Kyle Patrick (Photo: Aloysius Lim)

Text and interview: Natalie Yeo

Call him a boy next door or one with desirable hair, Kyle Patrick (front-man of The Click Five) was the featured artist for the third installment of MTV Sessions which took place at Waterfront Studios, Resorts World Singapore earlier in August.

Decked in a bright red shirt, black skinny jeans and high-cuts, Kyle walked into the room, proving personable by extending his hand to greet everyone personally. Carrying an air of positivity, he cheerfully proceeded with the interview.

Shaking off the dark shades of black, dark blue and grey, Kyle brings new energy and color to his solo journey as a budding artist. Read on to find out more as he talks about his new EP, what he loves about the music industry and about his hopes to settle down and whether he is really who he portrays himself to be!

Your single “Go For Gold!” is such an upbeat song with a sense of unification. How did the concept of the music video come about and what did you want to portray as an artist through the song?

It came about because of the budget we had, which was very small. [Laughs] So basically we had to do it in one shot. Okay, it wasn’t all because of the budget, I’m just kidding.

Basically, “Go For Gold!” started the album and it was the first song that I finished for the album so every other song kind of molded its way around that song. I had it done probably five or six months before the other ones.

The message of the song was always something I wanted people to put on before they go out at night. It’s kind of like one of those pre-game songs. It was me basically backstage in the video, getting ready for a show and getting ready to dance. I’ve never danced before on video. This is the first video that I haven’t had a guitar, haven’t been playing an instrument. I did three days of choreography, which I’ve never ever done in my life. I had a coach, a much-needed coach. [Laughs] It was awesome. I loved it actually! I’ll do more of it in future for sure.

My reference for the video was Robyn’s “Call Your Girlfriend”. Her energy is so powerful and I wanted to do it in one shot because her video was more or less in one shot. I wanted to portray this person in their element basically just rocking out and having fun. I hope I got that message across! And then of course, at the end, I go out on stage to gazillions of people.

You worked on your EP for a good number of years, writing a good number of songs before finally releasing just a portion of it. What happened to the rest of the songs?

I wrote probably a little more than 80 songs maybe? That doesn’t necessarily mean finished songs. It might mean, out of the 80, probably half of them were actual full songs. A lot of times, I’ll write embryos, have ideas and sing into my voice recorder on my iPhone to get those ideas down to make sure I don’t forget it. I’m very forgetful and I have the most ADHD brain and body in the world! [Laughs]

I love a lot of them. Some of them are terrible and some are really cool but they just didn’t fit into this record. I was told to try to write a song every day and I try to do that, even if it’s just little ideas on my voice recorder, and I usually do have some sort of lyric, song title or musical idea. I think I’ll probably do something with them, I’m sure I will. There are three or four that I know I’ll record again and I’m probably going to make a full-length album soon.

There seems to be a particular shade of blue that is seen all around you – Your EP album cover, your suit in “Go For Gold!” – Why this unique shade of blue?

I love that you noticed! I’m bringing color into my whole thing now; I always used to wear black. I always used to wear dark colors like black, grey and dark blue. I always did the Johnny Cash thing.
For some reason, I thought blue would be a good color that fits with gold. That was because when I was coming up with the image in my brain for the music video, I thought a full blue suit would be cool. I, for some reason, always thought I wanted to wear a blue suit. I sent emails to Wendy, my manager, saying, “Hey, this colored suit is kinda cool” and I would send her reference pictures.

David Bowie is a huge influence of mine in fashion and of course music. I think he always pushed the boundaries and I wanted to step outside the box in fashion stuff because I got tired of just wearing a typical suit all the time. There are times for that but I wanted to step outside and do something more hip.

What is it that you most enjoy being in the music industry?

Playing for people, that’s definitely the top. But I also love the whole process of it. I love seeing something come from those iPhone voice recordings to them becoming a demo that I make in my bedroom, to them becoming a record that I put together with producers. Then making it an amazing track, be the first one to hear it, get it out to people and seeing it grow, grow and grow. And then, it’s all over the radio.

Now I’m here in Asia, getting ready to play all these songs for the first time on MTV. Like what? Is this really my life right now?

I was there from at every step of the way, each step has its own really cool flavor to it and I like them all. I really like being in the studio. I like recording, producing stuff and writing songs for other artists too. I like being behind the glass a lot, just as much as I like being in front of the microphone, you know? I love all stages of it. But at the end of it, when I get in front of a bunch of people and play, that’s when I feel best.

Kyle Patrick (Photo: Aloysius Lim)

Would you say you are “a boy next door”?

That’s an interesting question. Some people, mostly girls, have the perception that I’m very clean cut. I’m a nice guy. I take pride in being nice to people, in being comfortable around people and making them feel comfortable. I think that’s me growing up in the South and my parents instilled that upon me and they are really great people, always very gracious to everyone. I think I do have that quality.
But I also like breaking rules. I mean, who doesn’t? The rules are there to be broken. I feel like in times I’m not in interviews or in front of a camera, I might step outside of the box a little bit as far as the rules are concerned.

At the end of the day, I do take pride in being a wholesome person and I do see myself being married with a family later in life and having kids. I do want to have kids! I’ve definitely been on the road for a long time (not that I’m an old person, I’m still very young), but I’ve been touring for a long time and I’ve done the running around for years now. I finally feel like I’m settling down a bit.

Finally, what does MTV Sessions mean to you and what message would you like to share with your fans through this event?

It’s a dream come true, seriously. I literally grew up on MTV Sessions and MTV Unplugged! I started as a guitar player and used to listen to Eric Clapton Unplugged very early on. That was one of my favorite records when I was growing up and seeing him on Unplugged. My dad is a huge fan of him too! Stevie Ray Vaughan Unplugged, John Mellancamp Unplugged, Nirvana Unplugged and all these different MTV features. The fact that I’m going to do one of those is huge!

Kyle Patrick (Photo: Aloysius Lim)

I’ve been looking forward to this for six months and I’ve been working on this with my manager to get here for a long time. I’ve been working on this great set and I’ve made my entire record since then, except for “Go For Gold!” which I finished before the trip. I’ve had it in mind of what it would look like on MTV Sessions performing it. This is the first time I will play all these songs live – The first time. I haven’t done a show before this. I wanted to do a show before this but I got strep throat so this is literally going to be the first time I’m playing these songs in front of people. And it’s going to be quite a lot of people! I kinda don’t want to think about it. I’m a little nervous but I’m real excited.

The message I want to send across to people is to have fun with it! I want people to have fun with this record, that’s why I made it. I want them to put it on, feel great about themselves and go out to do something awesome. I want it to look great, I want it to sound great and I want to put on the best show I possibly can for everybody and that’s always what I always set out to do when I hit the stages. To really make people go, “Wow, that was a great show. I want to that record. I want to see him again.”