We were lucky to catch up with Kate Craig recently and have shared our conversation below.
Kate, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. 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?
I am very happy as a creative. When I was in school all my teachers used to tell me I spend too much time in class singing to myself and distracting other people. I was planning to do Family Law when I was 17, once I left college I just knew I had to at least try performing arts. I feel like it’s too soon to secure myself behind a desk for the rest of my life.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
So my name is Kate, I’m 22 and I’m a singer/ songwriter from the North-East of England. I grew up listening to a lot of great artists like Kate Bush, Depeche Mode, Grace Jones and many more. So I’ve always had a bit of a thing for music. I started messing around on my mum’s computer when Garage Band first came out and began writing poems and turning them into songs. From then, I tried to pick up every instrument I could, learn as much about theory and composition as possible and did this for most of my life. I think I just like to experiment a lot rather than setting an end goal. I wrote a lot of different types of songs and many didn’t work out but I learned more and more each time I gave it a go. My brand is definitely Pop/Punk. A genre I never grew out of from listing to Avril Lavigne’s ‘Girlfriend’ album. This was a major step to where I wanted to me, never really knowing what I liked to sing and being trained classically form a young age, but knowing I just really enjoyed this genre made writing a lot more fun.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
Yeah right now to be honest. The industry is ever changing so it’s almost impossible as an independent artist to have a clear track of where you need to be. I’m a classically trained singer, doing a Musical Theatre degree, writing Indie/Pop songs. But I think this is all part of the fun. I used to be very scared by it and very nervous because I wanted to try too many things, but why not do it all. I don’t have a goal to be famous or rich or whatever, I actually just genuinely like singing and have a passion for Music in general and I think people get lost in the hype of what society is deciding for them at that given moment.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
I’m not famous, and sometimes I’m really grateful for that. I did recently get nearly 1M views on TikTok and that obviously did wonders for my social anxiety… However I think people care too much. I definitely do, and I’m still learning. But generally, in my day to day life just be who you are and I’m proud to say that no matter what others have thought of me or said about me, I’ve never changed. Only evolved myself to be the better version of me. I think you have to know WHY you want to grow your social media. Is it for money? Is it to promote your brand? Etc. again I think people lose sight of why they do something and I post things I think are interesting and if people don’t like it, you can’t really do much to change their minds. It’s why everyone doesn’t follow everyone on social media. Don’t overthink it, just post regularly, stick to your brand and just be kind.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: Instagram.com/__therealkc_
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/itstherealkc
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-craig-3022261a6
- Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/katec359
- Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7D5U4QT8DZ9Vio6sqquj2V?si=9_0UTzI9RO2VmVON_Op45A Tiktok: http://www.tiktok.com/@_therealkc_
Image Credits
Adam Brazier