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FRIENDS & LOVERS Singer-songwriter Kate Rhudy connects with listeners through her heartfelt songs by DAVID MENCONI by JUSTIN KASE CONDER
ate Rhudy’s day job is actually a night job, working in various nightclubs and restaurants in downtown Raleigh as a server. But the singer-songwriter uses it to her advantage. “I carry around a notepad when I’m waitressing, so I use that for songwriting a lot,” she says. “And when I don’t have the notepad, I’ll use my phone to do voice memos, trying to capture a more melodic thing. Of course, I usually don’t get around to listening to it for months and months.” Maybe not, but it seems to work out well enough. Rhudy has two excellent albums to her credit, including the upcoming Dream Rooms, an inviting collection of songs that feel livedin. Andrew Marlin, the co-leader of Watchhouse (the band formerly known as Mandolin Orange) produced both Dream Rooms and Rhudy’s 2017 debut, Rock N’ Roll Ain’t For Me, with perfectly understated backup from his regular circle of Watchhouse players. The real draw, however, is Rhudy’s appealing underdog persona in voice and words. The 26-year-old Raleigh native’s songs are typically first-person reports from that murky zone between friends and lovers. It’s not surprising that she often meets people who think they know all about her through songs like “Kissing My Friends” or “I Don’t Like You Or Your Band.” “Yeah, I met this one guy who said, I feel like your songs revolve around my life, which is about drinking and [expletive] things up,” she says with a laugh. “I had another guy tell me once, Hey, listen, I’m a man. I get it. We’re the pits. But I write about very specific parts of my life in songs, which do not necessarily define my personality all the time. People who think they’re connecting to me because of my songs, but I think they’re just connecting things in their own lives and experiences to those songs.” Rhudy grew up playing violin and learned through the Suzuki method, which emphasizes playing by ear. Upon The Art & Soul of Raleigh | 43
