Heffron Drive’s Kendall Schmidt & Dustin Belt Answer Fan Video Questions [VIDEO EXCLUSIVE]

Kendall Schmidt Answers Fan Questions by Uinterview

Heffron Drive’s Kendall Schmidt and bandmate and buddy Dustin Belt are opening up about their journey as musicians within an exclusive video interview with uInterview, answering questions from winning fans on our question contest platform. Both revealed more about the role passion plays in pursuing a successful music career, the era of YouTube covers, the merits and demerits of cats (Schmidt can tolerate cats, Belt is allergic) and even the popular PokemonGo! app (Schmidt does not play, Belt “absolutely does”).

Schmidt got his break when he was cast as Kendall Knight in Nickelodeon’s Big Time Rush. The band released a series of chart-toppers and experienced much success between 2009 and 2013. The singer-songwriter-producer has since moved on and is currently a member of the pop group Heffron Drive.

Responding to questions Heffron Drive fans asked via uInterview’s question contest platform, Schmidt and Belt talked what inspired them to pursue a career in music. In many ways, the musicians’ winding musical journey is one that is indicative of how the music industry has changed over time, how technology and social media sites have widened the scope of audiences artists can reach.

Kendall Schmidt & Dustin Belt Video Interview

“I’ve been singing since I was a kid, but I started playing guitar when I was 15 to learn a Taking Back Sunday song called “New American Classic”. After that I kept learning my favorite songs,” he told uInterview exclusively. “Then I started doing covers on YouTube in 2007 and that was probably the sort of beginning of that whole YouTube cover thing.”

Schmidt did covers of Bob Marley and Incubus to continue working on his craft. He lived down the block from Belt and they grew up jamming together. The duo posted the music they made together on MySpace and when Schmidt got his big break with Big Time Rush, Belt joined him for the ride.

“We had an opportunity to have a guitarist tour with us because we did a lot of acoustic stuff. So Dustin was a shoe-in. He played pretty much every show that contained a guitar and toured with us all over the world,” Schmidt reminisced.

Touring was never short of adventures and in response to a fan’s question about the greatest thing they’ve done while on tour, Dustin had said, “We went running off the side of a mountain and landed running on the beach.”

When asked what they plan to do if the music thing doesn’t work out, they responded as a duo would respond. Schmidt jokingly expressed interest in enrolling at Le Cordon Bleu to become a chef and Belt said he’d pursue a career as a sommelier.

Since then, the dynamic duo have returned to their indie roots. Schmidt told uInterview, “We did that for a long time and now we’re getting back to Heffron Drive and producing everything and distributing everything through my own label and taking a fierce, independent route.”

Both feel blessed to have had a musical journey that’s spanned their entire lives and emphasized that drive and determination go hand in hand.

“We do everything ourselves,” Belt said.

“To be honest it’s not hard to love being a traveling musician, We feel really blessed. A lot of the drive in it comes from enjoying what we’ve been given and not taken for granted,” Schmidt reflected. “It’s been quite a career for only being 25,” he added laughing.