Interview with Hollyann & The Katie Winter by Karin  Taylor

Occasionally along the way you meet people you feel a connection with, through nature, art, music or some other experience…. Redbubble’s own hollyann and uncleblack are a couple of lovely musicians who play folk/country.. They met online and formed Hollyann and The Katie Winter together, they’ve been collaborating online and are due to appear in their live debut on stage at the Maverick Music Festival on 3 July as part of a competition ‘Going for a Song’ , I wish them every success and thought it might be good time to find out more about them on the eve of their debut

…their music is cooling like water, soothing like lullabies, happy like butterflies and warm like the sunshine….

…I thought it might be fun to catch up with them, and ask Hollyann and lk to answer a few questions separately, so we get a comparison in terms of their perception of the sequence of events…i think it was well worth it…thank you, i hope you enjoy the interview…

_Hey guys, it’s great to meet you! Thanks for taking time out for this interview! You must be soo excited about the live performance next week at the Maverick Music Festival Is this the first time you’ve performed together live on stage as Hollyann and The Katie Winter ?

Hollyann: Yes it is…we have performed for radio and been recorded live-and it was really lovely…that was a bit of a milestone because until then we weren’t sure how it would be to work side by side-when you’re adding tracks over the recordings you can keep re-doing and primping-not so with live recording-it was pretty stellar

lk: It’s great to meet you too karin. yes we’re extremely excited..and I’m nervous too..it is the first time i have played as the katie winter and the first time Holly and i have performed live.

I can appreciate performing life must be nervewracking and exciting all at the same time!!

Hollyann: I am from a big family in Seattle USA and my mom and my grandmother were both good singers-my mom almost got to sing with Tony Bennett in San Fransico once but she was terrified so didn’t take up on it; her mom was asked to go from Seattle to perform in a Swedish Opera company but again, she was the daughter of a timber mill owner out in the woods in Seattle and in those days she would have had to leave her family for months perhaps years so she decided against it….anyway I had such an affinity for music-couldn’t stop moving when it was played…making up musicals with host of kids in the back yard for years and just singing for the joy most of the time-got plenty of kidding about it-music was a part of our lives from dusk til dawn mainly on the tv and radio- The Beatles invasion played a big part. Joni Mitchell is a big influence as was Carole King, Cher, Annie Lennox, Sandy Denny-basically my taste is very eclectic and if the song is good to me it doesn’t matter what the genre is or anything like that. I could never read music nor do I know the chords or anything-straight from the heart but obviously that can be a bit of a handicap when communicating to other musicians…words are my sole inspiration-love the way they sound, flow, look on the page, sometimes my songs do not have direct meanings and what is funny is many of my songs can be interpreted in a variety of ways – what I think is a strength in any sort of writing -for the reader/listener to make a work his/her own

lk: I’ve no formal musical background, but i have always written and have always wanted to be in a band. i formed uncle black in 2000, and have various releases under that guise. This then led on to The Katie Winter. My inspiration comes largely form other music, wanting to create a certain feeling for others somehow. more specifically probably from the natural world, and our interactions with it and of course, people.

Wow, so neither of you have had formal training, that’s amazing considering the beautiful melodies you’re producing …

Hollyann: My experience on the internet is quite neanderthal in that I use it as a means to an end-it took me literally months to get a myspace site on the go and putting up music was another long winded battle but I got there in the end Basically, who made the first move and …..why? It will be interesting to see how this is answered by Les but what I remember (I can’t believe we have been communicating with each other now for 3 years nearly or perhaps a bit more!!) is that I put up a few philosophical quotes on my myspace blog and he commented and we went back and forth with that for a while, sort of establishing that we had some tenets in common. I think the first reaction to a song was when I put up a song in February to commemorate Valentine’s Day called ‘Valentine Do’ and he particularly liked that song. Then to my surprise he recorded a version of it himself and it was so beautiful-so I did some backing singing on his version and it was so lovely-our voices sort of just juxtaposed against each other like two animals-so comfortably…then things just sort of blossomed from there….alongside this we were supporting each other with our writing in general…and I found Les to be particularly sensitive and comforting to me as a writer-especially at a time when I was finding things a bit difficult (he may not know this)…but it really helped me and I will always be grateful for his gentleness

Anyway, since then we have worked on many songs, mostly his but one or two of mine-one of his, ‘Crossfire’, I was able to figure out a guitar piece for and gigged with successfully over the past few years

lk: We met on myspace. i just came across Holly’s profile and loved the songs, and gradually began to strike up a friendship. i think maybe i may have taken one of Holly’s songs and did my own version of it, which then led to us exchanging tracks, so holly might take one of my songs and sing on it, or i might sing my version of one of hers, and so on. i cant explain why particularly other than i kept coming back to one of Holly’s songs, ‘Valentine Do’ and knew that i wanted to maybe try and work together.

It’s really fascinating to me how you met that way, and how we can pick up these subtleties online about another person, intuitively reaching across the miles and seeing something wonderful coming from taking a chance like that

Hollyann: My favourite song that we have collaborated on is probably ‘Each Day is a Song’ it is the most beautifully simplistic song and I think really shows off Les’s profound writing and vocal/guitar talent while at the same time showcasing the creaminess of our vocal mix…I seem to always go back to this one, although there are none that I don’t hold with special regard….as Les on his own I think the song that really captures me is come to me …it took me lots of listens and guts to record an overdub to that, I was so afraid it would wreck it but fortunately he really liked it…however it never really needed any attention to be great with just his warm and low voice

lk: Thats easy, ‘No Goodbye’ is my favourite. it is a very important song for me, and one we didn’t expect to record. but we had some extra time at the studio and I was finding it so hard to sing without getting a little emotional. just Holly being there, and guiding me through it meant I was able to get the song down, and will treasure it always.

That’s so interesting, you both chose a different song there, with ‘Each Day is a Song’ and ‘No Goodbye’…so for you Hollyann it was the simplicity and Les’s talent and for lk it was Holly’s beautiful heart and encouragement plus support….so there is a great deal of mutual respect between you….that’s got to be a giant plus

Hollyann The Summer Book by Tove Janssen ; human warmth kindness and gravity encapsulated

lk My favourite book is ‘The Willows in Winter’ by William Horwood. He wrote sequels to the classic ‘Wind in the Willows’ and this is the one I read every year and never tire of. I like the complexity of humans translated into the simple lives of the animals and its just a great story, not especially ‘deep’ but great.

:

Hollyann I love beautiful pictures but must be honest here – I think Les is the artist…a lot of my photos are not taken by me but nevertheless have the agreement of my friends and family to use them….i respond to beautiful photos and have a good eye so feel they show a window into my soul even though I don’t take them all myself….when I am writing it is often related to beautiful images I respond to but I don’t think I can identify my muse that clearly at times…there are many things that trigger my writing, ultimately the words as mentioned earlier…on myspace I used to write into my blog and songs that were created were matched by a picture that I normally got of google images although again some of these were my own…I don’t feel it’s important that I am the photographer-as writer I am the interpreter in this instance

lk: i do enjoy photography though not in any technical sense. I am not one to document things in great detail and I would prefer to look and enjoy a scene rather than spend a lot of time trying to capture it in a photo. So i think I like to treat it as a ‘moment’ just little snippets of time which may not have great significance, just an appreciation of that second. and music is very much the same, the songs are little snapshots, that I treat seriously, but I am not precious about, as long as they reach someone I’m happy.

Hollyann: This is our initial recording and marks our foray into taking what we achieved on the net out into the world. I am not sure I can comment directly on Les’s work , even though I sense it intuitively I would have to say that he is the driver behind the beauty of the lyrics and the tunes although there is one of my poems which he beautifully put to music Giving…my description of it would be to compare it to the feeling you get when you go into a warm house and feel you have found a place to uncover your most treasured jewels…the sound just flows over you like soft blankets-really rewarding to work on

lk: ‘The Sky Inside’ is the first release on my treetops records label. After we’d recorded the tracks i felt so good about them it seemed a shame to just put them on myspace and see them sort of forgotten. So i set up the label to release the ep. I would describe it as nu-folk, but folk-country might fit better, or as the guy at Today Magazine said “we here are thinking of a shyly retiring Pentangle performing a campfire duet with a seriously chilled Nico and with that look forward to hearing more soon”

Oh, that’s beautiful Hollyann, and I just love how Today Magazine described you and love the titles you give your compositions and albums, it’s really interesting to learn more about how you developed

Hollyann: I only found out the story about this on our radio interview; that it was commemorating a time when Les had worked with a Californian songwriter named Katie on myspace…i had all sorts of ideas about what the origin of the group title (or solo title really) was and I wasn’t far wrong in the end

lk: Well, I struck up a friendship with another musician called Katie from San Diego during 2006, and over that following winter we exchanged songs, and words and I found in the Spring I had a whole bunch of short, gentle songs which didn’t fit with ‘Uncle Black’, so i decided to put them out under a different guise, and as they happened over the winter, due much to the encouragement of Katie, I decided on ‘_The Katie Winter’_.

Well, I just love that name, thank you Katie!

Hollyann: Me sitting in Stockport UK and Les in Hadleigh ipswich UK via the cables!! Normally either one of us writes the lyrics and then Les usually puts the tune to it or occasionally he backs one of my songs-or rewrites the tune. I have never thought about any difficulty…it seems to happen so innately to me and I think to Les as well so we just do it – it sort of flows out.

lk: Touched on this but with the possibilities now of the internet we just found that it was quite possible to work pretty effectively on each others music by sending the files and working on them then resending. the downside, apart from obviously not having the person there, was that using different types of recording software or devices meant it was sometimes hard to match up the sounds totally, or mix them sometimes without it sounding a bit odd, but for the purpose of writing it was fine, and a really good way to get songs developed. this is really what prompted booking the studio, as we felt it was time to do the songs justice, and meet one another as well!!

It is great the way the internet provided a way forward for you as musicians to collaborate, in the past this just wouldn’t have been possible!

Hollyann: My motto in life is : ‘_If something is precious enough to accomplish – we don’t say ‘we can’t because’….we ask…’ how can i achieve it_?’…..and I feel so fortunate to have come across les on the internet and still be collaborating on such wonderful work…thanks Karin for this wonderful opportunity!

lk: Thank you karin, its been a pleasure. erm. to quote one of the titles –
‘each day is a song’

thank you so much for your time guys, it’s been a pleasure :)

Details….of Hollyann and The Katie Winter’s debut live performance:
Date: 3rd July 2010
Time: 11.30
Event: The Maverick Music Festival
if you’re in the UK and can get along to support them that’d be great!!

links to Hollyann and lk’s music – have a listen
www.myspace.com/hollyannthekatiewinter
www.thekatiewinter.bandcamp.com
www.myspace.com/thekatiewinter
www.myspace.com/hollyannsmall
www.uncleblack.com
www.myspace.com/uncleblack