Striking Matches: Taylor Mackenzie Mieszkuc on Writing Her First Song at 12

At 19, Taylor Mackenzie Mieszkuc is already a decade into her musical journey — and in Part 1 of this conversation, Jessica Curtis and Rob Sermerano dig into how it all began.

Taylor takes us back to a third-grade production of Peter Pan that lit the spark, the sixth-grade ukulele that turned her into a songwriter, and the Teen Beach Movie moment that led to her very first song, "Miss Invisible" — written from the perspective of a quiet friend overshadowed by outgoing siblings. Pretty introspective stuff for a 12-year-old.

We also hear the story behind her newly released single "Matches," written at 14 during the height of COVID lockdown and inspired by the cinematic music video for Aria's "Mulholland Drive." Taylor shares what it was like walking into Black Sheep Studios and hearing a full band play her song "Boy at the Beach" back to her for the first time (spoiler: she may or may not have had a minor meltdown on camera), plus a preview of her upcoming song "Glimmering Gold," a deeply personal track about the search for lasting friendship.

Along the way, Taylor opens up about her influences — from Taylor Swift (the "blueprint") to Conan Gray, Sabrina Carpenter, Mimi Webb, and country artists like Megan Moroney and Lainey Wilson — and who she hopes to inspire with her own music: the girls, guys, theys, and everyone in between who just need a safe space to feel seen.

Currently studying music education at Bloomsburg University, Taylor is learning everything from piano to percussion to violin, and it's clear this is only the beginning. Stick around for Part 2, where we go even deeper into her story.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to the Progress Report, where we don't just talk about what's broken. We shine a light on what's being built. Welcome back to the Progress Report. We've got a really fun conversation ahead with a young artist who's been making music from a very early age. Taylor Mackenzie Mia's Kutch is 19 and is currently studying music education at Bloomsburg University. She's been singing since she was 10 and writing her own songs, which she's been doing since she was 12, which is insane to me. One of her songs, Matches, is especially meaningful, came out just a few weeks ago. And it's something she wrote at 14, her first time writing on piano. And the first song she felt ready to share with the world. She'll get into what it's about. And um, yeah, Taylor, we're really excited to hear more about your journey and where your music is headed. Take us back to the beginning and what first sparked your love of singing when you were 10.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

So I was actually in a high school production when I was in third grade. So they were doing Peter Pan and they brought out a audition because they wanted young kids from the school to be Lost Boys. So it was third grade and up. So I ended up doing that, and that's where I fell in love with it. And then the next year I was a student at Hamilton Bicentennial Elementary. So they had just started their theater program, and it was fourth through sixth grade, and I was in fourth grade. So I just started doing it from there when they first started that program, and then I just kept doing it through high school.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

That's really cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Well, I I have something in common with you. Way back in a time period called 1990, I was a second grader and I was actually in the high school musical of the Wizard of Oz, um as a as a lollipop kid. I was I was the head lollipop kid. So I I I remember it's it's funny how you you go to the show and you're out on stage for about five minutes, and the rest of the time you're just backstage hearing all this, you know, Wizard of Oz stuff going on for three hours. But it was it was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Well, what just to close the loop on that, I was in the wow, that would have been my junior year, my junior year. I was in the um high school production of Peter Pan. So uh that would have been 1997. 90 97, we'll say 96, 97. And I was a um a pirate and I had one line, and every time we'd rehearse and through the the actual musical, I would choke and not say it at the right time. I would I I and my line was nothing complicated. It was I, it's a man with the it's the man with the hook. And no matter what, I couldn't get it in the right spot. And God bless Mrs. Pacer for her patience.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Yeah, they they were uh the Pacers were serious about their musicals. I mean, it felt like I mean, of course, I was in second grade, so anything felt serious at that age, but it uh that's pretty cool stuff. Now, you started writing music at 12 years old. Yeah, and what what kind of uh you know what was the genesis of that? Like what made you just say one day I'm gonna put a song down on paper, or did something start to just come to you, or how did you get into that?

SPEAKER_02 3:47

Yeah, so it when I was in sixth grade, I uh we had like a ukulele program where it was like she would teach us how to play ukulele, and then there was a select ensemble that I was in. Uh, because at this point I was like pretty heavy into the singing. I was doing NISMA and all that. So I was in this select ensemble and we were doing a song with the ukulele uh to kind of tie it into what we were doing in our general music methods courses. So I kind of I was like, hey, like can I can I take this home with me and practice? And my teacher was like, sure, signing out. I was like, great. So I took it home, and oddly enough, I remember when I first wrote this, I was watching Teen Beach movie and Team Beach movie, and they have a song in it that has very heavy ukulele. Okay, and I was kind of like, huh, I wonder. And I sat there and I just started doing chords, and then I sort of kind of had an idea. The first song that I ever wrote was called Miss Invisible, and I actually ended up performing it at the concert. She let me do that, which was really, really cool. Um ran in on Monday and I was like, look at what I did. I was like, I did this.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Um and what was uh Miss Invisible? What was the uh kind of the theme of the song?

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Yeah, so I wrote it about I had a friend who had two younger siblings, and these younger siblings were like very outgoing kids, um, and she was just very, very quiet. So I grew up with her, and it was almost like she was kind of like invisible in her own home because her siblings were so just loud and outgoing, and she just wasn't like that. She was very timid, very shy. Um, but I had been friends with her for years. Um, so I kind of wrote the song from her perspective, almost like um it was very looking back on it, it was very introspective for a 12-year-old to do.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking as you're saying this. It's it's yeah, quite a quite a mission to take on as a 12-year-old.

SPEAKER_02 6:18

Yeah, a lot of the songs that I do write come from either stories or from very rarely do I write from my own experience. Um, I have more now that I'm in college, definitely, but like through like my middle school and high school years, I really like loved to create these worlds and almost like these situations in these worlds. And that was like how I how I expressed my creativity, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Music writing is is fascinating to me. Um and I I was I was with somebody um from my uh college, East Strasbourg University Alumni Association down here um in DC a couple weeks ago, and I was talking about how much I hated my uh going into college. I hated writing, and I uh I more information than you need, I bombed the the college writing exam. I got put into non-credit like remedial English my freshman year just because I was lazy and I hated writing. And anyway, I took I I waited until my fifth and final year of college, because I I um when I transferred from Oniana, I lost all of my credits. Um, I took my my freshman English for upperclassmen, my my fifth year. And with that said, I had a great professor and I actually found that I love I love writing, I love creative writing and and you know, which benefits me now, obviously. But um writing is fascinating. So I am a huge, huge, huge fan of Brandy Clark, if you've ever heard of her. Um she she's fantastic and her music, Rob, if you've not heard of her, she she writes, I mean, much like Taylor, she writes about um real life stuff, right? Actual stories about like um, you know, one one's about a uh that I I think of um called The Stripes, and it's about a um woman whose husband cheats on her, and she's she's basically like, I'm not gonna uh do anything because I don't want to go to jail and wear orange or wear stripes because I I don't look good in stripes. And uh all of her songs have have that kind of like uh common common thread to connect you to something else. Um and so so uh kind of um talk us through matches, this song that's out now, and and really um tell us about the song, tell us about um the other two and and really just kind of like not only you you mentioned what you write about, but like where do you where do you draw where do you draw all of that creativity and inspiration from to come up with things? Because I mean, honestly, from my perspective, and you said you write about stories, and I think about another songwriter who's in Nashville named Jimmy Yeary. We've had him come and speak um in at my previous job, and um he he he would have the crowd, the audience write write a song with him. So he'd ask questions, and then um people would give you know a two-sentence answer and we'd write down and write go through a bunch of questions and he would write it into a song. And and so talk us through matches, talk us through, you know, why it's such a meaningful milestone for you. Not not only write you wrote it when you were 14, but um, yeah, just kind of talk talk us through that and and your other two songs that are that are coming out.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

Yeah, so a lot of my inspiration comes at very, very random times, and that is prevalent for matches because I was 14, it was height of COVID, I was in my room by myself for days on end, had nothing to do, because at this point it was summer during COVID, which I argue was the worst because at least during the year I could get on a Zoom and have some form of interaction with someone, but at this point there was nothing. So there is a music video that I really do. I'm like, oh my gosh, I love this music video. It came out in 2020. It's called Maholland Drive by an artist called Aria, and this music video was shot almost like a movie, like it felt very immersive. And I watched that music video, I called my best friend, made her watch the music video with me, and then I sat down at my piano and wrote this song within like an hour and a half. Wow, like it just happened, it just flowed out because I was just so inspired by this other person's piece of art. And I I I also kind of feel that way for another song that was coming out called Boy at the Beach. Um Boy at the Beach. Hopefully, I want this one to be out uh May. That's what we're hoping for. We're shooting for a May release date. Um, but I was talking to this guy at the time, and we vacate, we like go on vacation around the same area. So I love Ocean City, Maryland. It's like my favorite place in the entire world. I would literally live there if I could. So it was like the middle of February in a snowstorm. I'm 16 years old. I'm like, dang, I really want to be in Ocean City, Maryland right now, in the warm. So I created this story of this girl and this guy meet at the beach, and they have this love story, but then she has to go home. And then they they separate. And a lot of my a lot of the songs that are going to be coming out are kind of tragic in a way. Um, matches is very much so uh your typical story, uh boy meets girl, uh, they fall in love, but really he has ulterior motives and she doesn't find that out until too late, and her heart's already broken. Um, so it it's some things that like I really take to heart because I'm I'm like I am such a hopeless romantic, I really am. But as we know from a lot of stories from hopeless romantics, they do not end up the way we want. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

You also seem to have a lot of empathy, which I think you know that comes out with that first song you wrote about your friend. And I think when you're someone that has empathy for others, um, those things really resonate with you, and you're kind of singing about situations that maybe you've seen friends go through, or even hypothetical situations, but you you have empathy for that person that's going through that, as you put it, tragic kind of moment in their lives. And you know, I think we can all agree we've all been through those types of things, and it's to have to have a song. I know myself there's certain songs you hear in those times, and it really resonates with you, and um, that's really cool that you're doing that because I know how powerful some of those songs were for me during some tough times, and I'm sure you're gonna speak to some some girl out there, some guy out there that that you know listens to it and and can really relate to you know what you're singing about, and that's that's pretty cool stuff.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Tell us about um how you transition from uh playing ukulele to I I get the transition to guitar and I get I get I guess to an extent piano, but tell us about about that and just really um your your journey in in playing musical instruments because again, I I just I I could compare myself to your talent and I I'm surrounded by I literally I have uh bongo drums, I have uh violin, mandolin, I have a ukulele, I have another um uh I guess that would be a I I don't it's not really a guitar. I have a uh string instrument that's like a made out of a cigar box, but like can I play them? No.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

Yeah, so the transition from guitar, I mean from ukulele to guitar is actually pretty easy, in my opinion. Sure. I was like it was it was pretty easy for me uh to pick up, but I had actually gotten the guitar as a gift. We had a family member that was cleaning out their home because they were moving. Um, and they were like, hey, this Taylor sings. Does she want this? And they were like, Okay, cool. So I got that, and I immediately started the first song that I ever learned how to play was You Belong With Me by Taylor Swift. And that was the first one that I learned how to play. And I like ran out and I was like, Mom, look, mom, look. And she was like, How did you do that? And I was like, I just followed YouTube and I learned, and that's pretty much prevalent for all the instruments that I know. So my main obviously is voice. I am very comfortable on guitar and pretty comfortable on piano. Uh, I actually take piano classes now at my college. That's what I just came from, my piano lesson. So I do do all that. And then now that I am in this major for music education, we have to take specific courses. So I've learned some percussion instruments, I've learned kind of how to play drums. I am not great by any means. I very much so lack the rhythm needed for percussion instruments. Figured I'd preface that. But my uh I've learned a little bit of violin and viola, which I do very much so enjoy playing. Um, I'm in a course next semester for some woodwinds. So uh yeah, so I I do have to cover a lot of instruments and I do learn them here in school, but the ones that I really put in the time for and learned completely on my own were guitar and piano to start. All right, cool.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

All right, and these songs that are coming out, um, is it is it just you or do you have a background? You know, do you have do you have like a group behind you playing? Is there synthesized music in it? Or you know, um do you do you have backup or anything like that, or is it is it all you?

SPEAKER_02 17:43

No, it is not all me, most definitely. Uh, the wonderful Jeff who works at Black Cheek Studios in Gardner, New York, he uh mixed everything and mastered everything for me. It was around a three-day process. We have uh my producer Vito is on guitar for all of the songs, um, all of the electric guitar you hear, and like the crazy wrists that is him, because Lord knows I couldn't do that. But uh we had a wonderful uh bass player and key player and uh drum set player that Vito all knew from different projects, and he reached out to them and he was like, Hey, like, do you guys want to come come and do this? And they were like, Yeah, sure. So they came and they learned all my music and they played it for me on the day of when we recorded, and it was it was an insane, amazing experience, absolutely, but yeah, I had a lot of people behind me supporting me, helping me throughout the process for sure.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

What was that being in the studio? Was that like a pinch me moment for you where you're like, what is happening right now? Because I I saw I I saw um your mom had posted a quick little clip of like in the in in the production side, right? Uh of the studio and just being like, Oh, this is so cool. So tell us a little bit about a little bit more about that.

SPEAKER_02 19:15

So I walked in that day and I like sat down and we were all just kind of like hanging out, and then all of a sudden they start to play Boy at the Beach, just like full out. And I was like, I was like looking around, like, am I like hallucinating? It was like unbelievable to me that they already knew it and they were just playing it for fun. They were just like warming up, playing it. I was like, you've got to be kidding me. I was like, this is the most insane thing that I've ever experienced ever. Um, and that video that she took of me was actually me for the first time like freaking out because they were just playing my song. It's like insane and surreal how talented these people are and how uh wonderful they are at what they do, really truly.

SPEAKER_03 20:09

Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Well, you mentioned you mentioned um Taylor Swift. Um, and and before before we started uh recording the podcast, you mentioned as well, um, you have a very eclectic sense of music. So or or um eclectic variety of music, I should say, that you listen to. So uh who who are some of the artists and and uh types of music that have really influenced you and and shaped your your musical style along the way here as you've you've grown into a a very talented 19-year-old performer. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

Um obviously, Taylor Swift. I love her. She is like my biggest inspiration, really and truly. The way that she absolutely dominates the music business and does it all on her own is like I feel like she as a person, her business model is the blueprint. Like that's what every that's what people now are striving for is to be as big as Taylor Swift is. Um, but I remember I loved her ever since that I was a kid. Um we had her debut album on a CD, and I loved Picture to Burn because my dad had a pickup truck, and I would play that song in my strawberry shortcake CD player, and I would jump on my bed and I would sing it to my dad because my dad had a pickup truck, and I didn't know what the song meant. I just knew that stupid old pickup truck, that's all I knew. So I was very, very influenced by her for as long as I can personally remember. I've always loved her.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

You know, I think I've always said that inspiration, I think, is the greatest gift you can give anyone. And obviously, it sounds like Taylor Swift inspired you. Uh, who else would you say, or is there anyone else that you say that was an inspiration to you? And then a follow-up to that would be who do you hope to inspire? Are you looking to, you know, reach out to a certain uh demographic of people with your music to inspire them? Or, you know, just kind of like whoever's inspired is inspired by.

SPEAKER_02 22:31

Yeah. Uh now that I am much older than two years old listening to just the same thing, um, I have really come to like a lot of different artists and really like take inspiration from a lot of different artists. Uh, one of my favorites right now that I listen to all the time is definitely Sabrina Carpenter, uh, Olivia Rodrigo, uh Conan Gray. I love Conan Gray. If you've never heard any song by Conan Gray, please look him up. He is fantastic. I actually just went to his concert at the end of January, and it was like the best time of my life. He is such an influential songwriter to me. The way that he writes and the way that he articulates his words is just beautiful. Um, and when it comes to more like instrumental style, I really do love to lean into that a little bit of country twang, but like more like that indie kind of vibe is what I really love to lean into. So artists like Mimix Tune, if you've ever heard of her, she is amazing. Um, Girl in Red, like these more very modern artists that have more of an indie sound are things that I really aspire to have in my instrumental. Um, and when it comes to country, I mean there's just so many people that I love. I love Megan Moroney, I love Ella Langley, Lainey Wilson, um Elizabeth Nichols, who my mom just met down in Nashville, which was like insane to me. She had shown me, she was like, Yeah, I'm going to Nashville. And oh my gosh, Elizabeth Nichols might play at one of our shows. And I was freaking out because I introduced her to Elizabeth Nichols. She wouldn't have even known who she was if it wasn't for me. Then she met her and had her send me a video.

SPEAKER_03 24:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 24:35

Like it was insane. And I collapsed on my roommate's bedroom floor and I just laid there for like a good 10 minutes. I like couldn't even believe that it was real. But I have so many artists that influence me and that I love and because I just love music. I think that's what it comes down to is I just love music. So it really is just a mixture of everything. Um, and to answer your second question, um, I really, really just I want to inspire people like me, you know, like like girls like me that didn't really have a lot of friends growing up and kind of were more by themselves. Like I was a very outgoing kid. Like I was very uh, this is actually what I talk about in my song Glimmer and Gold. Um, I had a really hard time. I could make friends easily, but I had a really hard time keeping them. Um so growing up, it was very much a, oh yeah, like I think that all these people are my friends. And then next thing I know, somebody decides that they don't like me, and then they're talking about me behind my back, and then suddenly I don't have friends. Suddenly I have to find a new friend group. And that was very prevalent for me entirely throughout my middle school through high school years until I graduated. Um, of course, I have some really, really amazing friends that I still talk to to this day, um, but they are very few and far between. So Glimmer in Gold is about kind of like that search for finding that friendship and like how things can feel secure and they can be this beautiful thing until they're not. And you can't really control that. Um, so for the girls like me that have experienced that, that's like the main thing. I want to give them a safe space.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 26:35

Anybody, the girls, the guys, the babes, everybody, non-binary people alike. Um, I want them all to be able to have that safe space and to feel seen, even if things don't look as great in their own personal life right now.

SPEAKER_03 26:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

This has been such a fun conversation, Taylor. I love how intentional you are with your music. And it's pretty incredible to hear how all of this started for you so young. Rob, I feel like we've only scratched the surface here. So let's do this. We're gonna pick this up right back in the next episode and go a little deeper. Taylor, I want to talk more about all the things. So don't go anywhere. We'll be back soon with part two of this episode of the progress report.