We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Katie Marie. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Katie below.

Katie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

It’s been a long journey for me. Money wasn’t something that came very easily to my family and I grew up watching my parents work 7 days a week and still not earn enough to make ends meet. For most of my life I have suffered from a severe case of poverty mindset. I had negative thoughts about money and truly believed that living in debt with no financial stability was simply a part of life.

About 4 years ago, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I was exhausted from the constant weight of worry and felt as if I had no control over my own money. Once I made this decision, it changed my life in ways I didn’t think were possible. I was limiting myself in many other parts of my life that weren’t just about money. I read books, took courses, created cheesy affirmation cards that I carried around with me everywhere, and most importantly, I addressed the emotional blocks I had around money (of which there were many).

I now have a firm grasp on my finances, and they no longer rule me. I understand that there is a distinct difference between being busy and being productive. I value my time and choose to spend it wisely. I now say no more often than I say yes. I am much more active with my choices and chose what I want to be doing, rather than allowing life and everyone else to create my schedule for me. I have goals and a plan in place and stick to it.

Katie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m a producer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter with 30 years of playing, performing, writing and recording experience.

I stumbled into songwriting as an angst-filled teenager and found it to be a wonderful form of expression. Once I caught the writing bug, I began teaching myself how to play multiple instruments (drums, bass guitar, acoustic guitar) in order to be able to record my work. I saved up enough money to buy a 4-track cassette recorder which allowed me to layer 4 individual tracks of vocals or instruments. By today’s standards this does sounds distinctly lame, but back then there were no digital DAWs, and the only other option was a single-track tape machine or paying large amounts of money to record in a professional studio.

Over the years I have been fortunate enough to work with a multitude of incredibly talented artists and bands and have toured extensively in the UK, USA and Europe as both a side musician and solo artist. Recently I had a wonderful time playing drums for Sophie B.Hawkins celebrating both the release of her new album and the anniversary of Tongues and Tails.

The main focus these days is my recording and production work. Being in the studio is most definitely my happy place. I work on full song productions as well as recording individual instruments. I have a home studio for smaller projects, but for the most part I work out of Blue Rock, which is a beautiful location studio on the outskirts of Austin, Texas.

I often work one-on-one with artists and songwriters, where we typically record their parts (vocals / acoustic guitar or piano) and I then layer the other instrumentation. This varies depending on what the song needs, but it can include drums, percussion, bass, acoustic / electric guitars, harmonies and keys. If we need some other instruments such as cello or pedal steel, I can call upon musician friends I know and trust to come in and be part of a project. Because our team is small, we are able to get into a creative flow much quicker and I can create a safe and comfortable environment where the artist is able to express themselves fully.

Part of the reason people gravitate towards me is because of my easy-going disposition, but it’s also because I am one of the few females in the industry doing this type of work. I was shocked (but not surprised) to learn recently that 5% of women in the music industry are producers, and only 2% are engineers. I’m grateful to be part of the change and hope we can get more ladies involved in recording work.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

School was not my favorite place by any means and most of the memories I have are unhappy ones. I didn’t excel at many subjects mostly because I suffered from severe dyslexia and my teachers would tell me in no uncertain terms that I would amount to very little. Creative people and the arts served no purpose in my school, and they frequently sent reports home to my parents informing them that I was lazy and didn’t care. I left school at 15 with no academic qualifications and unable to read or write.

The day I left school was one of the happiest days of my life. I finally got rid of everyone in my life who was trying desperately to pull me away from my mission, which was to become a full-time musician. Music gave me a razor-sharp focus and within a very short amount of time I was playing regularly at multiple venues either as a solo act or a member of a band. I would practice every day for 7 hours and either had a show or rehearsal in the evening. Despite my teacher’s views about my approach to education, I adored learning new things. I still do. And because of this, I had to teach myself how to read, because the only sources of information available to me were in the form of books from the local library. Being self-employed, I had to learn how to do my own accounts, which meant getting to grips with basic arithmetic. The list goes on and on.

For the longest time I had a real chip on my shoulder and felt as if I had been cheated out of an education and all the opportunities associated with that. I finally realized a few years ago that everything happens for a reason, and I am who I am today because of all those experiences and what they taught me. My journey may have been a lot longer, but it was richer, and I am very proud of the person I have become.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

I think there’s definitely a possibility for musicians and creatives to incorporate NFTs into their work, I’m just not entirely sure exactly how that would work for musicians. We are now in an era where people have gotten accustomed to listening to music whenever they like, and they are also used to not having to pay for it, so the main question is; how do we create value? I think NFTs are certainly interesting and offer a lot of potential, but I think it will be a few years before we fully understand how we can make them work to our advantage.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.KatieMarieMusician.com
• Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/Katie_Marie_Music
• Facebook: http://www.Facebook.com/funkeegirl
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm3PIO-Wm1VTEtCLruJ6lvw