Kate Rodgers

Born and bred in her own hinterland, a farm outside Toronto, Kate was always obsessed with music and studied at the Royal Conservatory of Music from the age of 10. In that time-worn fashion she gave up her classical training at 17 as soon as she got into “hip-hop & bluegrass”, although her tastes and influences are more wide-ranging.
When her cousin Mark Rae started Grand Central he asked Kate do some vocals for them. It took 2 years to finally get her to record. Now she says she can’t imagine life without her “mad Englishmen”. Kate still lives in Canada and her isolation from big city life is something she shares with Aim, who still lives & works in his hometown of Barrow-in-Furness. It has its downside however – it took 22 hours travelling on four flights for her to get here to record the vocals for “Sail”.

Her view of working with Aim? “I used to think I was a perfectionist until I met Andy. He is an amazing guy and he works about as hard as I've ever known anyone to work on their craft. It blows my mind that all this talent is spawned in that little northern town. I think we've had a great time working together (although I could just be speaking for myself here) and I will forever be amazed and flattered that he has wanted me to be a part of both his albums. I still just can't quite figure out why...”

As she says, “It’s amazing how your self consciousness doesn’t start evolving until it is too late”. Growing up on a farm with no neighbours in sight, Kate had to make her own forms of entertainment to pass the time. This wasn’t particularly tough for her as she enjoyed life in the countryside, running around making a nuisance of herself snowmobiling or having scraps with her siblings, but when she wasn’t doing this she always returned to her love, music. “You name it I sang it, anytime anywhere. Utter shamelessness was all I had to work with”, she says.

She took music pretty seriously when she was a kid, and went down the classical training road for vocals, but it didn’t take too long before the structure of it drove her mad with its limitations. Kate’s high school years were spent focusing on other people’s music and her drive in life became about touring around North America in her car, following bands like The Grateful Dead, Phish and The Allman Brothers, getting totally immersed in the live shows and making clothes and jewellery for extra cash on the road. She recalls these memories fondly, “It’s hard to explain what was so addictive about that lifestyle, pulling up to a new city every night and waking up to see it for the first time in the daylight, a new location almost every day. There was nothing more incredible than being with your friends, dancing you ass off for at least three hours a day and worrying about nothing more than when the next show was.” This way of life became a type of religion to her, and even though she admits this lifestyle took its toll on her health, she soaked up every moment of it.

After years of travelling and living in other cities while also attempting post secondary education, her cousin Mark came over to visit her and the visit was a blessing in disguise for the 24-year-old Kate. Working at the Human Society Shelter looking after cats and dogs was a job she loved, but when Mark dug out an old recording of her singing he convinced her to enter back into the singing game. Kate was still in Canada at this time and Mark asked her to come back to England, where he introduced her to his fledgling label, Grand Central Records. At this time Grand Central was just a 4x6 room in Ducie House occupied by Mark Rae, Steve Christian and Eliza Tyrrel, trying to find it’s feet in the music industry. When she was there they wrote a song entitled “Fine” and from there, as she says, “the boulder started rolling uphill”.

It was quite a slow transition for her, doing some featured artist stints for Aim and Rae and Christian whilst still being in Toronto, and she was also making her way successfully through Fashion Design College. It wasn’t until Grand Central signed her to a three-album contract that the reality of it all really sunk in. Now, she thought, this is what I do, not even dreaming of something like this happening five years ago. She loves being surrounded by musicians and music makers and even though England is her second home now, she’s trying hard to keep her Canadian drawl intact.

. My songs aren’t really too metaphorical, more straightforward, so its usually pretty clear what’s going on in my head at the time of writing.” Some people have asked Kate, after listening to the album, if she’s ok and she says that always throws her for a loop. She continues, “You know, I’m generally a truly happy person. I guess I’ve just been through some heavy stuff and that’s what’s screaming from me when I get creative. It’s a hell of a lot easier to write about the bad stuff than the good stuff, you risk sounding cheesy on the latter”.

Kate’s influences range from Bluegrass to Reggae to Hip Hop, “If it’s quality music I’m going to eat it right up”, she says. Right now she is listening to a lot of bluegrass as she has always had a love for the music from the Deep South. She loves the tradition in the music, the way they write songs and tell stories from the heart. In stark contrast, she has huge admiration for Eminem, “Eminem continues to blow my mind, for one the guy is a lyrical genius, even if you don’t agree with the subject matter”. She also mentions early Dave Matthews Band, Wilco, Neil Young, Allman Brother and Little Feat. Currently she also loves Ben Harper, Nina Simone, Rufus Wainwright and Ani Difranco. As she says herself, “The list goes on and on…”.