Kaitlin Sweeney

**Winner of 2 Out & About Music Awards-Break out Artist, and Best Singer/Songwriter
**Hometown Heroes Homey Award winner for Best female solo act ‘08
**Nominated for Best pop act-delaware music awards ‘08
**Hometown heroes Homey Award for Best Singer fronting a band ‘07
**Delaware Music Award for Best Pop ‘07
**Spark Summer Series winner ‘06
**Listed at one of Delaware’s most intriguing people of “06 by spark magazine
- Various

Could the record industry's next pop diva hail from Delaware?

Newark-based Kaitlin Sweeney hopes so.

The 24-year-old singer-songwriter lives in Newark, but she has found a second home in New York City, where she often travels to perform and record.

"We played the Lion's Den (nightclub) in New York on Saturday night," Sweeney said by phone Tuesday. "It was awesome. We brought close to 100 people, although we wanted more.

"We'll be playing the Bitter End on Jan. 27 and hopefully it'll be even bigger."

Her next few gigs are closer to home, however. She'll play the Dogfish Head brewpub in downtown Rehoboth Beach for the first time at 10 p.m., Friday, followed by the Homegrown Cafe in Newark at 8 p.m., Saturday.

She'll ring in the new year at Toscana in Wilmington at 9 p.m., Dec. 31.

Sweeney's band includes two backing vocalists, Tara Mangini and Lindsay Ogle; keyboardist Nate Hall; drummer Matt Galletti; bassist Charlie Murry; and guitarist Bryan Chen.

While Sweeney is the main focus and has utilized various backing musicians in the past, she feels the group has evolved into a tight unit; she uses the word "we" when discussing most aspects of her career.

"I advertise it as the Kaitlin Sweeney Band a lot," she said. "I don't want people to think it's just going to be me showing up by myself with an acoustic guitar."

Although she plays the piano and the guitar when writing songs, Sweeney fronts the band with a wireless microphone -- the better to dance with. She has a background in dance and still works parttime as a freelance choreographer when not booking shows and looking after her music.

"I started out doing tap dancing and then I really got into hip hop," Sweeney said.

She isn't ashamed of the artists who inspired her to make music, either.

"I know a lot of people don't like Britney Spears any more, but she was a big influence on me back in the day," Sweeney said. "I like Justin Timberlake and people like that, but I'm also into everything from the Beatles to Damien Rice."

Sweeney's music is unabashed, radio-friendly pop, which is a rarity on the Delaware music scene.

"I'm definitely comfortable with the word 'pop,'" Sweeney said. "But a lot of people on the Web are calling us 'urban pop rock.' I don't know where the 'urban' comes from, maybe because some of our music has an R&B/hip hop feel."

Whatever it is, it's working. The group took first place in Spark magazine's annual Summer Music Series competition last summer; Sweeney appeared on the cover wearing a pageant outfit with a bouquet of roses. "It's amazing how many people recognize me from that cover," she said. "Sometimes they think I'm Miss Delaware or something because of the way I was dressed."

The band's local shows are flavored with a few cover tunes.

"We play all originals when we're in New York, but when we headline locally we do about half cover tunes," Sweeney said. "I want people to be able to sing along. We even have some people who come back specifically to hear the covers they like. It's a high energy show, that's for sure."


E-mail Roger Hillis at rhillis@gannett.com - The Daily Times

Could the record industry's next pop diva hail from Delaware?

Newark-based Kaitlin Sweeney hopes so.

The 24-year-old singer-songwriter lives in Newark, but she has found a second home in New York City, where she often travels to perform and record.

"We played the Lion's Den (nightclub) in New York on Saturday night," Sweeney said by phone Tuesday. "It was awesome. We brought close to 100 people, although we wanted more.

"We'll be playing the Bitter End on Jan. 27 and hopefully it'll be even bigger."

Her next few gigs are closer to home, however. She'll play the Dogfish Head brewpub in downtown Rehoboth Beach for the first time at 10 p.m., Friday, followed by the Homegrown Cafe in Newark at 8 p.m., Saturday.

She'll ring in the new year at Toscana in Wilmington at 9 p.m., Dec. 31.

Sweeney's band includes two backing vocalists, Tara Mangini and Lindsay Ogle; keyboardist Nate Hall; drummer Matt Galletti; bassist Charlie Murry; and guitarist Bryan Chen.

While Sweeney is the main focus and has utilized various backing musicians in the past, she feels the group has evolved into a tight unit; she uses the word "we" when discussing most aspects of her career.

"I advertise it as the Kaitlin Sweeney Band a lot," she said. "I don't want people to think it's just going to be me showing up by myself with an acoustic guitar."

Although she plays the piano and the guitar when writing songs, Sweeney fronts the band with a wireless microphone -- the better to dance with. She has a background in dance and still works parttime as a freelance choreographer when not booking shows and looking after her music.

"I started out doing tap dancing and then I really got into hip hop," Sweeney said.

She isn't ashamed of the artists who inspired her to make music, either.

"I know a lot of people don't like Britney Spears any more, but she was a big influence on me back in the day," Sweeney said. "I like Justin Timberlake and people like that, but I'm also into everything from the Beatles to Damien Rice."

Sweeney's music is unabashed, radio-friendly pop, which is a rarity on the Delaware music scene.

"I'm definitely comfortable with the word 'pop,'" Sweeney said. "But a lot of people on the Web are calling us 'urban pop rock.' I don't know where the 'urban' comes from, maybe because some of our music has an R&B/hip hop feel."

Whatever it is, it's working. The group took first place in Spark magazine's annual Summer Music Series competition last summer; Sweeney appeared on the cover wearing a pageant outfit with a bouquet of roses. "It's amazing how many people recognize me from that cover," she said. "Sometimes they think I'm Miss Delaware or something because of the way I was dressed."

The band's local shows are flavored with a few cover tunes.

"We play all originals when we're in New York, but when we headline locally we do about half cover tunes," Sweeney said. "I want people to be able to sing along. We even have some people who come back specifically to hear the covers they like. It's a high energy show, that's for sure."


E-mail Roger Hillis at rhillis@gannett.com - The News Journal

Kaitlin Sweeney .... on being our Readers' Choice!


Interview at Sparkweekly.com - Spark Weekly

Spark's eight most intriguing people of 2006
SPARK STAFF | spark 12/27/2006A movie star from the '80s and a TV star from today. A rollergirl and an Olympic ice skater. A woman behind the scenes of the local original music scene and a girl at the forefront of that same thriving scene.

See the connections? Pretty darned intriguing, aren't they? Know what else they have in common? They're all from Delaware and we got to interview each one of them this year. It's a list of crazy busy eight people who we've selected as our most intriguing people of the year.


KAITLIN SWEENEY

It took about two months, listening to 15 bands at eight different venues, spending hours and hours on Friday nights before we finally had our champion. And we couldn't have been happier when the final fan tally resulted in Kaitlin Sweeney emerging as our second Spark Summer Music Series winner.

And what was her reaction to the news? "I was in the mall at the time and totally freaked out. I started screaming, but then everyone started staring at me," she said.

"Then I started whispering, calling my parents and friends, and they did the screaming for me. By the end I was whisper screaming, if you can imagine what that must sound like."

All that whisper-screaming was because Kaitlin knew the value of winning the music series.

"That was huge for me this year. Winning really helped us in a sense of getting us out there and getting more people to know what I'm doing." She is currently working a new CD, which she hopes to have ready by February.

-- Rob

- Spark Weekly