Katelyn Tarver is set to release her new record – Subject to Change – on the 15th October. Here, we interview Katelyn about the project. Pre-order Subject to Change here.
Hi, Katelyn, how are you doing today? It’s the final countdown to the album release so how are you feeling?Â
It’s a mixture – I’m so excited for it to come out, but there’s something so nice about the anticipation. It’s something to look forward to.
And you’ve been able to play it out and gauge the reaction, which is kinda nice?Â
It’s fun. I’m really looking forward to it being out, but it’s also kind of nice to have it to myself for a little while longer.
Then it’ll be the world’s… Listening to your music, you’ve never been afraid to talk about pain, you never shy away from that and get to the core of it. Is that something you’ve always been attracted to in songwriting?
It’s funny, because I feel like I would say no, but then I listened back to songs I wrote 10 years ago and I’m like, ‘Oh, no, maybe I have always been kind of drawn to these things’. There was always this sense that your subconscious is doing things that you’re not really even realising. That’s what I feel sometimes, because I listened back to older songs and I’m like, ‘Oh, I think I have always been drawn to gray areas and complicated emotions and the truth of things not being what you thought.’ How do you deal with that loss and pain? I think I have always been kind of drawn to those things, I don’t know why.
There’s almost a lot more complexity in pain than in joy.
Exactly. I feel like songwriters always talk about that – it’s so much easier to write a breakup song or a heartbreak song over a love song or happy song.
Obviously you’ve already released ‘All Our Friends Are Splitting Up,’ can you talk a little bit about the inspiration behind that track and why you decided to release that one?
Yeah, I felt like ‘Shit Happens’ was a cool way to sort of introduce the feeling of this album and some of the subject matter. It was one of my favourite songs and I felt like it was like a good introduction, and ‘All Our Friends’ as the follow up. I think the inspiration behind that song was really about long-term relationships and the ups and downs you go through. There can be this sense that I always try to outsmart problems in real life or try to see them coming so that I can avoid them when they do, obviously, that’s not a real thing. A lot of times my brain can go to that place of like, ‘What if something happens and what if something changes? What if things aren’t like they are now, what are we going to do then?’ As you get older, you see people get together, you see people break up, you see people get married and people get divorced, and it sort of becomes this thing where you’re like, ‘Oh, that’s kind of common, people splitting up is kind of common, even when you get married.’ I think it’s just me working through that fear, going through harder times and how you hold on to each other. It was just voicing a lot of that fear.
We don’t talk a lot about seeing other people’s stuff and how you can bring that into your own psyche.
Yeah, I feel like it happens a lot when you see celebrity couples split up and people say ‘well if they can’t make it, who can?’ It’s funny because obviously none of us know these people, but we feel like we do. It’s sort of that feeling  that happens to people in your own life. You think well I thought they were so happy and they seemed so in love and now they’re getting a divorce – you don’t see behind closed doors with people and what’s really going on. I think it’s just like a lot of reflection and thinking about how you make this work.
With this record, you worked with some pretty talented people like Davis Naish. Can you talk a bit about how you met  him and David Arkwright and Justin Gammella and forming that creative partnership with them?
Totally, so I met Davis in Nashville, I think in January 2019, so it’s been a couple years now. We were just set up on a session – those are always hit or miss, like are we going to get along and will I feel comfortable talking about what’s going on in my life. Luckily, we’re around similar age, so that’s just easy because you feel like you connect on  life stages, and we had similar upbringings. We’re from similar places, so there was this immediate connection with him as a person and then our sensibilities in our first session – we wrote a song of mine called ‘Cynical’ which I put out a couple years ago now. It was this connection where we were both drawn to these themes in life and trying to write about certain things. Then he moved to LA that summer, so I live in LA and he lived in Nashville, but he was like ‘I think I’m moving to LA’ and that solidified this bond. We just clicked.We really did and kind of still have and so when it came time to do this album, I knew I wanted to work with him a lot. That was pretty easy and fun and then with Justin and David, I had worked with Justin a couple times with other people and it was the middle of the pandemic and he said ‘would you want to write? I’m kind of doing zoom sessions.’ I hadn’t written with him in a while and I was just like, ‘yeah sure, it was a chance thing that I was in the mood to write.’ We reconnected and just started doing these sessions together. One of the first songs we wrote ended up being on the album and making me think that this was an album and not just an EP. He brought in his frequent collaborator, David Arkwright and the three of us just had this connection. It felt like every time we wrote, we wrote a song we loved and we were just kind of like, ‘okay, something’s happening here’. It was really exciting to have that creative flow, where you’re connecting.
They were super empowering to me, Davis, Justin and David, just supportive of artists and really pushing me to dig deeper and say what I wanted to say. It can be difficult to be the artist, knowing that it will be your song. I’m sort of scared to say this or that and it was really helpful to kind of have them in my corner and tell them I should go for it and hear that encouragement. It was so nice to hear.
It’s a safe place to express yourself and know that you’re understood.
Yeah, at the end of the day, we can all be proud of these songs.
I guess, this is your first full-length record, which is an incredible thing. What are you hoping that fans will take away from it in terms of knowing who you are a bit better as a person?
I mean, I do feel like there’s some significance of this being a full length album, even though there’s so many different ways to release music, it doesn’t really matter. But to me, I did want to give my fans an album, like a body of work we can all talk about and experience together. I’m really excited to share that experience with them, obviously not getting to play shows in the last year and a half, I really crave that connection with them and sort of want to get feedback. It’s just so nice to have that connection. I think it’s been cool, even with just a couple of singles out to see people commenting to me that they can’t wait for this album and they’re loving these songs. It feels like we’re kind of on the journey together, which is really nice. I’m excited about that, I feel like it’s some of the most honest songwriting I’ve ever done and it’s music that I’m super proud of. I’m hoping that they kind of see the growth I’ve had as an artist over the years and as a songwriter and that they’re excited to be supporting me.
I think they’ll feel that way for sure. Well, congratulations, I’m excited for you to have this record out. Thank you for chatting with me today.Â
It was lovely to chat with you.
