We interview up and coming singer songwriter Callista Clark about her debut EP – Real To Me – writing the project and why she’s fighting for her voice to be heard.
Hi Callista, how are you? Congratulations on your debut EP, it must be a relief to finally get this one out into the world?
I’m doing good. It’s been crazy, it’s been so much fun. It’s been a while of writing songs and just trying to get the best stuff out there. I know that me and my fans and my family have just been waiting for this moment and it’s finally here. It’s kind of surreal honestly.
It takes so long to figure out where you want to position it as a debut, because you have so many songs that it’s hard to narrow it down to just a few songs.
It is, a lot of the time. Something that I tried to do when I was writing for this collection was to just go in and get the best song that day, whether it sounded more pop than I wanted it to go, or more RnB or more truly country. Whatever it was, I knew that I could bring it back in to whatever that sound was, whatever the look was, whatever the idea was. I just really went for whatever the idea was to get the best one that day.
Something that really struck me was the maturity of the songwriting on this project. How long have you been songwriting for? I know that you’ve written with some incredible songwriters on this project, so how have your experiences been working with all of them?
It’s been incredible, I’ve written with a lot of really amazing songwriters, some of my favourite songwriters. It’s just been mind-blowing that they’ve taken a chance on a new artist like me. The great thing about this collection is that all of my very first co-writes ever – ‘Real To Me’ or ‘Change My Mind’ or ‘Heartbreak Song’ – are all on this collection. I’ve been fortunate to have a really great team behind me and had the great experience working with these songwriters and having people standing behind this music. Even though these were my first co-writes and I was 15 when I wrote those, they still know that those are some of the best songs and that this is the best way to introduce me to the world. I’m really glad that we stuck with those, and it just shows how excited we were from the beginning about those songs.
Your producer was Nathan Chapman, so what did he bring to the project and what did he enable you to do as an artist?
Nathan Chapman is incredible, he just gets it. I think that’s the best way to explain it. I would give him direction, but he’d already know what I was talking about. He’s just incredible that way, he loves being challenged and so do I, if I had any ideas for him he’d get it, times a million. A lot of the time, I don’t know what I’m trying to say, I might be drumming on a desk with pencils or something, so yeah, he’s great, he definitely reads my mind a lot. It turned into this amazing thing that was just beyond anything I’d ever imagined.
Obviously you’re signed to Big Machine, how did that all come about? It must be amazing to have a name like that behind you at such a young age?
Yeah, I still can’t believe it’s happening. I can’t believe that someone like Scott and Scooter find or see something in me, it’s still incredible to me. I posted a video on my Facebook when I was 13 and I was singing ‘Have You Ever Seen The Rain?’ by Credence Clearwater Revival – such a great song. I didn’t expect anything when I posted that video and I still don’t know to this day what it was about that video that made it do what it did. I had no idea that I could reach that many people through social media – that was the first time where I ever realised that that was a possibility to get in front of that many people. It now has around 27 million views and it was just the craziest thing, that was how I met Scott and Scooter and the incredible team that I’m working with now.
You talked earlier about not necessarily writing for a particular genre, I hear a lot of different influences in your music. Who have you been influenced by and have you always had that breadth of musical inspiration?
Yeah, I love all kinds of music, the first place that I ever sang was at my granddad’s church, so there’s a lot of the Christian flair in a lot of it. I think that you can always tell when a singer grew up singing in church, I just do, there’s something magical about that and I think it helps connect with your music in a different way. Then I started listening to all the best 80s and 90s country, the Motown, the rock, Maren Morris, Ingrid Address… I love women that can do it all, the music, the singing, just all of that.
Is it really important to you then to handle the songwriting of your songs and guide what you want to put out there?
Yes I always write my songs and I wrote all the songs on this collection.
‘It’s Cause I Am’ is one of my favourite tracks on the project, it’s so empowering and it’s a good message to have on your debut. Can you talk a bit about that song in particular?
Yes, thank you! I feel like that song and the whole collection is just this great way of introducing myself, something I want to be known for is just being really honest and real, no matter what that is, whether it’s me being sassy when it’s time to perform, whatever the emotion is, I just want to be really honest and really go for it. With that one, I went into my write and I was just mad, because people don’t take me seriously. It’s so hard being a teenager, and that’s what ‘Real To Me’ is about, but it’s also so hard being a young girl in this industry sometimes. I have had shows where the sound guy would come up to my guitarist instead of me, because he was the guy. So little things like that were just driving me crazy, I was just letting it all out in this write, I just remember thinking you don’t have to get it I’ll just show you, that was my mindset. This was my way of saying, this is who I am take it or leave it, and I’ll just show you what I do. It just exploded from there.
I want to be a voice for anyone who feels unheard or misunderstood, or anyone who feels like that too. If they’re trying to have a career in music or sports or whatever that is, I know everyone feels like that at some point in their life. I hope these songs are empowering and something that they can relate to.
It’s so important to know that from the outset of your career. Can you talk about ‘Real To Me’ itself, how did the project evolve from that track?
Yeah, so ‘Real To Me’ was one of my first co-writes ever, and ‘Change My Mind’ and ‘Heartbreak Song’ were as well. It’s crazy, I wrote that song and I went in, just feeling really misunderstood and not understanding the co-writing process at all just yet. I was with Laura Veltz and Casey Brown, who are two incredible songwriters. I remember thinking, ‘ok if I’m going to do this, then I’m going to do this.’ When they asked me how I was feeling, I just let it out, I said everything I was feeling. Laura Veltz is such an incredible songwriter, and so she was just recording what I was saying, recording and writing little mental notes. It just went from there, it started to do this poem thing. It all just came out, and it was just something that I felt that day. I went through a break-up, which you can probably tell, I just remember thinking that everyone’s telling me that just because I’m 15 years old that whatever I’m feeling isn’t real yet, but I’m sitting here crying, I’m telling you this hurts and I’m upset and you’re telling me that it’s not real. I had this battle going on, I felt so misunderstood and that’s the best word I can use. I was just ranting to her about how I was feeling. Even though I’m young, it does not make my feelings any less real. I think that’s something that everyone can relate to.
Congratulations on this project! We’re excited to see what you do next!
