Katy Kirby - The value of authenticity

About ten days before the release of her second album, I met Texan singer-songwriter Katy Kirby over Zoom. We talked about "Blue Raspberry", her writing process, and some of the standout songs on her previous studio effort, "Cool Dry Place", which had immediately established her among the rising names of American singer-songwriting. Kirby now lives in Brooklyn, where, she tells me, the sheer number of quality shows happening almost every night is nearly "exhausting". The city pulses with life and culture, but she's happy to be heading back out on tour across the States and to find space and time again to focus on writing new songs.

Congratulations on your second album, our Album of the Month here at OndaRock for January! It's an album that arrives roughly three years after your debut, though. How do you feel about the official release of "Blue Raspberry"? That's still a fairly long gap between albums.

Yes, it feels like a long time to me too. Since "Cool Dry Place" came out at the tail end of the first wave of the pandemic (in the US at least), we didn't get to tour until much later. It feels like everything was kind of delayed in some way. Either way, it's great to be putting out new material now!

What does the title of your new record, "Blue Raspberry", mean to you?

The title track is the oldest song in the collection. I wrote it in 2020 as a love song for someone who wears a lot of makeup or has dyed their hair. Those are artificial choices about how one presents oneself. Rather than framing these practices as a way of obscuring oneself, I wanted to write a song that celebrated exactly those choices, ones that allow a person to fully express their own personality and authenticity.

That's an interesting point of view, but why did you title the album that way?

Partly because it's the slowest song on the record and I wanted people to listen to it carefully…

Your early queer relationships are explicitly addressed in some of the new songs. The object cubic zirconia comes up several times in the lyrics. I was wondering whether this object might be a way of expressing or representing the queerness of the people in the songs.

I think so. On an abstract level, I suppose I'm defending the value of something that doesn't seem to get the credit it deserves. We like diamonds because they're beautiful and sparkly, but cubic zirconia is just as beautiful and sparkly. I don't think it makes sense to value one more than the other.

Both on "Cool Dry Place" and "Blue Raspberry" there are very short tracks that feel more like lyrical fragments. I'm amazed by your ability to write two-minute songs, or shorter, that are still so effective. How do you know when one of these tracks is truly finished, or when you still need to keep working on it?

Usually I struggle to make songs a bit longer! "Eyelids" [from "Cool Dry Place"], for instance, had been in that form for a long time, but I didn't think it was finished. Then, one day, I played it for someone I trust and they told me it was perfect as it was. Anyway, I think songs are truly done whenever I keep working on them and nothing good comes out of it. Oh, and by the way, I do like short songs!

One of my favorite songs on the new record is "Party Of The Century". You touch on a lot of themes in a short song, and even though it's a love song, it feels like it could apply just as much to a romantic relationship as to a friendship.

Yes, definitely! I think the theme of friendship became more prominent during the recording process. My producer, Logan Chung, sent the track to some friends so they could sing a few melodic lines at the end of the song. It was a really sweet touch.

Has the songwriting or recording process changed since your previous record?

No, and I'm glad it hasn't. At first I thought about trying to work with outside producers for this album. But everyone I talked to loved what we'd done on "Cool Dry Place" so much that I figured we could just do it again. It also felt right because these songs are so personal, and it came naturally to work with the people who'd been close to me since I first started writing them.

Would you still like to try something new in the future, though? Obviously your way of working is really paying off, so you could just as well keep doing what you're doing…

I don't know. It works well, and we're also more efficient than we used to be. Alberto Sewald and Logan Chung know me well by now, and I don't have to explain to them what I want in terms of sound and arrangements for the songs.

Compared to your previous album, the songs on "Blue Raspberry" are less jangle-pop, but there's a lot more nuance, maybe thanks in part to the orchestral touches.

Yes, I felt like these songs needed a grander sound than what my band usually goes for. And for the first time, we actually had the resources to try something new, something different. So I brought in Rowen Merrill, who I've known since college, to arrange the orchestral parts. I'm really happy with how it turned out!

I really love the album cover. Why did you choose this image?

I wanted it to be an image with a clear queer connotation; there's also a romantic side to it, and a more classic one - the nude, for instance. And I also like the fact that there's sea water in it.

I also loved the video for "Table". The scene where you smash the table in that church is really cathartic and echoes the music's fury. How did you come up with that idea?

My friend Lane Rodges directed the video, and the idea was hers. She thought it might be a bit too obvious an idea, but to me it was more convincing than anything else. So in the end we smashed the table, and I think it worked well.

Yes, it's a kind of crazy idea, but in a good way. So why did you decide to close the album with this song?

I wanted to end the album with a fun, lively track, not a slow one. It's a bit like when you watch a movie at the cinema, and at the end, during the credits, there's a fun song that accompanies you out.

Now I'd like to talk to you about your debut album. For me the title track was a perfect song, a kind of "instant classic". What can you tell me about it?

The song's structure and the sound on the record were Logan's ideas. I didn't know how to end the track, and he tried out this really explosive kind of jam. It was perfect, exactly what "Cool Dry Place" needed.

Is there a song from your previous album you're particularly attached to?

I still love "Portals" and "Eyelids" a lot, and I have fun playing "Juniper" live. "Portals" is a very strange song, maybe the strangest I've ever written, but so many people really adore it. I wasn't expecting that!

(January 28, 2024)

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