7 minute read
KATY J PEARSON 28 LP
KATY J PEARSON
26-year-old Katy Pearson is a West Country singer-songwriter who is still riding the success of her first album neo-folk and infused indie-pop ‘Return’. She is also someone who sounds very chilled out in her sunny garden in Bristol, where she confesses she prefers to take all her calls. We catch up on all things wellness, authenticity and ‘Songs of the Morning’ sophomore scares.
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26-year-old Katy Pearson is a West Country singersongwriter who is still riding the success of her first album neo-folk and infused indie-pop ‘Return’. She is also someone who sounds very chilled out in her sunny garden in Bristol, where she confesses she prefers to take all her calls. We catch up on all things wellness, authenticity and ‘Songs of the Morning’ sophomore scares.
Pearson is someone whose realness beams out from the stories that she tells in her music. And why wouldn't she be, she’s experienced all the roughness of an early music industry experience gone sour and managed a resilient come back during lockdown as a critically-acclaimed breakthrough star. As a result, there’s often something familiar about her songs and you can never quite be sure if it’s the nostalgia, timelessness or authenticity.
One of the factors that adds an immediate relatable quality to Pearson’s music is the value she places on the balancing of different emotions. “It’s kind of a bittersweet emotion overall…I think there’s a painful joy” she tells me while talking openly about the upcoming album. She navigates the turmoil-filled waters of everyday life with an equal balance of soaring optimism and anchoring melancholia. It makes for a curious, new and tender mix of emotions that level each other out to result in a must-have for every modern-day stoic music listeners collection.
Pearson is also a great example of the discovery of true self-expression through creativity when there wasn’t much else to do in the world at large. As a result, lo-fi aesthetics and nostalgic comforts have been championed across releases. These are things Katy plays with and embraces, “I don’t think I could ever try to be something that I’m not…I’m a lot more composed on stage than I am in real life. When I perform, I wouldn’t say I’m a comedic genius or I have loads to say, all I have to say is to play the songs that I’ve written. I just get on the stage wearing a prairie dress and play the songs.” She sounds totally upbeat and at ease with this realisation and we continue to talk about the value in just doing what you want to do and not serving other people once in a while. “I think for ages you think you need to be a certain way on stage I but I think just being myself has connected way better.”
‘Talk Over Town’ was the first single released from the new album and doesn’t dance around the duality of Katy’s music. There’s a surreal introspection about navigating success against a small-town background. The accompanying video provides Stevie Nick’s twinged main character energy while providing a quirky understanding into the visual world of Katy J Pearson.
Our conversation continues towards moving from the countryside to city life. She has flirted with the idea of London in the past but the passion for Bristol is hardwired as her exclaims of “Lush!” ring through. She reels off The Ill Repute, Louisiana and Hillgrove as her favourite local haunts. The conversation continues away from preferred living spaces towards inspiration as she tells me about her passion for exploring the UK and further afield. “I love Pembrokeshire, so I’d love to go back to St Davids. I really want to explore Dungeness in Kent too. I’m going to Crete for a week with my friends after a few big festival weeks. I’d love to go live in Athens for a bit if I could. But it all depends if I have the time.”
We move onwards to discussing the writing of ‘Songs of the Morning’ which commenced after a six-month break from the pen. Pearson assures me “all came together quite quickly” starting in March last year. She continues to tell me about her preference for writing in spring as a season as we relate about the perks of giving winter and summer a miss for the most part.
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nature in her music. Wild swimming was an important grounding process for the writing of the album during a world in flux as Katy candidly tells me “It really made me feel a bit more sane. You couldn’t really do anything with your day so to have achieved getting in the freezing cold water at least we had something we’d done and didn’t have to beat ourselves up for feeling like we hadn’t achieved loads.”
The album gently unfolds even more layers to Pearson’s artistry allowing for a more personal and eclectic mix of influences
and stories to shine through. From Arcade Fire to Crosby, Stills and Nash to “lots and lots of Freedom by Amen Dunes”. The sonic palette is deeper than before and it shows in her personal favourites like show ‘Float’ an Americana indie-pop beauty to ‘Alligator’ which juxtaposes with jangly anxieties all the way to ‘Confessions’ which vents anger and frustration at patriarchal elements of the music industry. There’s also a rogue cover from the 1973 classic Wickerman’s soundtrack originally penned by Paul Giovanni and the Magnet Collective which Katy tells me was shown to her by her dad and is a personal jamming favourite of her and her brother. She wanted to include it on the album so it went on the album, simple as. There’s a natural difficulty in releasing a second album, especially after such a successful debut. Katy sets it straight “I think every record is bloody scary to be honest…When you start something you want to keep creating the best work that you can create. Every record is like a puzzle. Sometimes you’re in the middle of tracking four songs and you’re missing three things and have no idea where they are going to come from. It’s a real challenge getting everything together. Making a body of work that feels cohesive and consistent is not an easy thing to do and to make an album that feels authentic you can’t rush it. But, creating something that comes from inside you is never going to be an easy road. This record was easier than I expected but just because it was easier doesn’t mean it was less hard. There’s a lot of self-doubt. You’ve got to power through because you can tweak one thing and change everything.” There have definitely been some positive learnings for Katy as she elaborates to tell me about understanding which songs don’t fit, how to take risks and becoming more chilled out with age.
When asked about the production process, generally across the record she explains how working more collaboratively has helped her work through new more structural tracks and grow further confidence. This is something that she is cautious about undermining her experience as a female artist. But with this record, she assures me everyone from Orlando Weeks to Morgan Simpson from Black Midi and the producers Ali Chant and Dan Carey have been “great spots and lovely guys.”
When asked what’s next she tells me “Well, I just found out that I’m doing Jools Holland which is madness!” She is also taking a little refreshing break from songwriting until she's fully ready to start again and says “I just don’t have any free time at the moment.” It’s clearly been busy and exciting for her and I think there’s a lot more to come. Katy J Pearson is definitely not the new face of country music, she is in fact so much more than that.
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