deluca, and Ash Always put their heart and soul into the production, while Frances Forever put beautiful background vocals on it and was a top-notch assistant in the studio.

Cammi, 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?

I have been singing and writing since I was a little kid. To the best of my ability, I can’t remember wanting to pursue anything else. In the beginning, songwriting was a release for me – a way to take all of those childhood and teenage feelings and make something concrete out of them. The older I get, the more it’s become a way to build community and to (hopefully) give the words to an experience that a listener might not have been able to articulate themselves. My songwriting is vulnerable and honest. That can be a frightening feeling, but I feel like it’s necessary to achieve my end goal of connection through music.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I’ve been posting my music online since I was a kid, but my biggest “break” has definitely come from TikTok. Over quarantine in 2020, I really cracked down on prioritizing sharing my songs. It was mostly for fun, but once a few videos of mine gained traction, I began to understand how important social media is if you want to connect with other musicians and even future listeners.

Social media success is a shot in the dark, and even those who are ‘viral’ don’t always necessarily understand the algorithms involved. I’ve found that the way to reach people is to be yourself, as cheesy as that may sound. Trying to follow trends is often unfulfilling and you are way more likely to find your ‘people’ by being authentic.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I feel like I’ve said this a million times thus far, but I really think community building is why most musicians do what we do. If I had to give another aspect, I would say taking something I wrote by myself and then building it out with creatives that I admire is very rewarding. No matter how talented or dedicated you are, there are points in the process that can feel frustrating or tedious, but putting in the hard work and ending with something you made and can share with the world is a wonderful feeling.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/cammimcdermott
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/cammimcdermott
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cammimcdermott
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/camille-mcdermott-3bb649184/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/cammigm
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/cammi-mcdermott

Image Credits

Iz Indelicato
Lily Thompson
Elizabeth Scholl
Emily Gringorten