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INTERVIEW

Daytime Emmy Quick Take With Cait Fairbanks

Congratulations on your Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Original Song. “Thank you. It’s still really crazy to me.”

You were nominated for the same category in 2019. How does it feel to get a second nod? “It feels like the best kind of déjà vu you can have. I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to have this happen twice. I feel really proud to have written this song with Bob [Hartry] and Daena [Jay] as well. They’re really incredible and I love working with them.”

The song is “More Than A Vow”, which was played at Sharon and Rey’s wedding. How much lead time were you given to compose this? “It’s all a little murky to me now, but it was about a year ago when they told me that they needed a song for a wedding.”

You wrote it during the pandemic? “I wrote this right before everything was shut down by Covid. It was a very confusing time. It was so funny writing a song just before an upcoming pandemic. I was like, ‘Wow, what’s being in a relationship going to look like for a while?’ Things were so crazy.”

What’s the message of “More Than A Vow”? “I feel that every time I write a song for the show that it’s from Tessa’s perspective, so I originally wrote it thinking it might be a Tessa and Mariah song, but it so reflects Sharon and Rey’s relationship, too. Honestly, it can be about any relationship really because it’s about two people falling in love and not only deciding to be together but also committing to work through it. It’s just not about a ceremony or the vows, it’s something you keep doing after that. I know that’s not the most romantic way of saying it but it’s true because you choose to keep staying together.”

What would winning an Emmy mean to you? “Oh, my God, it would change my life. I feel like for me, it’s all about making the art and celebrating each other. I think that’s an amazing thing. To win, of course, would be a life-changing experience for me that I would love to take part in. And I want my trophy to sit right on my fireplace to remind my boyfriend [Zach Tinker, ex-Fen], ‘Look at it. Look at it!’ But seriously, winning would be such an honor.”

There was a cute scene recently where Tessa sang to Mariah when she was going through morning sickness. Was that song yours, too? “Yes, it was. They had approached me about writing a lullaby for that scene. I was having a bad day and thought, ‘What would I want to hear to make me feel better?’ and that came out. The director of the episode wanted me to sing it a cappella so it’d sound like a mountain Irish song and I thought that was a really beautiful choice.”

Outside of Y&R, you had a song recently drop. “Yes, which is really exciting. There’s a video [of it] coming out in a couple of weeks that I’m really excited to share. I wanted it to feel very nostalgic, like, for anyone who went through the ’90s. It’s almost like a karaoke background, fun, friendly video that doesn’t take itself too seriously.”

How did you come up with that name “Gatorade”? “When Mercury was ever in retrograde, I had a friend that would say that Mercury was in Gatorade. I thought that was hilarious, so we were writing about nostalgia and because retrograde means moving backward, I thought that Gatorade still makes me laugh so it has to be the name of the song.”

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