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Kevin Hammond was one of those quiet, preternaturally talented,
sensitive kids who walked around with his head in the clouds. And
even though he’s now twenty-five, not all that much has changed.
The singer-songwriter still spends a lot of time in his own head,
dreaming about a world in which music is never cynical, always
emotional and inspiring, and there’s that one perfect girl to share
it with. “I know that the world isn’t a perfect place,” Hammond
says, laughing. “But I like to keep that ideal in mind because it
helps you express something that we all share, and that’s
everything. The point of my music is to communicate something that
we all feel but can’t necessarily say. I have to sing it, though, I
can’t just say it.” With the Summer 2011 release of his debut album
One of a Kind, Hammond does just that.
Born and raised in Kenosha, Wisconsin by his father, a barber, and
his mother, who works with the elderly, Hammond was the third of
seven kids. “I have two older sisters and two younger sisters,”
Hammond explains, “so I was in between a bunch of girls, surrounded
by Barbie dolls.” The Hammond family was a tight-knit one and the
singer still counts his mom and dad as two of his closest friends.
But while his sisters played with dolls and his brothers played
video games, Hammond played music, a propensity he picked up from
his father. By day Hammond’s dad would cut hair, but by night he’d
play selections from his vast vinyl collection (songs by Joe
Satriani and the Beatles and the Who were favorites). “I remember
the first song I ever loved,” Hammond recalls. “It was some weird
piece of instrumental music my dad had on vinyl called Celestial
Soda Pop or something like that. I would listen to and figure out
how to play it on the keyboard.” On the weekends, Mr. Hammond, who
plays electric guitar and drums, would have his friends over to
rock out. “I’d fall asleep to the sounds of them jamming all the
time,” the singer remembers. The noise sunk in, and by the time
Hammond was ten he was writing his own music. “My dad has some
early recordings of me that I don’t want anyone ever to hear,” the
singer says, laughing.
Hammond eventually moved onto more contemporary stuff, but because
his understanding of song structure was so highly developed at such
an early age, he treated other musicians’ work as an instruction
manual on how to make the sounds in his head. Tears For Fears, U2
and later, Third Eye Blind, Coldplay, and Gavin DeGraw were all
influences, he was drawn to artists who favored sincerity and
simple beauty over irony and layered complexity. By sixteen,
Hammond had written what he considers his first real song, “Baby,”
a track he still plays, but he was still unsure about how to
translate his passion for music into anything resembling a career.
After graduating high school, Hammond decided to move to Minnesota
where several of his friends were attending college. “I went just
to hang out with them,” Hammond remembers. “But whenever I get a
job I have to do it better than everyone. Even if that job is
partying. So I chain-smoked and drank and wasted my life for a
year.”
Bored and disillusioned, Hammond eventually found himself back
Wisconsin, staying on a friends couch. He got his life together,
quit the party scene, and started working odd jobs before landing a
regular gig as a manager at Hollister, where he rose quickly. Next
thing he knew, a year and a half had passed and he had an
apartment, a full-time, demanding job, and a steady girlfriend.
That’s when he decided to give it all up to live in a van and play
music. “I was so exhausted,” Hammond remembers. “I knew that I
wanted to do music but I didn’t have time. I mean, I was right on
the verge of getting a new car, moving into a new apartment, buying
a ring for my girlfriend and I was just thinking, do I want all
this stuff? Do I want to end up married and working retail in
Wisconsin for the rest of my life? No. So one night I just decided
I was going to do music. The next day I quit my job, moved out of
my apartment, traded my car for van, put mattress in the back and
started living there. I just knew it was the first step, and I was
right. After that, everything started falling into place.”
Hammond borrowed a friends’ recording equipment and laid down a few
of his melodic pop tracks, which he then put up on MySpace. After
some hardcore self-marketing he eventually got a hit: Colbie
Caillat’s producer, Mikal Blue, started calling. He wanted to fly
Hammond out to LA to work on some demos. Even though this was
exactly the call Hammond had been waiting for, at first he didn’t
believe it was real. “I was like, I don’t know what’s happening,
who are you?” the singer remembers. “But I flew to LA the next
weekend. It was the first plane I’d ever been on. I mean, my family
was poor – nine people in a four-bedroom house, that plane ride was
pretty intense. Mikal’s girlfriend picked me up at the airport in
this brand new convertible BMW then drove me down the Pacific Coast
Highway. I was like, are you serious?”
Blue was very serious. Hammond was initially supposed to stay in LA
for two days. Instead he stayed for several years. “All I had with
me was a backpack with like one pair of jeans in it,” Hammond
remembers. “When I sang for Mikal he was like ‘I didn’t think you
were going to be that good for real,’ and then he asked me to stay.
So I did.” First Hammond worked with Blue on writing songs for
other artists, and then eventually they began sorting through the
tracks that became One of a Kind. “Just As I Thought” is a dreamy
pop gem about the intersection of optimism and reality. “The Way
That You Move” is a delicate ode to idealized, perfect love that
would be welcome on any crush-inspired mixtape. And lead single
“Broken Down” is a catchy-but-operatic showcase for Hammond’s
remarkable voice, at once agile and powerful.
Now based in New York City, Hammond still gets back to Wisconsin to
see his parents, and he visits his sister and her husband in LA
pretty regularly, but the singer is happiest onstage, communicating
with his fans. “I like every place I go,” he says. “It would be
different if I changed or felt like a different person depending on
the city I’m in, but I don’t. I’m the same everywhere I go. If I’m
in Wisconsin I’m like, ‘Hey these are the people I know here.’ And
if I go to LA I’m like, ‘Oh these are the people I know here.’ I
can’t be traveling from place to place and be stressed about
missing home. I have to make every place I go feel like home.”
