Kristi Kates - Press - Review Magazine Cover Feature

The Stunning Odyssey and Breathtaking Musical Transcendence of Kristi Kates

by Robert E. Martin
Photos by Steven Gotts

"In music one must think with the heart and feel with the brain." - George Szell

Kristi Kates is a rare breed of artist in an age saturated with talented female singer/songwriters striving to position themselves within a market where content is becoming equally as important as commerce in terms of defining the arc of one's career. Blessed with the disarming attraction of a fashion model, the marrow of her beauty is more importantly defined by the emotive thoughts, words, and feelings that flow from her lips, tracing the litany of life's conflicts and contradictions while her fingers flow over the fretboard of her guitar, etching a sometimes sparse and often expansive sound of harmony and transcendence.

Kristi's first full-length album, entitled Tangle, was independently released, and has sold approximately 2,400 copies, even though the disc is only currently available at live shows and on her website (http://www.kristikates.com). Following the release of Tangle, Kristi toured clubs, colleges, and festivals throughout the United States, opening for acts such as Duncan Sheik and The Reverend Horton Heat. Recently, she just finished her latest recording project, a new four song CD EP entitled The Avenue A Sessions, which was recorded with her new backing band, featuring inventive guitarist Brandon DeGeorge and keyboardist Scott Morley, along with producer/engineer Paul Smith, who recently completed several sessions of his own at Manhattan's Hit Factory studios, including several for U2 and those for Paul Simon's The Capeman CD.

A singer since the age of three, Kristi notes how she "basically just never stopped singing." Possessing a timbre and resonance to her voice that is both pure and unaffected, her power is never brandished about in the predictable manner of an artist like Mariah Carey, whom always seems intent upon flying into the upper registers of her range on every song simply to 'prove' that she can still 'hit the note'; but rather, is effortlessly modulated, particularly on original compositions like Bottle Song, in a manner reflective of the true emotion raging in her heart, which tastefully frames, as opposed to punctuates, her innate ability.

"As long as I can remember, I've always wanted to be a singer," explains Kristi. "I sang other people's songs for a while - a couple of early bands I sang for were Orange Crush and The Trinkets - but it didn't make a lot of sense just interpreting someone else's impressions and opinions when I could be singing my own."

"I've always written poetry and short stories, so songwriting was a logical next step. To me, music is a very universal form of communication, and it's especially interesting when you find that people can have several different interpretations of one of your songs - it means you're reaching many diverse personalities with a universal thought or emotion, and I think that's very important. It can definitely transcend a lot of barriers, and I think it's a great thing if you can give people something they can identify with, through good times or bad."

At first showcasing her original songs in an "unplugged" format, Kristi played clubs and coffeehouses anywhere she could. Often invited to sit in with other bands, she honed her performance skills sitting in with a diverse range of musicians. But perhaps the most engaging component to Kristi's music resides in the diversity of her taste. As much as Rock Writers dip into the vat of comparison, generally for purposes of reference, her music is at times reminiscent of other contemporary artists such as Aimee Mann, Natalie Merchant, or Dido - while at other times it rocks out in wild abandon with the intensity of Patti Smith or Shirley Manson, spliced with the melodic sensibility of Paul McCartney. Musically and lyrically, this can be a dangerous approach for an artist attempting to carve a commercial 'niche', but true to form, Kristi is more committed to once again transcending the narrow parameters of stereotype.

"I don't think you can really try to place yourself anywhere in particular," she reflects. "Doing so seems like it would encourage pigeonholing, or placing limits on what might be accepted from you artistically, and we all know there's enough of that going on already. I can appreciate all different kinds of music, but I do know what my personal musical preferences are," she continues. "I especially find well-crafted lyrics rather important, and I also like a lot of melodic and harmonic changes within a song. I really listen to a lot of everything. I'm a huge fan of The Beatles - I think they're a must-listen for anyone working with what is essentially 'Pop' music today. I also really like a lot of the whole British scene - Radiohead, David Bowie, Oasis, The Jam, Blur - and I've also been attracted to songs from R.E.M. and Bjork. It's all just about good songs, you know?"

Given her stylistic diversity, is Kristi concerned about the breadth of her musical taste hampering her commercially? Long-established acts like the Stones and Aerosmith have an immediately 'recognizable' sound and have sustained their careers through 're-writes' of riffs & hooks that continue to sell, yet unlike artists such as Bowie and Beck, don't really advance that far over the years. So what is Kristi's 'take' on balancing the line between artistic integrity and commercial success?

"I really think you have to just do what you do, and if commercial success is what you're after, hope there is an audience for it out there somewhere. And there probably is... just as much as there is a lot of pigeonholing going on, much of it created by the media. I think people want to be introduced to new sounds and challenged more than a lot of musicians would think. If you're doing what you do anyway, and letting it find an audience on its own, it's a continuous learning process, and to me, that's much more interesting and intriguing than an artist who stays static just to be commercially 'safe.'"

One obvious change between Tangle and The Avenue A Sessions is in the sound of the material. While the former is incredibly fluid, with syncopated rhythms, lush fills, and a driven tempo to showcase her vocal prowess, the Avenue A material is more 'fundamental' in terms of its guitar/bass/drum sound, with the lead guitar work often sharing the spotlight with the vocals in the mix, charting a different course in musical direction, largely due to a completely new band on her latest release. "The first CD was really done, for all practical purposes, 'on the fly'," Kristi explains. "In retrospect, I hear a lot of things I would have done differently, but I think you'll always hear things you could change on every album. I basically ended up producing Tangle because there was no one else to do so at the time. I would have liked a co-producer, because as the writer, I think you can be too close to the songs to see them objectively. But overall, I think it was a very good learning experience, and people seem to really like the album, which is very rewarding."

"The new EP I co-produced with Paul Smith, an engineer from The Hit Factory in New York, and that was really interesting. It was actually his idea to strip down the arrangements and just focus on the basics of the songs themselves. It's likely that I'll record differently again when I finally make a new full-length CD, with a lot more texture and production the next time around. But this seems to have been a successful experiment, and we wanted to get some new material out for the fans."

"Regarding the band change, the musicians I was working with before on Tangle were mostly studio and 'weekend' musicians, which didn't work for the long-term commitment we needed," she reflects. "They were pretty good players, but once the show was over, they were outta there, which was bad in terms of camaraderie and communication. It was also difficult to get them to do any long-term touring. The new band members are just great, very talented and very focused, especially my guitarist, Brandon DeGeorge, and my keyboardist, Scott Morley, who both kind of anchor the backing band. They're much more interested in the songs and enthused about being involved, and that makes it much easier to communicate to them what I need for the arrangements of each song and for our live shows. That, and an awful lot of coffee-drinking and cheap Indian food," she laughs.

One can't help but wonder if it isn't difficult to become 'self-conscious' as a singer. Is that a 'challenge' to overcome, and what does Kristi feel the biggest challenge is to a new musician, especially for a talented up-and-comer in a world where so many female artists dominate the spotlight? "It's true people will always have something to say about everything you do," states Kristi. "Even if you disagree, you can usually at least respect their opinion. But I think the difficulty lies in the unevenness of it all. One person will totally dig a song, and the next will find it their least favorite of everything you've done. That's been a little hard to comprehend, but I'm getting better at it. Paul Smith calls it "a seat for every arse and an arse for every seat." "

"As for the most challenging thing in the music 'biz', I think it's just that - making sure you don't get caught up in the 'biz' end of it. Sure, there are things you have to do business-wise, necessary evils, as it were - and I think everyone would like to be successful at their craft, but there's also a big trap that revolves around the whole 'hit song' thing that I think one really has to avoid. Otherwise, you're writing for...what? A chart? An accounting department? And that really has nothing to do with communicating with other people at all."
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"There's a big trap that revolves around the whole "hit song" thing that I think one really has to avoid. Otherwise, you're writing for... what? A chart? An accounting department? And that really has nothing to do with communicating with other people at all." - Kristi Kates
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With much of her material balancing the opposing forces and emotive states between inner reflection and outward exuberance, and melancholy versus euphoria, often shifting with the tempo and tone within the same song, as an original songwriter, does Kristi consider herself a 'first-person confessional' songwriter like John Lennon, or more of a storyteller?

"Actually, it's kind of a combination of both," answers Kristi. "Sometimes I'm seeing things from my own point of view, and sometimes I get an impression that I try to interpret thorough someone else's eyes. If you're observant, there's generally always something interesting going on everywhere you go, whether it's an actual happening, an overheard conversation, or just something passing you by. Topically, I think it's extremely varied. Of course, there are universal themes of the whole range of human emotion, but I also like to write about more esoteric things. You know, the ideas that stem from those 'late-night-sitting around with your friends, pondering the state-of-the-universe' kind of conversations. And I do like to be a bit cryptic with the lyrics, so they can be interpreted in a variety of ways, and therefore reach more people."

While hoping to sign with a major label soon, Kristi and her band are busily preparing for a new tour, tentatively beginning in March. "We hope to hit the Southeastern/Eastern coast of the U.S., and then travel through the Midwest. Beyond that it's anybody's guess. Audiences have been great so far, whether we're playing for six people or 6,000," she reflects. "We've met some really nice people, and had some rather bizarre experiences on the road, too. We did a show in L.A. last winter and afterwards were talking to a guy from the audience. It turned out that he designed sets for 20th Century Fox, so one night we were in a little club in Santa Monica, and the next day we were on a movie set, getting the grand tour and climbing around in this giant fake ice station. Pretty surreal."

As our interview draws to a close, and struck by how many strong suits Kristi has going for her, one can't help but be curious of her opinion on the 'state-of-music' today. Does she find it to be healthier than ever, or is lethargy and decadence becoming more prevalent?

"Artistically, I think the envelope is really getting a good push lately, and a lot of fab songs and albums are out there now for those willing to go beyond Top 40 and really listen. There also seems to be a lot more collaborating between different artists, bands, producers, and genres of music, which is very cool. Unfortunately, I also think quite a bit of that is getting buried underneath a lot of capital concerns. It's been a strange year, business-wise, with all the record company corporate mergers. What does kind of concern me, especially from the point of view of being unsigned, is the fact that there seems to be more emphasis upon the one hit record than on the longevity of the artist - the quick single as opposed to the quality album. I'd like to hold onto the theory that the audiences, at least, are being underestimated again. But what the record companies choose to do with their newfound extra power, that's a different story that remains to be seen. It should be an interesting year."

Amongst the panoply of faces, voices, and artists competing for our attention, the grooves cut by Kristi Kates are both distinctive and embracing. Indeed, if major record labels are listening to music with one ear, and the sound of cash registers with the other, hopefully it will not be long before Kristi's stunning vocals, vivid observations, and fully fueled rock compositions come streaming over the airwaves... to ignite a chilly heart on a cold winter's night, or kiss one's soul like a radiant beam of sunshine on a green summer's day.

You can order both Tangle and The Avenue A Sessions on Kristi's website at www.kristikates.com