Katherine Aly- αrt pøp
Interview conducted April 04, 2020
Katherine’s solo and collaborative work has taken her to the stages of the historic King Tut’s in Glasgow and The Dublin Castle in London, and many festivals like Hidden Door, EH6, Tenement Trail and Kelburn. Most recently her ‘incomparable performance’ at the First Footing showcase -one of The Skinny’s music highlights- led to more bookings around Scotland. Her live performance signature is a powerful multi-genre set, during which music turns into an all-round experience with a visual show enhancing her aesthetic as an artist.
What is your upbringing?
I grew up in Greece, part of a generation that had to be brave enough to make big decisions to adjust to a collapsing economy and a society in panic mode. I remember the ”good years” up until the mid-’00s when things started to get quite worrying. I was still quite young but when I felt ready, I decided to move abroad in search of new opportunities and to broaden my horizons as an artist. However, I think I would have done this regardless of what the situation in Greece was, simply because I’ve always been dreaming of sharing my music with a wider audience like the one in the UK.
How did you discover music?
I had a very basic keyboard when I was a child – I can’t even remember how old I was! I do remember coming up with little themes and really enjoying doing so. My mother was also a singer but not a songwriter; she familiarized myself and my brother with Greek folk music but also classical music, which I absolutely adored from a very young age.
How did you start to write music?
I was around 12 years old when I started writing songs with my best friend just for fun. I got really into songwriting when I joined my first band at the age of 16. We were all in high-school, practicing every Sunday, which was my favorite day of the week! Even from back then, I remember touching upon quite profound concepts that were puzzling my teenage brain! Lyrics played a very key role to the whole process, so it wasn’t just about writing catchy songs; just whatever reflected the society we were growing up in. That’s what made indie music my favorite genre – starting then and ever since.
Do you remember how you got your first guitar?
The guitar is actually not my main instrument but I do remember that the one I currently use for songwriting was given to me by a very drunk guy hosting a flat party only a few months after I had moved to the UK!
And do you still have it?
Yes indeed! Currently using it for filming cover songs during the Covid19 quarantine.
How did you create your first song?
If I go back to when I was 12 then I must say it was a very creative process, when my (to this day) best friend and I used all sorts of everyday objects to create rhythm and melodies. For a long time, I was part of indie bands and my role was to sing so I would either bring in ideas, around which we would build the entire song or they would give me music to write lyrics and vocals on. My actual first song as a solo artist that I create from scratch was The Skin I’m Made Of; I wrote the piano part for it and from there we built all the textural layers with Graeme Young and Bruce Wallace at Chamber Studio in Edinburgh; super cool experience, I learned loads from, that also made me confident about my songwriting, aside from my singing.
How is live music in Edinburgh?
When we’re talking about Scotland, the city with the most vibrant music scene is definitely Glasgow; however, thankfully over the last few years, Edinburgh has improved a lot in terms of that too. There are some excellent venues like Sneaky Pete’s and Summerhall that host top-notch gigs, bringing artists from all around the world. Some local festivals attract thousands of people as well, my favorite one being the Hidden Door Festival, which is run entirely by volunteers but has had a tremendous impact on the upgrade of the music and art scene of Edinburgh. Unfortunately, the Covid19 lockdown is threatening many of the local venues and organizations but many of them have launched crowdfunding campaigns for people to help them stay afloat, which I think is of utmost importance if we want the city to revive when the pandemic is over.
How did you find “Ambicon Music Group”?
My manager talked to Pete Baldwin about me and he was very happy to help us in terms of artist development. It’s really important to have people around you that know the industry and can help your career grow by spreading the word about your work; that’s why I’m very lucky that Pete is part of the Katherine Aly team!
What is a genre-fluid journey?
I strongly believe that genres have become outdated; as artists, we are exposed to a whole music spectrum and have now access to many instruments and software to experiment with. I personally find it boring when I listen to an album with no experimental elements whatsoever; or when artists make exactly the same music album after album. There’s nothing wrong with artists changing their genre even within an album itself; as long as you have your own identity and know what you want to say through your music, everything else is just ”noise” coming from people that don’t appreciate how music evolves! One of my favorite things, when I’m in the studio, is to try different sounds and textures and discover what I like as I go; the result might be songs that sound nothing like each other but it feels like my voice brings everything together so why limit myself?!
Besides music, what other types of art do you do? And where can we see it?
I actually have an art blog, where I write my views about all sorts of art; visual art, theatre, photography and so on. This is on my website (https://katherinealy.com/) which has 2 sections; My Art, where people can see everything about my music, and Your Art, where those articles are available. I have a master degree from the University of Amsterdam called Arts & Culture: Comparative Cultural Analysis, where we examined various cultural phenomena through many different types of art. I think that’s when I really appreciated the value of an interdisciplinary approach when it comes to Art, which affected my songwriting to a great extent too. I try to bring elements like this to my music as much as I can; Sean Mallon is part of my live performance team with these incredible visuals projected during and as part of the show.
Do staring. Who will win?
Definitely not me!
How do you stay healthy while touring?
For me the difficulty part is actually after a show! I think during the day and until I go on stage, those butterflies in my stomach make me lose my appetite a little bit… after the show… god help me! I really don’t think I’m the right person to answer this nonetheless very important question!
How do you go about creating a piece of music?
I usually come up with a melody for the voice-first, which takes a final form after I come up with the lyrics for it to make it work the best way possible. My lyrics can come during the songwriting process but I do have a library of ideas that might also trigger inspiration for a vocal melody. I also think about what I want the song to sound like and for this, I use as many references as I can; I listen to many different types of music so I like bringing all my influences together; it’s like a puzzle that I put together in the most creative way possible! When I go in the studio to record, I already have a quite solid idea about what direction to take but things usually change in the process and with the endless possibilities I’m exposed to due to the amazing people I work with!
Some people think your music is children’s music (this came from Google on a search for your music). What is children’s music?
I haven’t seen that anywhere so I’m definitely googling it as well! Maybe they mean they work as lullabies? They are definitely children-friendly as they are not explicit but apart from that, I’m not sure… I would definitely not put Sunny Days under the same category as Baby Shark – that’s for sure! Of course, children’s music is a lot more than that but I’m not really an expert on the field, I’m afraid… I do know one thing though; it’s very important to expose children to music as much as possible from a young age and music should be part of children’s core education and not just a privilege of the few.
What are you feeling about streaming music?
Although a terrible hit to physical releases and thus a huge loss of artist’s income, I must admit that streaming has made music available to everyone and endlessly! Right now, there is literally no limit in music exploration and that’s wonderful. I wish that artists could get paid more per stream but all these platforms are far from being an income source for the vast majority of artists; it’s just another promotional tool for us. I can’t stress enough how helpful it is for people to FOLLOW the artists they like and SAVE/SHARE their songs on Spotify. This can generate a lot of interest for an artist from the audience side and also the music industry itself. So if you’re reading this, please check me out on Spotify here: https://sptfy.com/itskatherinealy
Tell me about your latest release Misty Me? Are you planning to do a video with the release?
Misty Me is part of a song trilogy, along with The Skin I’m Made Of and Sunny Days, a group of songs that reflect my more ”sensitive” side as an artist and a person; they are the songs I felt most vulnerable during the songwriting process. They all revolve around the theme of heartbreak, which I’ve tried to negotiate not in a cheesy and commercial way but rather more profoundly in an attempt to make its acceptance easier. Sometimes it really helps facing feelings the way they are – as ugly as they might be – rather than trying to hide them behind fake-happy songs. While writing those 3 songs, I was trying to grasp and unveil the layers of human relationships in order to make sense of what was happening to me as well. I think it’s because I write from an honest place that people find my songs so relate-able and in return, I myself feel lighter having shared things that were confusing me. Misty Me is the darkest of my debut single trilogy and I love the fact that people voted for it to be released next; it felt like they understood my first 2 singles that way. The response from the poll we conducted on social media was overwhelming and I really liked making my audience part of my music journey in such an immediate way. I’d like to mention a very special contributor of Misty Me, that is the super talented dark-pop warrior Baby Taylah, who recorded harp for the song and made it beautifully haunting! Misty Me is out officially on 24 April but there will be a full-band performance video coming out prior to that, which we were lucky enough to have managed to shoot only a few days before the COVID-19 lockdown.
What is the biggest difference between being solo then playing in a band?
I’d say flexibility in terms of availability; the biggest problem I had when working full time with bands was exactly that people have different lives and it’s very unlikely that they will all be available at the same time and this made it very difficult to be productive as much as we could. For me, it was a big challenge going from just writing vocal melodies and lyrics to writing my own music as well but it’s a challenge I’ve been enjoying a lot, I must say!
I saw your video recorded at CamGlen Radio. Why did you decide to sing with a backing track and not your guitar?
We didn’t actually use a backing track at CamGlen Radio! It was just my voice accompanied by my guitarist at the time, Bruce Wallace. He’s an extraordinary musician, currently based in China. I do play the guitar but nothing like Bruce… he’s a true master and I really wanted to show people the incredibly talented musicians I’ve worked with, hence Bruce playing that evening on the radio with me! Plus, I always enjoy focusing on singing and engaging with the audience when performing… the rest shall stay within studio experimentation!
I was surprised to see you do a cover of No Time to Die by Billie Eilish. This was three weeks ago. Did it have something to do with COVID-19?
I got together with Emily from Chuchoter to cover Billie 2 weeks before the lockdown. I wanted to start doing covers like this with artists from the same community and it was nothing but an excellent start with Emily! We had so much fun making this, she’s a lovely person and a very talented musician so I was over the moon that she was on board to do this with me. I love collaborating with other musicians; in 2019 I had 3 extra releases because of that; one with shoegaze band False Bliss, one with electronic artist Midi Paul and one with multi-instrumentalist Glassmasterer. More to come this year! I know Billie’s music is a lot more mainstream compared to mine but I think she and Finneas are extraordinary songwriters so why not cover the new 007 tunes, you know? This had nothing to do with covid19 – on the contrary, I’m actually glad Emily and I got to do it before the lockdown.
Digital vs. vinyl?
Accessibility or intertemporally? Tough one! Digital is so easily available and I like that because music should be reachable to everyone; that’s the magic of streaming platforms! And at the same time artists that can’t afford to cut vinyl should be able to share their art too! On the contrary, vinyl is what establishes you as an artist I think; it’s something that you can make part of your aesthetic and the process of making vinyl itself makes it so special; it’s memorabilia – timeless! Can I choose both, please?
Any plans to tour?
Man, this question hurts! I don’t know! There are some scheduled shows but at this stage I’m very reluctant to share as we don’t know exactly what’s happening with the lockdown. I expect the competition for live shows to be manic after this is over but I want to let people know what my team and I are doing our best to make sure I perform as soon as things go back to normal…
What is your favorite club to perform in?
I love King Tut’s in Glasgow. Such a historic venue it’s only an honor to go up on that stage… same as The Dublin Castle in London. From smaller ones, I really like The Hug & Pint in Glasgow and Sneaky Pete’s in Edinburgh.
What song from the past is in your mind right now? And what is the meaning that song means to you?
I’ve just made a cover of Believe by Cher and it’s totally stuck in my head! To be honest, it doesn’t really have a particular meaning to me, I just love covering songs people wouldn’t expect me to cover… a dance-pop tune from the ’90s was definitely an exciting choice! I’ll be doing as many covers as possible during the lockdown so stay tuned..
How do you feel the COVID-19 virus going to affect the music business in the future?
I’m sure we’ll see massive changes in terms of live music; booking shows will get even more competitive, especially because I definitely see people preferring to go to smaller venues of less than 500 capacity to make sure they are safe from this and any other viruses throughout the year from now on. On the other hand, online streaming will flourish even more with people staying at home more, which is already happening.
Are you part of Justgiving.com complain? Which they hope to raise 20,000 pounds to put on a free festival for NHS staff as soon as the COVID-19 is done?
I haven’t heard of it, to be honest. The important thing is to improve their working conditions first; that £13.4 billion debt of the NHS indicates how much it’s underfunded by. It’s a good initiative – saying this without knowing too much about this festival – but it won’t solve any of the actual problems NHS staff has to deal with on a daily basis, unfortunately.
Lots of people are doing nightly concerts over either YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Are you planning to do something like that?
My band and I am putting things together to create as much content as possible, including performing some songs, each one of us from our flats. It won’t be broadcasted live for practical reasons but it will be cool! Again – stay tuned – there’s a lot coming!
How do you see yourself in the next five years?
Hopefully touring a lot while writing my 3rd or so album! I’ve been working a lot to create content, which for me eventually happens to lead up to as many gigs as possible. I can’t stress enough how important live performance is to me as an artist; there are many musicians that are happy with writing music without releasing or performing it live but I’m exactly the opposite of that – hence my struggling with the lockdown at the moment… let’s see what the future holds!
Anything you would like to say in closing?
Thanks very much for your in-depth questions! We need people’s support now more than ever… I hope I’ll see people reading this to my live shows when this end and in the meantime, remember to check my socials for all the treats I’ve been preparing for you and don’t forget to follow and save on Spotify!
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