Issue 84 / Dec 2017/Jan 2018

SPOTLIGHT
KATIE MAC
The Huyton-born artist channels a well of personal
experience into her charged, emotional songwriting.
“Listening can
often make you
realise that you’re
not as mad as
you thought and
you’re not alone”
Singer-songwriter KATIE MAC’s music isn’t easily
categorised. “I used to say it was primarily acoustic
coming from a singer-songwriter angle but it isn’t
anymore really. Not when we add the band anyway.
It can be quite energetic at times and not usually what people
are expecting when a girl walks on stage with an acoustic.”
And while she casts Laura Marling, Regina Spektor and Joni
Mitchell as her biggest influences when she first began writing
songs, Katie adds “It changes all the time now. I don’t think you’d
necessarily pick up on those things if you watched the band.”
Katie, whose talents have been picked up on by Merseyrail
Sound Station and LIMF Academy, grew up in Huyton and
attributes a lot of her identity to the Knowsley town. “It’s funny,
but I wouldn’t be who I am if I hadn’t grown up in Huyton. You
can think of it in the way that I wouldn’t have had the same
friends, schools and jobs and those things are the reasons I’ve
written a lot of my songs,” she explains before continuing, “I also
grew up in a road that was full of other bands, half the dads and
uncles played guitar and I remember really clearly that I used to
watch people go in and out of the house opposite ours for piano
lessons. It was everywhere.”
Drawing from the well of personal experience, Katie explains
that all of the songs she has penned so far are about things that
have really happened: “Mostly about my family and the people
who I have grown up around and the people we have lost. I
understand why artists feel the need to try and spread their
[political] views and it can be very influential, but I have enough
feelings about simple things without having to take inspiration
from the nightmares everyone already knows about.”
Case in point, her latest release Into The Wild. “It is entirely
about my realisation that life is too short to go to work. I wrote
it a few weeks after I quit my job and decided to fully throw
myself into making my life what I want it to be. I was bored and
I don’t like being told what to do. There is no going back now.”
It’s the perfect track to leap into the darkness with, emphatic
and set alight by vocals that are uncompromising and stunning
in equal measure. The other tracks on her SoundCloud page are
of the same high quality, showing off her trademark voice, but
are diverse in composition. The rousing Eye To Eye has the lilt
of Stiff-era Kirsy MacColl, while Night Time is a slower, more
pared-back affair and Drugs And Older Women starts off a slow
baroque ballad, before picking up tempo halfway through and
veering into a triumphant pop number.
She’s not resting on her laurels though and is eager for more
people to hear her work, both recorded and live: “I have a lot
more growing to do, many more songs to write and loads more
places that I want to gig. It would be ideal if more people began
to listen to those songs, giving me more things to write about
and, therefore, giving me an excuse to play in great venues I’m
not even aware of yet.”
Katie can’t pinpoint exactly what first got her into music – “I
just always loved it. I don’t know how or when it started” – but
can put her finger on why it’s so important to her. “I think music
triggers memories which create really good stories. I remember
loads of things simply because of the song that was on. Most
of the things I took part in growing up, I was singing or playing.
Also, people sing about situations and feelings that they wouldn’t
necessarily tell you about, so listening to it can often make you
realise that you’re not as mad as you thought and you’re not
alone. And it’s a good release.”
soundcloud.com/katiemacmusic1
Katie Mac plays Sound Basement on 22nd December.
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