Interview:Verité

What's in a name?  

For Verité, the moniker of electro-pop artist Kelsey Byrne, her name epitomises her approach to music.

Taken from Cinema Verité, a form of filmmaking that values candour and transparency, her name encapsulates her unfiltered, stream of conscious lyricism and her desire to present her music in its purest form, free from any unintended influences.  

As I sit with her upon the eve of her second EP, Sentiment, Byrne quickly endears herself with a humanising reaction to her recent success. With critics unified in their praise for her fledgling project, she remains genuinely surprised. "Honestly I feel like I’ve been gifted with this phenomenal response to everything I’ve released thus far- which is actually quite stress inducing."  

Elaborating, she explains:  "I’m constantly waiting for the other foot to drop as I wonder "when are people going to stop liking it," but I've been so shocked and surprised, and the feedback has been amazing." 

Yet her gratitude is firmly grounded in ambition and a love of music. 

"While I love the positive response and am grateful for it, my focus is more on making things that I can feel good about and back."  

Her desire to keep her artistry at the forefront of her image has served her well, and Byrne was vindicated almost immediately by the success of her debut track, 'Heartbeat:'  

'There’s not a tonne of information about me personally out in the open, so it was cool that the music was able to speak for itself and the fact that people solely gravitated towards the music was the biggest compliment of all.'  

As we talk it quickly becomes clear that we're not being offered a rare glimpse behind the veil, but a clarification that there's little to be obscured.

 "There's not a huge difference between the persona Verité and who I am when I'm on my couch at home watching television. If anything I try and dress better on stage." 

While our conversation reveals a person uneasy with her status as an up-and-coming musician, her trepidation underlines her passion and reinforces her drive to improve.

It may appear that her insistence upon obscuring her personal life seems at odds with her ethos, but her responses portray much more of a candid reality than any biography could.

As far as names go, Verité is incredibly apt.