We were lucky to catch up with Kaitlin Stark recently and have shared our conversation below.
Kaitlin, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?
This is a hard question to answer.
As a songwriter without a publishing deal or any major radio hits, I make my living not writing songs, but working 2-3 other jobs at a time to support myself. I show up at sessions with artists and know that the 4-7 hours I spend that day will be unpaid, and the song we write together might not ever even come out. If it does–the likelihood that I’ll make any real money from it will be slim, because I’ll split the publishing with three to four other people and probably won’t get any points on the master. It seems grim because it is, and the way the music industry has changed because of music streaming has royally screwed over songwriters in a way I really can’t even describe. Sometimes my managers will put me in a session and I’ll wonder the entire drive there if I should’ve just worked my hourly job that day, or wonder how much longer I can continue on like this. It’s kind of like grief, because I know I’m really talented, and have to just hold onto this desperate hope that I’ll write a song one day that gets me to the place where I don’t have to work several jobs, and can just do music.
I guess, if I really answered this question truthfully–sometimes I do wish I didn’t have big dreams. I think life would be a lot simpler if I didn’t.
Until I write another incredible song in a session, that is. Then the cycle continues.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My life has always revolved around music in some way. Probably because some of my earliest memories are sitting in my booster seat in the back of my mom’s old Chevy Tahoe, five years old and singing every word to Avril Lavigne’s record “Let Go.” Natalie Imbruglia, Ashley Simpson, Indigo Girls, Michelle Branch–my mom filled my childhood with so much love and music, there was no way I wouldn’t have grown up to not center my life around it in some way.
Then came Taylor Swift and her Fearless record, and the karaoke machine I got for my ninth birthday. Something about that record changed things for me, even as a child, and I knew I had to pick up a guitar and write my own songs. I tell people all the time–Taylor Swift is an icon for a lot of reasons, but the greatest one to me is that she inspired an entire generation of songwriters that are now in the industry and writing songs (Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, Maisie Peters, Gracie Abrams).
I got a guitar shortly after and wrote songs my entire adolescence, and somewhere along the way I discovered Nicolle Galyon on Instagram. She’s written songs for industry giants like Dan + Shay, Camilla Cabello, Kenney Chesney, Miranda Lambert, Kelsea Ballerini…. the list goes on. The thing that got me the most about her, though, was that she also had a family, lived in Nashville, and got to pick her kids up from school in the afternoons. That was what I wanted–to write songs in the morning and be able to go home to my husband and kids in the evening for dinner. I still look up to her so much. She’s a badass.
So–that was the plan. Try and do the Nicolle Galyon thing. I graduated high school, met my managers after posting a Tiktok of an original song, and dropped out of college shortly after so I could move to Nashville. My husband (then boyfriend and fiancé) supported me for several years while I wrote as much as I possibly could. He’s basically the greatest ever on the planet AMEN. Three years later (and thanks to my incredible team at Groundwork Music) I now have over fifty cuts, thirty five million streams cumulatively, and have written on a Grammy nominated album. It’s taken an incredible effort and a lot of lovely people believing in me. I am really, really grateful.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
Being a part of the music industry is hard. Having big dreams is hard. Sitting in a session for five hours and writing an incredible song only for it to be tossed around in A&R email inbox hell for the rest of eternity is HARD. It takes an incredible amount of mental toughness to keep going in this industry, and sometimes I question if I have it. I question it so much that I end up in therapy crying, wondering why on earth I would be given a gift that seems, often times, unfruitful.
My therapist listens every three weeks across from me in her office, wrapped in a blanket and nodding along as I talk about how exhausting it is to dream as big as I do. Below is a conversation (or similar one) we had that changed everything for me.
“Nothing is working,” I tell her. “It feels like I’m gripping on to music for dear life and it’s just…untamable. I don’t know how to love something without leaving claw-marks behind. I am so tired.”
She nods, and smiles a little bit. “Okay,” she begins, setting down the tablet she takes notes on. “What if you just…let go?”
I blink at her. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” she starts. “What would it look like for you to not…hold on so tight?” She asks, laying her palms open faced on her thighs. “What if instead of this grip you have, you instead allow yourself to experience life with open palms. Metaphorically, I mean.”
“Hm.” I nod, pretending like that would ever work for me. “I’m not sure I can do that.”
“What are other things you want to do? Other dreams you have?”
The question makes me pause. It makes me pause, and start to itch, and look around the room for a way out, because I truly do not know. What is there to my life besides being a songwriter?
“Well…” I start, looking anywhere but her. “I really love baking. My husband mentioned the other day I should try selling my bread at farmers markets. And… I’ve been working in wedding planning too, and I really love it. But it’s taking time away from writing.”
She nods. “So?”
I walked away from that therapy session and sat in my car in the parking lot for almost an hour afterwards. What did she mean, “So?” I was a songwriter, trying to make it to the Billboard top 100. (I have a very intense five year plan). There was no time, no joy leftover for other hobbies, no other things I liked to do. Right?
Well, wrong, I was dead wrong. That breakthrough session was about eight months ago, and I now own a sourdough micro-bakery, coordinate weddings, substitute teach in special education, and am a birth doula, all while being a songwriter. It was the most profound lesson I’ve ever learned–to allow myself to not be defined by one singular thing. I am the most content I’ve ever been in my life, and I am still just as much of a songwriter–only a much happier one.
Thank you, therapy!!
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
This is definitely not a unique answer but I’m going to say it anyway.
Songwriters pour their entire beings into helping artists write songs. It’s a service, in a way, showing up to a session and being able to help the artist put their feelings into words. But it’s so much more than that. After that session, that artist then has to decide they want to release that song, potentially convince their team it’s the right move, spend money promoting it, shoot cover art for it, etc. The journey from the writers room to Spotify is not an easy one. And to then see the song you wrote (often times a LONG time ago) out in the world, being listened to by thousands of people, being danced to and edited into the background of montages on Tiktok, is quite literally the coolest feeling in the world. It never stops being cool, and I always feel a high on release day when a cut comes out. A more recent cut of mine had like five-hundred videos behind it on Tiktok, and I still spend time trying to wrap my head around five-hundred people even existing–strangers I will never meet liking a song I wrote eight months ago enough to dance to it online. It’s so crazy.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: kaitlinestark
- Other: Spotify – Kaitlin Stark
