BETHESDA, MD – On March 3, 18-year-old singer-songwriter Livia McKee will release her third EP, “III On A Match.”
The soulful musician has summered in Cazenovia for her entire life.
According to a press release announcing the new EP, “III On A Match” marks the culmination of McKee’s musical journey through high school.
“With the backdrop of the pandemic, social isolation, and the ups and downs of everyday high school life, this EP reflects Liv’s feelings this past year,” the press release says. “The songs in the EP include ‘Post-Intimate,’ released in 2020, ‘Lillies,’ a tribute song to anyone who has lost a loved one to suicide, and ‘Girlfriend,’ which shines a light on the extent of the lies some will tell in order to cheat in their relationship.”
McKee, whose father is enlisted in the Army, spent her sophomore year living in Germany with her family.
She currently attends Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland.
Before moving to Germany, McKee attended the prestigious Duke Ellington School of Performing Arts in Washington D.C.
In 2018, the musician released her debut EP, “Freshman Year,” which explores themes of peer pressure, relationships, unrequited love and self-discovery through two original songs, “Party” and “Revolver Gun,” and an acoustic track.
“Freshman Year” was co-produced by two-time Grammy nominated producer and songwriter James McKinney and award-winning producer and engineer Jeff Gruber of Blue House Productions.
In 2019, McKee released her second EP, “E-Phase,” which features three tracks — “2007 Britney,” “The Moon,” and “Friends Are Supposed to Do.”
E-Phase was co-produced by Ryan Egan, a singer and musician from NYC.
While McKee described her first EP as “straight pop,” she said her second release leaned more toward “alternative pop or alternative indie.”
III On A Match was written by McKee, produced by McKee and Ryan Eagan, mastered by Steve Dewey, and recorded at Jarrett Nicolay’s studio in Alexandria, VA.
“This EP is much more personal and emotional,” McKee said. “It’s also a bigger project in terms of writing the lyrics and music along with [creating] a music video.”
The music video for “Girlfriend” was shot in Cazenovia last summer.
“I have spent all of my summers in Cazenovia, and although I have traveled and lived in Europe and other parts of the U.S., I believe that [Caz] and the surrounding landscape is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen,” McKee said. “In addition, my good friend Charlie Mann, a Cazenovia resident, is someone I trusted to make the video as I envisioned it, and I knew I could easily collaborate with him.”
Also appearing in the video is Emily Reff, another Cazenovia resident.
According to McKee, the title of her latest EP refers to a purported superstition among soldiers during WWI. The superstition goes that if three soldiers lit their cigarettes from the same match, one of the three would die. Since then, it has been considered bad luck for three people to share a light from the same match.
“My junior year, continuing into my senior year, ended up being super unlucky with lockdown,” McKee said. “I have been out of school for so long, and we are not projected to get back into the classroom until April. Also, your junior year is your third year of high school, so I thought, ‘how unlucky for this pandemic to start in year three of a four year journey.’”
McKee has been singing since a very young age and writing music since she was about nine or 10. In middle school, she started joining bands and performing publicly.
Her musical inspirations include Gracie Abrams, Lizzy McAlpine, Adele, Taylor Swift, Sam Smith and BTS.
After graduating from high school in June 2021, she plans to go to college to pursue both songwriting and the music industry.
“III On A Match” will be available worldwide on all digital platforms.
