Katelyn Tarver

Katelyn Tarver, a Los Angeles-based singer, songwriter, and actress, progressed through her recording career from early teen pop material into intricate, reflective adult alternative music and secured recognition across all three fields. By the early 2010s she had moved from teen pop into television roles on Big Time Rush and No Ordinary Family, then devoted the middle of the decade to composing material for fellow performers, earning a U.K. chart-topping success as co-writer of Cheryl Cole’s “Crazy Stupid Love” in 2014. She issued her own adult pop debut single, “Weekend Millionaires,” in 2016 and achieved viral traction the next year with the atmospheric ballad “You Don’t Know.” While continuing to land television acting parts, she also claimed victory on the first season of the songwriting competition Songland in 2019. The 2021 album Subject to Change established a more refined adult alternative pop direction that persisted on 2024’s Quitter.

Raised in rural Glennville, Georgia, Tarver sang in local and later national talent contests during childhood. After reaching the finals of American Juniors on television at age thirteen in 2003, she joined a national tour and connected with industry figures in Los Angeles, leading to her teen-pop debut album Wonderful Crazy in 2005.

She entered acting with a recurring part on the Nickelodeon series Big Time Rush that ran from 2009 to 2013. During the same period she appeared on ABC’s No Ordinary Family in 2010 and 2011 and released the 2011 EP A Little More Free, produced by Matt Grabe of Goodbye Tomorrow. A further recurring role arrived in 2012 on the ABC Family program The Secret Life of the American Teenager, alongside tour dates supporting the EP.

Tarver co-wrote “Crazy Stupid Love” with Cheryl Cole and additional writers for Cole’s 2014 album Only Human; the track became a single and reached number one in the U.K. That achievement opened a collaboration with producer, songwriter, and composer Ludwig Göransson on Tarver’s first official solo single, “Weekend Millionaires,” initially shared online in 2015 and commercially released the following year. Remixes by Young Bombs and Skizzy Mars, among others, increased its reach, and the song appeared on the 2017 EP Tired Eyes issued by Duly Noted Records. Another track from that EP, “You Don’t Know,” accumulated tens of millions of streams across platforms, including a widely viewed live version. Still active as an actress, Tarver led the short-lived series Twentyfiveish and appeared in five episodes of the Freeform drama Famous in Love in 2017. She followed with the self-released EP Kool Aid in 2018 and a recurring role that year on the HBO comedy Ballers starring Dwayne Johnson.

In mid-2019 Tarver competed again on reality television, this time on NBC’s songwriting program Songland. The winning song from her episode, “Young,” was recorded by country-pop group Old Dominion and featured in an automobile commercial. That September she released her own single “Cynical,” the start of a series of non-album singles over the next year that aligned with another stint on the web series Twentyfiveish. In 2021 she began previewing tracks from Subject to Change, her first solo album in sixteen years, and self-released the full project that November.

Tarver contributed songs to Joshua Bassett, among them “All in Due Time” from the 2022 EP Sad Songs in a Hotel Room, while her next album drew on co-writing partnerships with Delacey (known for work with Demi Lovato and Halsey), Adam Yaron (Maddie Zahm, Alexander Stewart), and Scott Effman (Kelly Clarkson, JP Saxe). Produced by Chad Copelin (LANY, Sasha Alex Sloan), Quitter appeared on Nettwerk in early 2024.