Scotty Kilwein, 42, is a
piano player at Jellyrolls, a popular dueling piano bar on Walt Disney World’s
BoardWalk (fun fact: he’s been playing there since 2002!). When Jellyrolls shut
down due to the pandemic in March 2020, Scotty took to playing for family and
friends via Facebook Live. His “Lockdown Livestreams” have given rise to a community
of friends and supporters affectionately known as “PalPals.”
Scotty earned his bachelor’s
degree in music at the University of Dayton (where he was friends with my
dad!). He is originally from the Pittsburgh area and went to Upper St. Clair
High School. He and his wife, Amanda – the executive producer of the Lockdown
Livestreams – have three children (who are also very talented too!): Wilson, 13;
Claire, 12; and Emily, 10.
When did you start your
interest in music?
I was forced to play piano when I was five years old. My parents said, “you
have to play the piano.” And I was like, “aww.” Actually, I was really excited
about it, and after I did it for a little bit, I just loved it, so I’m glad
that they told me I had to do it. And that’s how I first got interested in
music.
When did you start your
interest in the piano? I always watched my dad playing the piano and I loved it.
When I was teeny-tiny, when I was maybe three years old, I had a tiny little
toy piano. I would sit down at the toy piano and pretend to play, and my dad
would play right next to me for real. So I just pretended, but I always loved
the piano. The piano is such a great
instrument, and when I was growing up we had a big piano in our house and it
was just a fancy thing I always wanted to be able to do but (my parents) said,
“You have to take lessons before you even sit down and try it.”
Why did your “Lockdown Livestreams”
start? Well, I
started them because everybody was at home and some people were by themselves.
We were all told we had to stay inside and we couldn’t go anywhere or do
anything, and we were really lucky because we have technology that allows us to
connect with each other. Even though you’re in Pennsylvania right now, and I’m
in Florida, we have this technology where we can see each other and we can talk
to each other, and I thought it would be really great to share my gift of music
with people using the technology that we have at our disposal. That’s really
why I started the Lockdown Livestreams, because I really thought, how fun would
it be to play music for my friends and my family who are all alone and by themselves
in their house and It would be really great to make some music for some of my friends.
And I was very excited to have so many people join me and it made me
feel really good to be able to share the gift of music.
If you hadn’t gone into
music, what career path would you have followed and why? There
were a lot of different things I thought would be fun, but if it wasn’t going
to be music, I would’ve wanted to be a teacher, because I had so many amazing
teachers when I was growing up that I thought what a great gift it would be to
try to be a cool teacher like all the great teachers that I had. That’s what I really
thought I could do. And when I started college that’s what I actually started
to do, I went to college to become a teacher, but I soon realized that I wasn’t
as good as all the great teachers I had and I wasn’t going to be as great as
them, so I focused more on music at that point.
What’s
your favorite song(s) to play?
I love so many
different types of music. I think the only way I can answer it is that my
favorite song changes from day to day, and from time to time, and depending on
what mood I’m in. My favorite song to play always changes. Some of my favorite
bands and singers are Jimmy Buffett and the Beach Boys, just because they have
really upbeat, fun music. My favorite classical composer is an American
composer from the 1800s, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, and he’s a great composer, I love
his classical music.
I love Frank
Sinatra music, and I love Michael Bublé music, those are some of my favorites
to play, because I like to pretend to be Frank Sinatra when I sing and I like
to try to do different voices like that. Another favorite is anything that
makes the audience happy. So even if it’s a song that I’ve played 1,000 times,
it can be a lot of fun for me just to see the audience enjoying it. And believe it or not, Sophie, there are songs
that I’ve played 4,000 times.
What’s the hardest song to
play on the piano for you? There are songs that I wish I could play – those are too hard
for me to play. That’s a really good question, because if you practice hard
enough you can do anything. Some of the classical songs I play are really
tricky and I have to force my fingers to do tricky things, so I would say the
classical music is really hard. And the songs that have a lot of words are
always really hard too, for me to try to remember all the words. Like when I first
learned “My Shot,” from Hamilton, it was SO hard, I was trying to remember
all the words and they go by so quickly! There’s another song your mom and dad
would know called “It’s the End of the World as We Know It,” (by) REM, and that
was a really hard song to learn because there’s SO many words.
Another
song that was really hard to learn is “God Only Knows,” by the Beach Boys, and
it’s a really, really beautiful song, but the notes and the chords were really
tricky when I first learned it. And now that’s one of my favorite songs to play,
even though it was one of the hardest to learn. And there’s another song called
“The Blue Danube Waltz,” and that’s a tricky one too because it kind of jumps
all around. My left hand is jumping back and forth and my right hand is jumping
back and forth.
Author's note: Thank you Mr. Scotty for letting me interview you! It was so much fun! It was my first Zoom interview! It was awesome! Buhbye! (PS: fans, if you want to hear Lockdown Livestreams, follow Mr. Scotty's Facebook page!)
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The Kilwein family! (l-r) Amanda, Emily, Wilson, Claire and Scotty
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