Singer/songwriter Nicole Springer is back ashore with a summer show lineup
Nicole Springer. // Photo by Garrett Blackwell
Nicole Springer is a local singer/songwriter that has spent a few months at sea performing on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship. She is making her return to land and has some shows lined up right here in her hometown.
Currently working on her full-length album, Springer is a talented lyricist who not only creates original music but has 450 cover songs—from Taylor Swift to the Eagles—in her repertoire that she can perform at the drop of a hat. The Pitch had a chance to chat with Springer about her upcoming shows and what she’s been up to recently.
The Pitch: You were recently performing on a cruise ship. What was that experience like?
Nicole Springer: I’ve spent four months on cruise ships with the Royal Caribbean, and I’m the guitarist. I perform essentially 20 hours a week for six nights a week on cruise ships. Most recently, I was in the Mexican Riviera that was out of Los Angeles. I just ended up performing every night and I take requests sometimes for hours. The guests just throw them my way and a lot of times it turns into a ’90s party—which I have no problem with.
I have about 450 songs I cover, and I also learn songs for the guests while I’m there. I just got home last week, and while I was there, I made some really great contacts. I’m planning to go back to California to do a little tour for my original music. I’m actually gonna be staying with a lot of my guests that I’ve met along the way, so it’ll be house shows galore. I’ll go all the way up to San Francisco, and down to San Diego.
And then, in a few weeks, I’m going to the studio here in KC to record my first solo full-length album. I’m really trying to go all in on original music and playing some shows here.
How has the experience been recording your first full-length album?
It’s been a long time coming. You know, I’ve had a band, and I still have a band on standby, but it’s been a long road to just embrace my full creative vision for music. So on this album, I’m playing everything—piano and drums and guitar and all my harmonies and all of that. It’s really exciting. I’ve never had the confidence to do that. I’m just going for it. These are some of the songs that have been written for a few years, and three of them are brand new. I wrote them on the boat. It’s going to be a really cool progression. Usually, my music is about my mental health journey in some capacity, and I’m excited for that story to kind of unfold through song, and hopefully, it can lift people up as well.
You’ve already played a few shows since you’ve been back in town. How have those gone?
They’ve been great. I played two shows before I left between contracts, so to come back after learning the guitar even beyond what I knew before—playing for two months, six nights a week will fine-tune your skill very quickly. You feel like a whole different artist at the end of it. To come back to Kansas City as this new version of myself and to have a really good reception so far—I just love it. I love what I do, and doing it at home is always a really good time.
Do you have a favorite song to play at shows?
One of my favorite songs to play is “Take Me To Church” by Hozier. I just absolutely get lost in that song. It’s fun to do Janis Joplin because she is my favorite singer. With my demographics on the boat and in Kansas City, it’s so wide-ranging that I get to play everything from The Beatles to Beyoncé in a show. And for me, that’s fun. I want to show you all the sides of me as a singer, and I want you to know the diversity of my material and my versatility as a performer.
To see a list of Nicole’s upcoming shows, you can visit her website or follow her on Instagram and Twitter.
