Age is just a number. 

For singer/songwriter, Cody Newman, 14, she’s more of an old soul that people might think. 

In 2019 Newman secured rotation on Radio Disney with songs from her End of Infinity EP. While accolades like “break out star” and “it factor” seem to follow Newman like butterflies to marigold, Newman’s tallying quite a number of followers with her porcelain vocals. 

Does she get tired of people asking about her age?

“My age is a big reason why I’m so getting so much attention, I think,” Newman, who boasts over 55-thousand TikTok followers and over one million likes, said. “So I don’t mind it.”

What she is minding at the moment, like the rest of teenagers of the world is navigating home schooling due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19). The artist that sings a cover of Passenger’s “Let Her Go” with beauty and calm is hankering down at her home in Charleston, South Carolina. 

“They are giving us busy work right now, we’re all going to start getting the hang of things yet,” Newman said about online learning. I’m still trying to get used to the home schooling experience. It’s an adjustment.”

Newman said she moved to Charleston three years ago from Arizona. Her mother and father (both good at car karaoke she said) and a brother (who used to play drums but has taken to swimming and basketball instead) also made the trek. She misses her friends, but has grown in other ways since settling in South Carolina. 

“I feel like the move helped me get inspired and creativity,” she said. “And to find things that were unfamiliar to me. I’ve made so many new friends here, everyone’s super nice.”

Among the covers that Newman has recorded for her online fans are Green Day’s “21 Guns”, Bastille’s “Flaws”, Post Malone’s “Stay” and Billie Eilish’s “My Strange Addiction”. Newman said she chooses songs by what she likes and what fits into her vocal range. 

Her musical interests are varied. As the conversation continues, Newman’s voice sounds just like it does on her videos – real. She’s authentic. 

“I listen, and this is going to sound like I’m so quirky,” she said, her voice changing into a higher pitched impression before changing back. “I listen to a lot of artists that haven’t been discovered yet by media. The Happy Fits is one of them. I’m really into their music, they’re like a blues slash indie rock band. And one of their singer’s is a cellist. But I also listen to a lot of 50s music like, I’m not sure if Ella Fitzgerald is really from the 50s because I can’t look that up right now, but I really like her music and I like the style of it. A lot of jazz, I like jazz.

“When I do a cover of the lesser known artists, I share that with a very small audience, a very close knit audience, so my fanbase is also built on a lot of loyal fans.”

Her tastes and the influences shine most when she’s performing her original songs. In “Sore Loser” Newman’s vocal prowess glides along her raw acoustic guitar. Her emotional outcry of the lyrics if you think you are worthy of me, then you’re thinking wrong recalls the isolated vocals and cadence of Colbie Caillat, Jack Johnson and Gavin Degraw. 

“Broken Glass”, written in 2019 and derived from several comments on her TikTok account, Newman sings you made everything crash, now I’m stuck in the broken glass, and it’s not simple to accept it, maybe I was a little obsessive as she maneuvers the ukulele like a feather. Her voice possesses a bit more clarity, an octave just below the others. 

In “Mystery Boy” her sincere vibe is showcased, and as she plucks the acoustic guitar strings to the words hey, hey, mystery boy, how are you, you make me really nervous and I don’t know what to do she leaves extra space between ‘know, what, to and do’. In that window, the listener takes a collective breath along with her to inhale the nerves and jitters. Her voice none the wiser, “Mystery Boy” is an innocent song about crushing. It’s her calm, cool and collected demeaner that gives her fans and listeners all over the chance to step into her confident shoes. 

“I am writing new music, I have a lot of original music that I haven’t been able to share yet,” she said. “I don’t know whether or not I want to wait and have a new album to share, or post it as an Instagram video. I just haven’t decided yet.

“If I set aside a certain time to write I would never get any music done. My brain is like ‘you’re writing now’ and I’m like ‘I’m doing work’ and (its) like ‘no, you’re not’. I just kind of write whenever it comes to me, and I will drop everything.” 

Other artistic avenues Newman pursues include makeup artistry and acrylic painting. Surprisingly, she also has an affinity for team sports. 

“I like ultimate frisbee,” she said. “It has a lot of the same rules as football, but with frisbee.”

Newman is creating her own rules for her musical career. Besides playing guitar and ukulele, she also plays drums and bass. She will be the first to tell you, though, that while she can play the bass, she hasn’t quite mastered the instrument. “When I play it, people ask me to stop,” she laughs. 

Her advice for others going into the music business is to embrace their niche sound, and at the same time work towards building a strong fanbase and network of other professionals. 

“Connections – a lot of connections,” she said. “Try to get involved with people that  that are involved with the same things you are, so you can help grow each other’s fanbases together. It’s really good to strike a certain community at one time. Music is a very wide community and you need to shrink down and capture everybody’s likes.”