Interview with Pure Kate

Hello everyone, today I have an interview with the wonderful Pure Kate for you all about her most recent single ‘Never Wanna Go’ and staying creative musically during lockdown. Please be sure to go and listen to ‘Never Wanna Go’ as well as Pure Kate’s other songs as they are fun and definitely good for the summer season. I will leave all the appropriate links at the end of this post.

Hi! How would you describe your musical style to the readers?

Hi! I’d say my musical style is a fusion of pop, R&B, dance/electronic and funk. I definitely like to cross genres and experiment with sounds.

Who are your main musical influences?

Too many! I love my 70s and 80s – Michael Jackson, Prince, Fleetwood Mac, Van Halen, Talking Heads, Steely Dan, Shalamar, Level 42 and so on, but I’m also super into dance music. I absolutely love Disclosure. KAYTRANADA, Franc Moody, Maribou State are also doing good stuff. I take a lot of inspiration from the hip-hop and the old school funk scene too. You can win me over with a good groove really!

How have you managed to stay creative during lockdown? Has it presented any challenges for how you make music?

If anything I’d say I’ve been more productive musically during lockdown – I play a few instruments so I spent lockdown basically on rotation singing, playing piano, sax and guitar haha! I’ve also been working on a lot of songs, both writing and producing/mixing. I have a lot of tracks finished that I’ve been putting the final production magic on during lockdown.

Lockdown presented challenges in terms of having less gear available, but it’s made me think a little more outside the box with my music. I get really inspired by my surroundings, so there have been times I’ve found something around the house that makes a cool sound and I’ve sampled it, integrated it or transformed it into something musical. I just love finding and making unique sounds, and in a lot of ways the limitations of lockdown have forced me to be more creative. I kind of work with whatever I’ve got really.

Your latest single Never Wanna Go is a really catchy song that has so many layers to it, which I love, as you keep listening there’s more to discover, where did the influence for this song come from?

Thank you so much! I actually wrote Never Wanna Go quite a few years ago now, but it was one of those songs that took a while to complete… and even recently I added some extra guitar layers into it! It’s just a mixture of what I like in a song really – punchy bassline, sharp melody and a lot of 80’s inspired swirling synths! I intertwine melodies and rhythms a lot in my music and I think that comes from my love of funk –the ‘Chic’ Nile Rogers style of guitar playing for instance definitely influenced the chorus in Never Wanna Go.

How was the process of making this song? Is it a song that came naturally to you?

As I recall, it was the melody of the pre-chorus that popped into my head when I was in the shower one day. Most of the time when I write there’s a melody that comes to me first and certain words just seem to fit – in this case I remember it was the line “I never even knew the name”. After the shower I sang into voice-notes on my phone so I didn’t forget it, and got to work in Logic to write out the chords and grooves and explore different synth sounds.

Lyrically it came pretty naturally to me once I had the pre-chorus, and I knew the concept of the song. It’s about realising you don’t love someone, packing your stuff up and getting in the car and just going – you don’t know where to, but you find this magical place and you just know you “never wanna go”. I write my lyrics from a mixture of someone else’s perspective and my own experiences. For Never Wanna Go, I wrote it from someone else’s perspective, imagining how I’d feel in that scenario. It was just a progression from there of finding the right sounds and grooves to fit the track.

I’ve been lucky enough to see you perform live before we had to lockdown, what do you miss most about playing live?

I really miss that feeling of jamming with the audience and bandmates. It’s like everything stops for a minute and people just live in the moment and become one. Music is such a special thing, and it gives me such a thrill when I’m performing my own songs to a crowd – it’s odd because in my case most of my songs come from me sitting in my room in total isolation orchestrating all the parts on my laptop… To go from that to performing it to people and seeing them enjoy it and get into it is a super amazing feeling. I’m a pretty high energy person too, so I love being on stage and hopefully making the audience feel that uplifting energetic sensation too.

And lastly, what’s next for you? Is there anything more we can look forward to hearing from you?

Yes! On the 16th of August my next track ‘City Game’ is coming out – it’s kind of indie dark synth/pop… The kind of track you’d listen to on a night drive. I’m also working on some cool stuff that I’m going to be posting on my new YouTube channel… so keep an eye out for that!

I am definitely looking forward to that!

Thanks to Kate for taking time to answer these questions for After Midnight, it’s really appreciated. Please go and listen to ‘Never Wanna Go’ and support Pure Kate with her music.

Listen to Never Wanna Go here.

Follow Pure Kate on Spotify here.

Follow Pure Kate on Instagram here.