Pop stars, tennis stars, and kids all around
Every year to celebrate the start of the US Open, Arthur Ashe Stadium hosts their “Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day” to celebrate all the kids who love to play tennis. The entire stadium is jam-packed with fun activities for the kids and their parents to enjoy. And the main event for this day is an entire show featuring tennis’ future superstars. There are skills tests where kids compete and some kids get to play alongside tennis superstars like Serena Williams. To make this event even better, the audience is treated to super special musical performances by some of the very best stars around. And this year, we had our eye out on two acts, Kim Petras and Echosmith. Check out our exclusive interviews below!
Kim Petras
The Knockturnal: What’s it like being at the kids day today?
Kim Petras: Really cool, yeah I’m really excited to perform in this stadium man! I’ve only done clubs, so this is really major.
The Knockturnal: So performing for kids, how’s that like?
Kim Petras: Great, I mean I love kids, the energy is gonna be amazing.
The Knockturnal: So you just came out with a new single. How is that like to get that out?
Kim Petras: Great! I mean, it just got really good reviews, fans love it, and that’s all that kinda matters to me.
The Knockturnal: Can you talk a little bit about the album that going to come out with you?
Kim Petras: So the album is probably gonna come out beginning of 2019. I’m really excited to have so many songs, but this year I’m going to drop so many more songs. I’m going to go on tour with Troye (Sivan) in September which is gonna be so amazing, and I’m gonna do a bunch more music videos.
The Knockturnal: What’s gonna be the vibe of the album?
Kim Petras: Well it’s not going to be much different from the songs that are out, I mean its definitely super pop. Very up, I love up-tempo songs. Couple surprises, but there’s like a silver line storyline going through all of the songs.
The Knockturnal: Any fun collaborations that you are doing or want to do?
Kim Petras: I want to do a Troye collaboration. That would be amazing; if it happens on tour, it happens and that would be great. Yeah, in general, I would love to collaborate with Selena Gomez, or you know the girls Ariana (Grande). I would die.
The Knockturnal: What are you excited about going on tour with Troye?
Kim Petras: Well, this is my first real big, huge tour so everything really. The whole experience, just performing every single night, meeting new people every single night and being with people that I really love, being around Troye and Leland , and yeah, just the whole experience.
The Knockturnal: You have such a huge queer fandom. What does that mean to you?
Kim Petras: Well everything. My first single came out like a year ago only. So to me, that I can fill out clubs and there’s still a line around the block, it’s amazing. And yeah, I love them so much, I feel like I’m totally like them and I feel like I’ve just gotten a huge amount of friends I’ve made.
The Knockturnal: How many singles are you going to release this year? I know you’ve been teasing a little bit.
Kim Petras: Yeah, I have a bunch of secret projects that I can’t tease yet, because then the surprise is gone. But a lot of songs, at least eight more.
The Knockturnal: For this year?
Kim Petras: I think so, yeah.
The Knockturnal: Anything else coming up with you that you’d like to share? Anything that you can share with your secret projects?
Kim Petras: No not at all, like nothing. But it’s really sooner than you would think that stuff comes out.
Echosmith
The Knockturnal: What is it like for you to perform today?
Sydney Sierota: We’re so excited because we’ve heard so much about Arthur Ashe Kids Day, so we’re just glad that we get to finally be a part of it. I know we’ve been talking about it for a couple years, so we’re just excited that we get to open up the show and be part of the finale, which will be really touching.
The Knockturnal: So what’s new with you guys?
Sydney Sierota: So we are just wrapping up our sophomore album, we’re really excited about that, but we do have our new single ‘Over My Head’ that we are playing live on the road with Pentatonix all summer. So it’s a ten-week tour and we’re only six weeks in so we have a long way to go, but we’re really happy to be on the road, it just really gives us a lot of fulfillment.
The Knockturnal: What have been some highlights from the tour so far?
Noah Sierota: I mean, these fans have been amazing; these crowds man, like pretty big shows with Pentatonix have been such a joy to play in front of all of them and make a lot of new fans and kinda meet some people that have been a fan of our music for a really long time.
Sydney Sierota: Yeah and we’re also touring with Tilly’s too so it’s cool because we got to do a lot of things with them and we’re doing signings at their stores, we’re also doing lip-sync contest with them. So yeah, it’s really cool and exciting and it’s a good way to connect with the fans, and the winner gets a concert at their school. So yeah, everyone should check it out at tillys.com/echosmith! But yeah, we’re just really excited because we get to interact with fans even more because of those kinds of things.
The Knockturnal: What can we expect from your sophomore album? Since you’re wrapping that up, can you talk about that?
Sydney Sierota: Yes, so I mean still the same band, but we just are a lot older than the first album. So it’s been like five or so years, so I feel like just have grown with our music and we all have had a couple different influences here and there, but, you know, it’s still the same band at the core, but I feel like we’ve grown a lot and really got to experiment with our sound a lot.
The Knockturnal: If you had to describe, is it your music that’s transforming or evolving? How would you describe the the form of Echosmith that you are now?
Noah Sierota: Yeah man, I think what we did in the first record was really cool and I love doing that but I think, but I think we just tried to kinda expand more on that. We are adding more synth-kinda stuff and playing more with different producing effects too, I don’t know, make our music a little more sophisticated, but also more exciting and interesting; to add a little more depth to it is something we are also looking for in our songs.
The Knockturnal: So is there a release date for it that you can share?
Sydney Sierota: we are working on it right now, so stay tuned because it’ll be coming, hopefully as soon as possible.
The Knockturnal: So in 2018 there has been a lot of interesting music being released; who are some people that you would want to collaborate with?
Sydney Sierota: Oh my gosh, so many good ones out there. I mean we would love doing something with Khalid, he’s awesome and I’ve met him a while ago too- like last year sometime- and he’s just the sweetest guy and he’s so talented, so maybe we’ll get to do something together someday. He’s killing it!
The Knockturnal: Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Sydney Sierota: Yeah, just finishing off this tour for another month and we’re just really excited to stay on the road and we are working on announcing more tours and releasing more music as soon as possible.
Lead Photo Credit: Kim Petras attends the 2018 Arthur Ashe Kids’ Day powered by Net Generation at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, NY.
