Kate Micucci has a 13 song collection of silly and emotional songs that you probably haven't heard yet.
“The day the album came out was the day I got a phone call saying I probably had lung cancer,” says Micucci. Billboard Family over Zoom, just days before that album's one-year anniversary in 2023 My hat. “It was a strange combination of things that happen in one day.”
On separate shores, we discuss Halloween. We realize that we have set up a meeting time around our 4 year olds' Halloween parades. Mine is Luigi. Hers is Spider-Man by day, Ninja Turtle by night.
A few days ago, Micucci, an artist and actor with a knack for quirky comedy, uploaded a video of herself playing a new song about a lonely pumpkin she saw on an exit off the 101 in Van Nuys.
“It's so lonely, it's no fun/ Being a pumpkin on 101/ I'm the weirdest surprise out in Van Nuys/ I've heard of pumpkin patches/ A place where I'm many/ Instead, I'm here with just one tree/ It's exhausting , with all the exhaustion splashing in my face/ Could I ever get out of this place?' she sings.
Writing whimsical songs like this is common for Micucci, who is now cancer free. He underwent surgery in December 2023 to remove 20% of his right lung and says he felt like he was really on the mend until about May. Now she's '100% healthy': That's something to smile about, and it brings light to our discussion about the curveball she was thrown this time last year.
“I really didn't get to celebrate the album the way I wanted to,” says Micucci My hatwhich he started writing years ago and finished shortly after becoming a parent in 2020. “I immediately got into a lot of testing and I was getting it… The album definitely just got a negative response right away.”
My hatavailable for streaming album/7aSAZLhEs3cQx5AEMPypRD?si=atGdIXEyQXC4ks6IDIZvYg”>on Spotify and album/my-hat/1715062369″>on Apple Musiccarried by Micucci's bright, playful voice that settles right into the children's music space, with lyrics grounded in humor and honesty. It's for kids and their grown-ups, or anyone who can appreciate comedy in everyday life.
Recorded live to tape, the album is backed by musician friends Brendon Urie on drums and Sean Watkins on guitar, and produced by Micucci's husband, Jake Sinclair — who has worked with bands such as Urie's Panic! at the Disco and Weezer, receiving Grammy nominations for both Best Rock album in 2017. Micucci is a Primetime Emmy-nominated musician herself, as one half of the comedy-folk duo Garfunkel and Oates (with Riki Lindhome), who were up for outstanding original music and lyrics in 2016 for a comedy special Garfunkel and Oates: Trying to be special.
Micucci is a multidisciplinary artist: There's this solo children's album and her work as Garfunkel and Oates, plus an incredible amount as a film and TV actor — from recurring spots on The Big Bang Theory, Scrubs and Raising Hope to voice dozens of characters you've heard in animated series and features. She personally thinks it's wild that they made her call Velma on Scooby Doo franchise, a show he grew up watching and loving. (Bespectacled and her hair in a bun, she was once called Velma by a group of teenagers. “I wanted to be like, actually…” she jokes.)
He also has a lifelong passion for visual art. In September she gave herself a 30-day challenge to create a painting or drawing every day. This work was recently featured in a sold-out art show, with all proceeds going to charity GO2 for lung cancer.
Kate Micucci poses in front of her art.
Brian Gove
Fortunately, Micucci's creative pursuits were only put on hold for a while. I ask her if she would like to think about what happened a year ago, to share her story with others.
After getting some abnormal blood work results last year, she says, she went to a doctor to figure out what might be going on, and that doctor had her get a heart scan. “It was the technician at that place who said, 'You know, your heart is fine, but there's something in your lung,'” he recalled.
Micucci never smoked. Seemingly healthy and in her 40s, she had no reason to believe it would be anything serious. He eventually went for further tests, but was in no rush to do so.
He would learn that “lung cancer is interesting.” As he explains, “Someone like me wouldn't normally get tested for something like this just because of my age and the fact that I'm a non-smoker. But the truth is that more and more young people are getting it.”
“I guess my one big lesson, I would say, is listen to your body and listen to your doctors,” Micucci says. It's an important reminder to hear in November, Lung Cancer Awareness Month. “I should have gone for that lung test right away.”
Priorities changed when Micucci got the first call about cancer. The way things happened sounds wrong, but he's doing really well and sounds genuinely grateful for how things turned out.
“It wasn't great news to hear you have cancer. But overall, every step of the way, it looked promising, and like I caught it way too early, and I honestly never felt too sad about it. I just felt really, really lucky, like I won the lottery or something,” she says.
Additionally, he points out, “It really puts everything into perspective. It makes me go, “Okay, I'll be here today. What do I want to make? And what do I want to bring?' I just want to make people happy.”
Micucci is optimistic that families will find and connect with her music whenever the time may be: “I didn't get to promote this album the way I wanted to, but I'm really proud of it,” she says of My hat.
“It felt very alive when it was happening,” she shares, looking back on what it was like to record the album after the pandemic and while being a new mom. “To sit in a room and have the mic, and Jake's on bass, my friend Sean's on guitar, and my friend Brendon's on drums, and we're all there and it felt so great… There was just something cool about it. that we're all in one room singing these ridiculous songs.”
Before My hatAfter its release last year, Micucci teared up — the good kind — about how absurdly funny it was filming a music video for lead track “Grocery Store,” which muses about the wide variety of things one can find when going out for shopping for food: not only melon, steak and 30 kinds of Jell-O, but also wooden logs and a blue snow suit, too (this one is based on a true story from when he was a kid).
“We didn't get permission,” she recalls of the making of the video, which was shot on an iPhone by friend and filmmaker Caitlin Gerard, who sat in an actual grocery cart to shoot it. “We were just secretly shooting in grocery stores. They kicked us out of two. It took three grocery stores to get this video.”
“I'm pushing the stroller, and there was so much laughter, because so many funny things would happen because they'd say, 'What are you doing?' or “Why is this person in the cart?” Micucci says. “I remember having a laugh that day where I was like crying and I couldn't stop. It was a good time.”
Micucci always knew she loved to act, but she remembers being “a very shy kid and I think I was also embarrassed to say that I wanted to be a performer.”
“My brother and I were always putting on shows and always making movies in the backyard,” she says of her childhood. Back then she was also exploring art and her mom was a piano teacher. “We were definitely a creative household.”
Art by Kate Micucci.
Courtesy photo
“I feel like in a way I'm doing exactly the same thing I did when I was a little kid, which is making art and making music and getting to play. It hasn't really changed for me, which I think is very fortunate,” says Micucci. It is her “natural part”.
It's interesting, a lot of songs that ended up being done My hat he came to her long before she had a child. Some she developed and presented on her live show Playing with Micuccihe says — “They were just written because they came out [of me]” — and only after the arrival of her son did these songs find a home among the new music she was inspired to write.
“I'd say half the songs are from when I was in my 20s and then half the songs are me writing about a real kid. But also, one of the songs is half and half: the song “King of the World”, which is the last track of the album. I started writing it — I remember exactly where I was. I was 27 years old…I was like, “Wait a minute. This song is for my son. I'm writing a song for my little boy.' And I said, “Wait, I will stop I'm writing this song because I have to finish the song when I have a son… So, you know, it took me 13 years.”
Micucci now brings her son to the stage in her entertaining Los Angeles shows held at the historic Bob Baker Marionette Theatre, where they are also joined by marionettes and marionettes. “He plays guitar for a whole 45 minutes,” he jokes, “which is really, I mean, running. She hopes to launch a show in New York this summer and “would love to take it to other places.”
If you are interested in a recommendation from a 4 year old on what to play My hat with your own little ones, Micucci's kid has opinions.
Kate Micucci and her son perform at the Bob Baker Marionette Theater in Los Angeles.
Courtesy photo
“He has one very little favorite,” Micucci quips when asked what her son's favorite song is. “Yes. The song “Brandy, Lost Dog in the City”. He won't let me play it because he says it makes him very sad.”
The real answer: “I think 'Bucket of Beans' is probably Mikey's favorite.”
The album is streaming album/7aSAZLhEs3cQx5AEMPypRD?si=atGdIXEyQXC4ks6IDIZvYg”>on Spotify and album/my-hat/1715062369″>on Apple Musicand you can follow Micucci on Instagram.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/kate-micucci-kids-music-cancer-interview-1235820916/
