Q&A with Catie Turner
Catie Turner
Spirited Singer-Songwriter Finds Her Balance In Song.
At just twenty years of age, singer-songwriter Catie Turner has already performed live with superstars Andy Grammer and Katy Perry and toured as support for Meghan Trainor, AJ Mitchell, and Justin Jesso. The Langhorne, PA native can also count American Idol judges Katy Perry, Lionel Richie, and Luke Bryan as fans. They were quickly enamored with Turner's songwriting and singing abilities early on when she auditioned in 2018 for the ABC reboot of American Idol. Turner's original song "21st Century Machine", her carefree, playful personality, and memorable covers of songs by Blondie, Hozier, and Lady Gaga made an impression. Turner, whose sound could easily be compared to that of Maggie Rogers or Taylor Swift, relocated to Los Angeles to continue pursuing her music career. She recently signed to Atlantic Records and is busy recording and releasing new material, like the new song "Play God" - out today.
Turner independently released an EP entitled 'The Sad Vegan' in 2019, followed by her breakthrough song "Prom Queen" about feeling invisible in high school. Not one to shy away from topics of anxiety, relationships, and mental health, Catie has shown musical and emotional growth on two recent folk-pop singles, the heartbreak love song "i luv him" and the hopeful "One Day". Catie Turner releases the beautiful new "Play God," a song with more tempo and an appealing groove. Turner is waxing on the desire to pull strings and call the shots on an utterly fictional relationship. There's more where that's coming from, including another upbeat pop jam on the horizon, but we can't say much more at the moment. For now, Catie Turner spoke with IndieWavves about her beginnings in songwriting, how she was portrayed on American Idol and how one person can ruin the thought of a city for you.
IndieWavves: Even though it's 2021, it seems 2018 was just massive for your career. I mean, performing with Andy Grammer and getting loads of support from Katy Perry and then performing with her on the American Idol finale, that's huge. Have you remained close with Katy over the years?
Catie Turner: No, but there's also no bad blood. If we see each other, it's like, "ahh, it's Katy". But at the same time, she's Katy Perry. She's great, and when I do see her, which isn't a lot, we are supportive of each other. It was so fun, and I went in apprehensive at first with that song ["Good To Be Alive"]. I was like, will I sound good on this song 'cause it was in a male key, and I'm thinking, I'm still competing, like will this show enough vocals? Is this not showing me in a good way, but when we did it together, it worked out really well, and he let me boop his nose.
IW: "i luv him" is a pretty and delicate ballad about loving someone so much that you have to let them go. Your voice reaches an extraordinary timbre when your falsetto goes way up on material like this. "One Day" is another beautiful ballad, with a kind of xylophone sound about yearning for peacefulness in a relationship. In the music video, you are rolling around in life-size translucent bubbles, you are in a field, in a car. Are you enjoying the visual elements of your music?
CT: It's been kind of hard. It's been fun and hard. Because it's like on the visual end, it's so cool, and visuals sometimes make the song. When I heard "Motivation" by Normani, I loved it, but when I saw the video with her doing her damn thing, I was like, wow. I guess it's just been hard because, on the other end, it's me, so I'm always going to be hard on what I look like. I try not to look at the videos too much. I think I have seen "i luv him" and "One Day" once. The metaphor and the bubble and that nice little sunset shot, just stunning. But I think to myself, Oh my god, why did I eat that cinnamon bun before? Do I have a wrinkle there? It's like me being able to see the visuals for the songs and not just for myself.
IW: You play the guitar and write your own songs. When did you learn to play the guitar, and when did you get into a groove with songwriting?
CT: So I got into songwriting and playing guitar at late fifteen. "21st Century Machine" was the second song I wrote. When I was sixteen, I got into a groove, which was my pretentious phase, where I was doing songwriting. I'd have vocabulary in school, and I liked the word détente - I'd write this pretentious song - I was annoying, and I look back, and I am like holy shit did I devolve as a person? Like, stay in school, guys. Definitely, at sixteen was when I thought I could do this. I am kind of liking what I'm putting down. Then American Idol was the confirmation that I was doing this.
IW: It appeared that you were really just being yourself on the show. What do you recall?
CT: Everything was real on the show in the sense that I cried all the time, I was always crying 'cause I couldn't believe it was happening. Like every round, I prepared myself for the worst. Then the producers knew that I would cry, so they saved me for the end. There were seven of us left in the live shows, and I was the last person they called - and Katy looked like a completely different person. On Hollywood Week, Luke Bryan made us step forward and said, "front row step forward, you are all staying for another day". I'm so thankful that it's continuing today.
IW: "Prom Queen" was your first breakthrough, mainly about anxiety. It's a theme in a lot of your music and just in your life, perhaps. Katy Perry told you never to change. What is it like to balance channeling these emotions while also moving on and growing?
CT: It's definitely the point where on the show I had undiagnosed ADHD. But now that I take my medication that is actually good for my brain, people can be like, "you're so much more mellow now," or I curse, and people would say, "I would never think Catie would say something like that". Or I would talk about sex - like "you heathen!" or god forbid I have a political opinion. I've always been a little bit opinionated like my first song was opinionated. It's like natural growth. I understand not changing who I am rapidly, and I will always be myself, but who I am, that will always fluctuate. My mom will always help feed that insecurity like "don't tweet that" or like "people will see you differently from the 2018 Catie". I think if you were going to be eighteen forever, you'd go fucking insane. I think it is a balance, and I can't say it's an easy balance.
IW: "Play God" is your new single out today, and it starts off sounding like it's a love letter to New York, but it's not. It's really about a relationship that doesn't work out. Despite having an upbeat, cheerful sound, there is a loneliness element to this song. It makes you think of isolation felt in a big city right now with things shut down. Did the creation of this song have anything to do with 2020?
CT: Well, I'm actually really happy - it's always awesome when people find their own interpretation of a song. Ironically I wrote this a couple of weeks before all this shit happened before the lockdown when Washington state was the hotspot for COVID. It definitely was loneliness but feeling lonely in a city, not because of a pandemic but a feeling of when you date someone, and you break up, they take so much with them, weird shit. It's like you go to New York or Penn Station or Secaucus, and you're like, that's fucking ruined. Or I look out the window, and now when I look out the window, it's like someone ruined one of the greatest cities in the world for you. Yes, somebody did have that power over me. Even though I've moved on, that shit sticks with you, and that's why "Play God" still hits. When I am taking fucking New Jersey Transit to New York City, it feels like something is broken in the matrix, something is off in the simulation. It's incredible how one person can just fucking change things, like a pandemic.
Written by Michael Menachem