Hold On... It's Kate Nash

Gigwise would just like you to think for the moment back to when you were 19 or maybe you’re 19 now, if you are take a step back and look at your situation. How many of you were touring the UK singing your own songs, working on your own self penned album with producer de jour Paul Epworth, have the world as your oyster, an oyster about to be picked up, sucked out and worn as a beautiful piece of jewellery? The answer to this question should be and probably is no - well as long as you’re not Kate Nash.

Kate Nash is 19 but don’t let that fool you. She is a multi-instrumentalist (keyboards, guitars, even the bodhran) whom writes all her own material, “I write all my own songs, I don’t co-write with anybody”. Her first album is primed and almost ready for the baying hordes, “We are nearly finished so after the festivals we have about a week of recording and mixing to do”. She is on the cusp of something big and beautiful, her journey to here is not just complete luck or some form of gross nepotism but she knows she is still young, “I apply myself to everything but I haven’t been slogging away for 3 years or 4 years, which I know a lot of people do”. She is laying the foundations for a very successful future and everything to this point has been a building block in her young career.

How she really set herself on the path to here probably really starts with her upbringing, “I was always surrounded by music”. She was born in Dublin and even played bodhran at a young age. She moved to London and her musical education continued learning to play the piano. Her parents have also played a major part in her diverse musical tastes, “My mum and dad just listened to lots of good music in the house and in the car. Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, Carole King, a lot of folk, Van Morrison, like Buddy Holly and Elvis, Johnny Cash, so loads of really good old artists and stuff”. These influences go some way to explaining the quite skewed range of sounds to be found in Kate Nash’s music. Growing up the influences became broader and branched more into youth orientated sounds, “When I was growing up, a teenager, I was into more like kind of pop and R ‘n’ B, garage stuff”. Though music has always played a role throughout her life, her talent was almost wrenched away by another lesser art form. 

 “I was auditioning for drama school, I really wanted to do that” - luckily for all music lovers, faith intervened and gently pushed her back to the direction of musical immortality (possibly), “I got a rejection letter in the morning from the Bristol Old Vic and then I fell down the stairs in the evening and broke my foot”. The accident allowed her to sit back and in her own infectious London drawl, “It made me less manic”.  She decided she wanted to make a go of becoming a musical artist, “I was like right, I really want to be creative and I want to be on stage performing”. Once she had made the decision, she began the short slog to get where she wanted and needed to be.

While Kate is very young, she has worked hard to get where she is, “I’ve worked really hard and I do work hard at everything I do”. She began trying to get gigs anywhere, even taking a job to fund her dreams, “I got a job in River Island and I was really rubbish”. Once she was able to get some gigs, the rock n roll attitude came bubbling out, “so as I got my first gig, I was like, **** that I’m not working, ever again”. Once she got her first gig out of the way, she proceeded to blitz everything in sight, “I handed flyers out and brought demos out. I went to open mics”.

Nash produced her own demos, posting them on myspace and managing to get some studio time with an engineer. She began to get a lot of recognition from her demos, “I mean I have people in America and in countries I’ve never been to writing to me and saying I feel it”. Lily Allen was also a very vocal supporter in the early days; putting Kate on her list of must hear music on myspace. It really says something when Lily Allen stops starting fights with the entire world to encourage people to listen to your music. A fact greatly appreciated by Kate, “It’s been a massive help. It put the spotlight on me and she supported me and I think that’s nice”. Ms. Nash was beginning to metamorphosis into a true all round musician as her live shows were also starting to gain recognition.