It’s been an unbelievable year for Kathy Striker, with her first appearance on Jools Holland at the beginning of this year, promoting her EP “Bouquet of Nettles” and then her first album “Cherry Tree” topping the UK’s Independent and Radio One charts this Summer. It’s now winter and Kathy Striker has been a busy bee, putting together her second album and planning her first tour, where she won’t be a supporting act. [Insert magazine name here] managed to slip into her schedule for a chat about her past year and what we can look forward to. At the moment we are sat in a old coffee shop, the china’s mismatched and I am told by Miss Striker that this was the place where she wrote her first song. We sit down, Miss Striker with her regular (hot chocolate and a ginger bread man) and we exchange pleasantries. “I tried to get a decent night sleep” she says, “But I got chatting to a woman at an open mike night,” it’s no news that Miss Strikers big break was busking in Covent Garden. She nods at me eagerly before biting off the gingerbread man’s left arm, “Should we get cracking?”
How is the second album coming along?
More nerve wracking than the first. Second albums have this bad reputation because either they’re too different or just the same to the first album. This one has more musicians involved, it was a weird experience when I met the woman who was playing the harp for one of the songs; she looked like a member of the Adams family. I wanted this album to be different, not too different obviously, but bigger, my first album was just me and my guitar. I wanted to bring in more people and bring the music up a notch. Everyone involved was so different from each other, apart from the fact that they could all play brilliantly. I guess this album has a more… collaborative feel to it.
How do you plan on having the musicians of stage with you for you tour?
[Laughs] We had a major problem with that, they were thinking of pre-recording it but I hate it when you see artists on stage and they’re clearly miming. It’s just fake. There was the option of not bringing them [the musicians] along but that would’ve ruined it, on the album there’s all this noise, this rhythm, throughout it and if it were just me on a stage, just with my guitar? It wouldn’t have the same affect.
This will be your first headliner gig, are you nervous?
Not really, I’ve played in front of large crowds before and I know that the crowds I’ll be playing in front of will be wanting to listen to me and not just sitting through to hear someone else. Before my first album I was terrified, I’d have to build myself up before I went on stage, but I guess after Cherry Tree, I felt a lot more confident.
Jools Holland described you as one of the most shy and confident artists out there, do you agree?
Completely! I remember, before we went live, he was giving me this prep talk – “Don’t look at the camera”, “Shoulders back”, “Remember your lines” and I just kind of stood there are all meek and wide eyed. But when I got up there I felt electric, after I sang Out of Water and I came off the stage, he looked totally surprised. Later he asked me how I managed it, and I told him that it was my song and I didn’t care if I had to chain the audience down, they would listen to it [laughs].
You were nominated the mercury prize for best singer/song writer this year, how did you feel about that?
Surprised, if anything. When I write songs I don’t usually like to draw on personal experiences in case I offend anyone, but when I set my sites on my EP, I went to my laptop and looked over my photos and old diary entries, seeing what I could put a chord to. It was a personal album, though I didn’t do the whole “my childhood sucked” type thing, I knew that my family and friends have made me who I am today and it would be wrong to not acknowledge them in my songs. It’s nice knowing that they thought it was good enough, to be nominated.
Your EP [Bouquet of Nettles] is considered a lot darker when compared to Cherry Tree, was there a difference is yourself or writing style when you produced the songs?
Er, yeah, my EP was written just after I got out of Uni, with my music degree. It was a bit hectic. I broke up with my boyfriend and I couldn’t afford to keep the dingy flat I was in, so some of the lyrics aren’t exactly uplifting in my EP because of that. In-between my EP and first album though I went travelling, after I sorted money and stuff, I went to Japan, Paris… I got lost in in this little Italian village. I saw so much and I realised that although bad things happen, the world goes on, there’s so much out there that’s not going to stop and wait for you to dry yours eyes. It was a big reality check.
The title track for your EP “Bouquet of Nettles” is one of the oddest love songs [insert magazine name] have heard of, what’s it about?
The chorus was mainly focussed on my parents, they were together all through their teens until my Dad got this job and… Anyway, they split. But my Mum always said that you should only pull up the nasty plants, when they met up again my Dad handed her a bouquet of nettles. It must have one her back because they’re still together. The verses and the bridge however, well… Mum and Dad worked out just fine in the end, but it doesn’t always end up that way, the line “Please don’t leave me, I know that sounds pathetic” was a phrase a girl said in College, when she was telling the girls changing room how her boyfriend dumped her. You said it’s the oddest love song you’ve heard of; really I just think it shows the two sides of love.
From your second album, which song did you find the hardest to write and compose for?
Um… that’s a tricky one… I’d say Moonrise. That had so many different layers to it; there was my voice, two backing singers, a harpist, piano, my acoustic guitar and my friend Charlie, playing a fiddle. That was mad. I’m surprised we’re still sane after it [laughs]
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