Bido Lito June 2021 Issue 114

PREVIEWS
“If I’d just had it
easy, I probably
wouldn’t be doing
this now”
GIG
KATY J PEARSON
Get It Loud In Libraries @ Widnes Library – 06/06
As the dust settles following her 2020 debut album, Return, the boho’d silhouette of Wild West
Country gunslinger Katy J Pearson heads for the Mersey shores.
An afternoon gig? In a library? In Widnes?
Stranger things have happened over the last
12 months, but if this is the so-called new
normal then count me in. With over 800 of
them locking up for good since 2010, our libraries have
known sacrifice long before the viral apocalypse reached
these shores.
But there’s something far more noble at play here.
Get It Loud In Libraries aren’t just signalling the gig
drought’s end, they’re helping to bring live music –
and the wider creative opportunities it affords – to
our metropolitan peripheries; our towns and suburbs
that have, for far too long, become something of a live
performance no-man’s land that never get as much as a
whiff of a tour van’s exhaust pipe.
Beyond references to Spike Island and Widnes train
station’s claim to Paul Simon’s Homeward Bound, the
music annals of the Liverpool City Region Borough of
Culture 2021 are somewhat muted. But if any venue is to
welcome KATY J PEARSON’s West Country Americana
to the Viking shores of Halton, then Widnes Library’s as
good a start as any.
Having departed the charts-churn pressures of
a former major label to join the Heavenly Recordings
family, the self-crowned “70s Texas mom” is ready to
hit the highway after releasing her country-pop debut in
November 2020. She phones in to reveal all.
Hello Katy, it’s been quite a year. What were your initial
thoughts when you released Return as we went into
that second lockdown back in November?
It was challenging for me, because it’s taken such a long
time to finally release my album and of course you have
so many expectations about what that’s going to be
like. But it was really frustrating when I realised that it
was going to be coming out in lockdown when I couldn’t
celebrate with my label, friends or family. But there were
so many positives that came out of it. I felt it got more
of a reach because so many people had pulled their
campaigns. As a new artist I had nothing to lose by doing
that, so we were like, ‘Let’s do it’. I kind of just got over it
and realised that, you know, I’m still releasing my album;
I’m still getting to hold it and, to be honest, looking back
now, I’m so happy with how it’s gone down.
The album is not without its own backstory, which has
been well documented, regarding some unfortunate
experiences with a former major label and its pressures
of hit-making. Is it fair to say we see something of a
new beginning in Return?
Definitely. I’m 25 now, I didn’t go to university – I went
straight into working with a major label when I was 19.
I had just left my foundation art course and me and my
brother were living such a weird kind of life where all our
friends were at uni doing uni stuff and I was, like, doing
really serious music stuff. They were my first few years of
being a young adult and having to really get challenged
and, in a way, if I’d just had it easy, I probably wouldn’t
be doing this now, because I think having that challenge
made me even more determined that this was what I
wanted to do.
Has this migrated over to your creative process? Are
you more in-tune with who you were all along now that
you have a much more independent scope?
One hundred per cent. I have such a good team around
me, and I feel so comfortable just doing whatever I want.
I think all I needed to do was to get that first album out
and know that I could do it and achieve it. And, in terms
of directing my music videos, they were all collaborative
except for Something Real, so I was very much involved.
It’s just given me that confidence that, you know, I can
really get stuck into all aspects of the project and not just
be the writer and singer. I can spread myself all over it.
Speaking of your videos, from sunset-glazed equine
shots to line-dancing and rhinestone-embroidered
suits, they provide such a cinematic backdrop to your
country storytelling. What’s it like bringing your music
to the screen and how did you manage to choreograph
Cher the horse in Fix Me Up?
I just think filming music videos when you’re on a shoot
with a crew and you’ve got your friends involved as
extras is so fun. We filmed Fix Me Up at this lovely horseriding
centre in Clapton-in-Gordano just outside Bristol
on the way to Portishead – there was a really lovely
couple that ran it, and they were the sweetest. But with
Cher the horse, she was like, huge. I was quite scared
because she was just so done listening to my songs and
kept neighing really loudly and I was just holding her
reins thinking, ‘I’m gonna die’. But it was all fine and Cher
was an absolute star.
Your music marries country inflections with earworm
pop melodies, and you’ve even covered songs from the
likes of Lucinda Williams and Jackson C Frank for your
Covers & Others series. Where do these country heroes
come from? Is it something that was incubated growing
up around the plains of Gloucestershire?
My parents were really into their music and my dad
especially. He gave me music and brought me and my
brothers up on the classics like The Beatles, The Beach
Boys and Joni Mitchell, so I had a strong start and,
because I was listening to them from such a young age,
I was such a big fan. But in terms of the folk and country
stuff, I’ve always loved it and as I’ve got older and got
to know myself more – as we all do when we get older
– I’ve kind of just met certain people that have shown
me more of that kind of music. I really love Doc Watson,
Bert Jansch and Jackson C Frank. In the darker days of
lockdown, their music was a very safe bubble to retreat
to. Lucinda Williams is the most fantastic, too, and I
actually didn’t hear of her until I got signed to Heavenly.
Jeff [Barrett, founder] came down and said, ‘Oh, you
sound like Lucinda Williams,’ and I was like, ‘Who’s that?’
And I listened to her and that was it – I just loved it!
You’re set to stop by Widnes Library as part of your
tour. How hopeful are you of returning to the live circuit
in general, and how does playing in a library sound?
I feel more hopeful than I did before. I think all of us who
create music – and music fans in general – are just quietly
hopeful. But we’ve got to go ahead with it now otherwise
the music industry will just disintegrate. People really
need live music. This album has been out for quite a while
now and I haven’t played it live to people who have heard
it, so I think performing in these new places and venues
that I haven’t been to before in front of people that know
my music is going to feel so crazy. We’ve all been in our
own little bubbles, so to have a live crowd enjoying it is
going to be a really special thing. !
Interview: Matthew Berks / @Hewniverse_
Photography: Seren Carys
Katy J Pearson plays Widnes Library on 6th June. Return
is available now via Heavenly Recordings.
@katyjpearsonband
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