We were lucky to catch up with Justyna Kelley recently and have shared our conversation below.

Justyna, appreciate you joining us today. Has your work ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized?

From a young age, it was easy to be misunderstood because I didn’t fit into a neat box. In grade school, I was a dorky kid who would get in trouble for singing too much on the playground or in class. In high school and college, I was a jock who bounced from track practice and weight rooms in the afternoon to theatre rehearsals in the evening. For the past 10 years, I’ve lived between Nashville, the home of country music, and Paris, France! Even now as an adult and professional artist, I don’t like being limited to one thing or certain perception, and I think this shows in my music and the things I create. I love to travel, speak and sing in foreign languages, and work in different fields of creativity whether it be singing, producing, acting, screenwriting, etc. This tendency to think outside the box is probably what led me to live abroad in France, where I met so many amazing people and forged great opportunities. My new album “Canon”, which is signed with indie French label EKP and just released at the end of 2023, is a great example of this contrast. The album is a mixture of edgy modern pop with organic elements that reflect my hometown Nashville roots. After many years of being misunderstood and pulled between different worlds, and writing and producing songs for others, I have found a way to authentically express myself and my music!

Justyna, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I was born and raised in Nashville, TN – “Music City” – the daughter of a successful country singer and songwriter, Irene Kelley, so I grew up in the music industry and knew I wanted to be a singer and an artist from the very beginning. I was also very interested in film and TV and signed with my first acting agent at 7 years old. I was very passionate about acting all through school and into college, even minoring in Theatre Studies in college at University of the South, where I graduated summa cum laud and Phi Beta Kappa (top of my class)! Even though I loved acting, I always wanted to be a singer/songwriter like my mom, but I didn’t even know I was a good songwriter until I was about 18 years old, when I finally started to sit down and write songs with other writers (mostly my mom and her songwriter friends). In college, I enrolled in a “study abroad” program in New York City to study at Michael Howard Studios, and I got a part-time job at my aunt’s dance studio in Chelsea. One night while I was closing down the studio and singing to myself, I was overheard by a music executive who immediately took me into the studio in NYC to record 3 sides! One of the songs was an original song I had written that summer. From those demos, I signed my first development deal with Huge American Music and moved to Los Angeles where I continued writing songs and made my first full-length album “Over the Moon”. It was on the heels of this album that I started touring Europe and eventually signed with 13Bis Records (Warner France). I interpreted this as my opportunity to live abroad and discover the world, so I applied for a work visa and moved to France in 2012! While in France, I also signed with a new French acting agent and landed roles in many international films and TV shows including “Devil’s Due”, “Les Petits secrets entre voisins”, “Rosemary’s Baby”, “Twice”, “The King’s Daughter”, “Il Ne Restera que les Etoiles” and many others. I signed a publishing deal with Universal Production Publishing France where I composed and recorded several albums for Universal’s extensive library catalog and placed songs in various films and TV networks including CBS, MTV, NBC, Discovery Channel, CMT, and others. In 2017 I relocated primarily back to Nashville to launch a production company with my business partners Eddie Gore and Steve Cropper, with whom I also co-engineered and sang on Cropper’s upcoming album. I’ve also co-produced my mom’s last two bluegrass records, one on which I co-wrote the song “Anything To Help You Say Goodbye” (with Irene Kelley and Steve Cropper), which went #1 on the Grassicana charts in 2019. I still regularly travel back and forth to Europe to tour and produce projects. My newest album “Canon” is signed with EKP records in Paris and was released in late 2023, with the first single “Seeing Stars” currently playing on French radio. I also recently signed with new acting agency, Talented in Paris, and set to return to Paris in early 2024 for album promo and showcases!

Have you ever had to pivot?

I think the entirety of life as a creative, or maybe in any field, is the ability to pivot or adapt. Things will usually not go exactly as planned, and a key to success is being able to accept reality and make slight changes in your approach. I think some of the best advice I could give any young artist is to be flexible and look for opportunities everywhere, just say yes, then figure it out! I had to do this when I was moving out of LA, and I had the choice to move back home to Nashville, but instead I went all in on moving to France because I saw a window of opportunity open up! My dad had gifted me some air miles for my college graduation, and I turned that small gift into an entire life and career move! I’ve had to pivot in my career as a producer and business owner too, learning hard lessons like how to set boundaries in working relationships and how you often have to spend money to make money – these are hard lessons to learn at first, but once you open yourself to new information and growth, the opportunities are limitless! Another good piece of advice is to never underestimate what you can do for yourself. So many people think you have to have a huge of team of people working for you, and this definitely helps at a certain level, but even starting out there are things you can do every day to move your career forward, whether it’s reaching out to friends for advice or contacts, or even just researching brand techniques or potential partnerships, etc. Start before you’re ready and throw yourself through every open door.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I think that in order to support artists and creatives, we have to be willing to fairly compensate and elevate artists at every level. If you’ve ever been to Florence, Italy (or seen pictures) and wonder why it’s so beautiful, why there are so many stunning frescos and churches and fountains everywhere, it’s because of the artistic patrons who funded artists like Michaelangelo. The Italians literally had a CULTURE of supporting and promoting great art. Now we live in the days of streaming, and AI, and pay-to-play schemes, the art hardly has a chance to get started let alone flourish. Artists and writers are routinely ripped off by big companies like Spotify and threatened to be replaced with robots and deep fakes – this is recipe for disaster. The best way to nurture art and beauty is to pay for it and budget for it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.justynakelley.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justynakelley/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/justynakelleymusic
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justyna-kelley-a2343623/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfujHdO_fYKg_9C6lGFvj3w

Image Credits
Elliot Lopez, Francois Capdeville, Benoit Billard, Carrie Calloway