For only being 26 years of age, Phoebe Ryan has accomplished quite a lot. On top of being a fantastic singer, she is also a great songwriter who has penned for legends in the industry including Britney Spears and has also worked with modern day big leaguers like The Chainsmokers and The Knocks, just to name a few.
Phoebe became known about two years ago, when she released a mashup of R. Kelly's "Ignition" and Miguel's "Do You", that put her on the map as well as her first single "Mine". Most recently, she made the charts as a featured artist on The Chainsmokers hit "All We Know", which made the top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Speaking of that, I was in attendance for the first day at Billboard's Hot 100 Music Festival, taking place in my hood of Long Island at Jones Beach. Several major music stars were in attendance, including Big Sean, Nicki Minaj and Gucci Mane just to name a few. After her phenomenal performance yesterday afternoon, which included a surprise appearance by Blackbear on their new single "Forgetting All About You", Phoebe took some time to chat with me about her career, the love for her green hair, and her future plans. Take a look.
IM: So first question, and its a serious one. Would I look good with green hair?
PR: Everybody would look good with green hair! But especially you!
IM: Thank you! I want to attract an interesting subset of men anyways. What is it naturally?
PR: I know, I said it was naturally green on stage but obviously I lied. Umm… its just brown.
IM: So where are you from originally, anywhere near by?
PR: Yeah, I'm actually from the Jersey Shore, or Joisey (gotta use my accent correctly), in a town there called Sea Bright.
IM: You performed so many great songs today! We loved them all. What was your favorite and why?
PR: Ok, so my new song with Blackbear is called "Forgetting All About You", and it was my first time performing it literally on stage and singing it live. We kind of had a little mess up, we had some kind of little blip go on, which we kind of did the song twice. Which was great! Nobody cared, and its better this way because I just felt really good about it. It's funnier when you mess up on stage, it takes real courage to be an idiot for that.
IM: So maybe its my generation, but when I think of your name Phoebe I obviously think of Lisa Kudrow on Friends.
PR: Yeah, I used to perform "Smelly Cat" on the sidewalk with a guitar, I'm not even joking. People would pay extra to see my play "Smelly Cat", because my name is Phoebe. They would be like, "Play Smelly Cat!" and I would.
IM: So what inspired you to get into the music industry in the first place?
PR: Well what's interesting is that I always thought I would go the acting route, like I always was very into theatre in high school. When I was thinking about a career, like what kind of actual career I wanted, I was like "Damn, all my friends are musicians". There's something to that. If you are surrounding yourself with people who love music, that's ideal. I love music too, so that was the path that i wanted to go.
IM: What's your favorite song you have ever done?
PR: Favorite song hmm. I'm giddy about the new one with Blackbear and I'm excited that it's out. I think the best is yet to come, to be honest.
IM: Do you have a dream artist that you want to work with?
PR: I don't know, there's so many amazing people. Just being a music fan, I look up to so many musicians. Anybody that could walk by right now, I can say "That is my dream come true to work with them". Everybody has something unique to offer, and I'm down to work with whoever.
For more on Phoebe, check out her official site.