Kelly Sweet


Kelly Melissa Sweet, also known professionally as Haliene, is an American electropop singer-songwriter currently living in Los Angeles. As Haliene, she is known for her vocal collaborations with EDM artists Armin van Buuren, Seven Lions, ATB, Ferry Corsten, Aly & Fila, & Andrew Rayel. Her song with Gareth Emery & STANDERWICK, Saving Light, won the A State of Trance award, "Tune of the Year," by Armin van Buuren in 2017.

Life and career

Kelly Sweet was born in Cape Cod, Massachusetts on March 29, 1988, to pianist Jeffrey Howard Sweet and artist Candace Lynn Sweet. Born into a musical household, Sweet was raised on the jazz standards that were part of her father's repertoire. Soon after she could walk, Sweet learned musical notes with her father's help. Her first public performance followed when she was 4 years old at the Cape Cod Conservatory.
At the age of 7, following the divorce of her parents, Sweet and her mother moved to Kanab, Utah. Sweet began working regularly with a vocal coach and honed her skills as a performer by singing at state fairs, county festivals, and community theatres. In the summers of 2000 and 2001, Sweet studied musical theatre at Interlochen Center for the Arts Summer Arts Camp in northern Michigan. Sweet and her mother eventually went on the road for two years, travelling back and forth between Kanab, Las Vegas and Los Angeles in search of performance opportunities. After hearing the 14-year-old Sweet's demo CD, the Los Angeles Lakers booked her to sing the National Anthem on three occasions.
In July 2006, Sweet was featured in a USA Today article on up-and-coming "serious female singers."
In October 2006, Sweet released an EP from which the songs We Are One and Ready For Love have been used on episodes of two daytime dramas, the NBC TV series Passions and the ABC TV series One Life to Live, respectively. We Are One was also featured on the NBC series Las Vegas in the spring of 2007.
Sweet opened for Paul Simon on tour in July and October 2006, and her debut album, We Are One, was released by the Razor and Tie label on March 6, 2007. Sweet was the highest-charting indie label artist at the AC format in 2007 with airplay audience well exceeding 80 million.
Remixes for Sweet's song We Are One were done by Dave Audé, Radioactive Sandwich, Matt Piso, and Electronathon. Her cover of the Aerosmith classic Dream On was #1 for six weeks in a row on the FMQB AC Chart.
Sweet's mother, Candace, died from cancer on December 16, 2011. Less than six months later, June 4, 2012, her father succumbed to bone marrow cancer after eight years with the disease. Sweet was working on her second album during this difficult time and recalls, “I was 23 years old and I felt I stood amongst the ash of the dreams of my life. But, like a phoenix, I can rise again.”
In August 2012, Sweet's second album Ashes Of My Paradise was released through Japan Victor Company. In January 2013, she announced an upcoming EP, Sirens.
In January 2014, Kelly self-released a remake of the Phil Collins classic "In The Air Tonight", and it was licensed by NBC Television for the promo adverts for their new show called Believe. The song was also featured in promo adverts for the Lifetime movie Petals on the Wind, an adaptation of the V.C. Andrews novel of the same name. In February 2015 the track was licensed for another NBC promo, this time for the Mark Burnett-produced A.D. The Bible Continues. The remix returns in the 'monsters are coming' TV spot for the television series Gotham.

As Haliene

On March 3, 2015, Sweet released her first feature, The End with Seven Lions on Casablanca Records. She later worked with Seven Lions again on Rush Over Me, a collaboration with Illenium and Said The Sky that peaked at #2 on the Electronic iTunes Singles chart and has reached over 8 million views on YouTube and over 18 million on Spotify.
She first performed live at Webster Hall, New York, March 5, 2015 with Seven Lions at his Throes of Winter release party. Sweet has since performed all over the world at venues such as the Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, Hollywood Palladium, San Jose City National Civic Arena, AFAS Live, O2 Academy, ExchangeLA, the Jakarta Colosseum and the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. In June 2017, she was the only singer to perform two times at the Electric Daisy Carnival with Illenium and Ferry Corsten at the festival which hosted over 400,000 attendees.
In March 2018, she performed with Gareth Emery at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium to a sold-out crowd for his show "laserface".
Since her debut, Sweet has collaborated with many leading DJs and producers including: ATB, Blasterjaxx, Seven Lions, Illenium, Danny Avila, Slander, Project 46, Aly & Fila, Standerwick, and Ferry Corsten. Sabrina Clark from Dance & Rave named her "dance music's new favourite girl".
Sweet cites Ella Fitzgerald and Delerium as some of her inspirations, although her musical interest is "all over the place".
On February 2, 2018, Sweet released Deep End, a collaboration with trance producer Standerwick on Armin van Buuren's imprint Armind Records. It was Tune of the Week on A State of Trance two weeks in a row.
Sweet released her first solo record as Haliene, Dream in Color, on Monstercat, April 3, 2018. This release marked Haliene as the first female artist to release a song on the label without it being a collaboration with another artist.

''Blueprint''

On May 26, 2017, Sweet released a collaborative science fiction-influenced trance album, Blueprint with Dutch DJ Ferry Corsten on his label Flashover Recordings. The album contains a storyline narrated by American actor Campbell Scott and illustrations from Canadian visual artist Oska. Sweet also voice-acted, contributing dialogue as the main female protagonist Vee. She collaborated with Corsten, singing on five tracks and contributed songwriting on six.

"Saving Light" and Tune of the Year

In November 2016, Sweet wrote the song Saving Light with Gareth Emery, Roxanne Emery, Karra and Matthew Steeper. It was released January 30, 2017, by the Canadian label, Monstercat. The song reached number one on the Beatport overall chart within a week of its release, becoming the first trance single to do so in 5 years. The artists partnered with the UK's largest anti-bullying charity Ditch the Label, launching a campaign titled after the song to raise money for the victims of bullying.
On December 19, 2017, Armin van Buuren chose Saving Light as one of his top 50 tracks to comprise the 2017 trance mix album, A State of Trance 2017. van Buuren later concluded 4-hour radio show special with the announcement that Saving Light had won the "Tune of the Year" award by popular vote for his widely syndicated radio show A State of Trance.

Discography

  • We Are One
  • Ashes of My Paradise