If
a New Zealander asks if you're feeling crook should you be insulted
or touched at his consideration? And why is going to bed with a hottie
no reason to get excited in the Land of the Long White Cloud? Learn
more...
Kiwi
singer Kat (Katherine) Leese always wanted a song-writing career but
it would be across the world in the Netherlands that she would
choose to release her debut album “Vacation”.
Born in the Hawkes
Bay town of Hastings Kat grew up in an intensely musical family. Studying
piano and guitar at an early age led to her first writing songs while
still attending primary school. After leaving Palmerston North Girl’s
High Kat studied 20th Century composition at Victoria
University in Wellington. After two years she attended the Nelson School
of Music while singing with several bands including Vasalisa, Jellyboat
and Orkid.
In 2000 Kat, like
many other New Zealanders, left the country for her OE (Overseas
Experience). After exploring several countries she chose to settle in the
Netherlands and plunged into its vibrant music scene. On joining the band
“Indubrio” she met drummer Joroen van der Zeeuw and later at a
performance bass player Dominic Bellekom, both of whom would form the
nucleus of Kat’s band “Katbite”.
An offer by producer
Rob Abels in 2002 to record some of her songs saw Kat in the studio with
arranger Tom Spaapen. However after three years the recordings still
languished unreleased. In March 2005 Katbite re arranged the material and
produced their debut album “Vacation”. Described as “Kiwi songs in a
dutch sauce, followed up by lyrics marinated in sarcasm, on a dish with
creamy melodies” the CD has been well received by the public. Currently
it is available online at www.arisingartist.nl,
www.cdbaby.com and in New Zealand it
is distributed by www.powertoolrecords.co.nz.
Kat recently took
time out of her busy schedule to give Kiwi Herald an exclusive
interview.
What is your
family background?
My family background is ridiculously musically influenced. My mother was a
huge influence for both me and my brother and sister to the extent that
when we moved to a town which offered little cultural stimulus, she
started up her own theatre company. I never felt like I had to do music,
it was always something that I felt was a worthwhile activity and really
rewarding.
I left school a bit early and worked at crappy jobs for a year before I
went to study. I think it was a good idea looking back because I could
really appreciate being in university instead of having to work all the
time. Victoria University was great but it wasn’t practical enough for
me and it wasn’t until I went to study the contemporary music course in
Nelson I really discovered what it was what I wanted to be doing and how I
wanted to be doing it. Now I’m working full-time, but it is really for
the purpose to put money seriously into the music. At this point in my
career I need to be able to promote myself as much as possible. Since
nobody else is willing to be doing it at this time I have to take matters
into my own hands.
When did you realize you wanted a career in music?
It was always something what I really wanted but I always thought it was
quite an unobtainable thing. I listened to The Beatles a lot and I
didn’t think I had the right to stand up and call myself a musician in
comparison to that. After being in Europe for a while I came to see the
reality that you don’t need to be Madonna to not have to have a day job.
Over here if you have a song in the top twenty in the charts you can
pretty much tour the rest of Europe for the rest of your career (without
being majorly famous but still making a living out of it) if you have an
English language song. The reality of doing music for a living is far more
close to reality for me now.
Who are your biggest musical influences?
Bowie and Morrissey, without a doubt! This is mostly because the amount of
attention they pay to their lyrics compared to the average artist.
Why did you decide to settle in Holland?
The first reason was the lack of money I had when I arrived here. Although
I had the choice of settling down in England I felt that it was way too
much like New Zealand; I kept bumping into people from New Zealand. Also I
wanted to learn another language and the only way to fully control that is
by living in a foreign country. Holland was never the place I particularly
dreamed of living in but the standard of living is pretty high compared to
the rest of the world. You can kind of compare it with living in Japan.
The culture here is so radically different. I keep getting asked what the
difference is between Holland and New Zealand, but the question should
more be: “what is the same about Holland and New Zealand?” Not much,
but it is so fascinating to be living in a country so different to the one
where I grew up.
What do you think of the current music scene?
Music today seems to be all about bandwagons. I think there are a lot of
musicians doing their own thing in their own time. That transcends typical
hit chart crap. I’ve collected so many demo’s and CD’s of unknown
bands during my travels. This music has meant so much more to me than
anything I could buy in the cheesiest commercial record store. One of my
favourite hobbies is going to gigs and getting (free) CD’s of bands.
Where do you get the ideas and inspiration for writing your songs?
I don’t have a lot of time for song writing so usually by the time I get
a chance to write something the ideas are totally busting out of me. I
typically need a couple of days of social isolation before anything can
really happen. But on the other hand, I need the periods of non-song
writing to build up the quality. My inspiration comes directly from my own
life, but I’ve noticed that I could never write about something that is
happening at the time, but it is always after something happened.
How difficult was it putting together your debut CD “Vacation”?
It took a very long time. Looking back on the experience I would like to
have been able to choose the tracks of the CD myself. But instead I was in
a studio playing the acoustic tracks on my guitar and someone else was
choosing the songs they wanted to work on. I think that if I was in
control a lot more the album would have been finished a lot faster than
the three years it took. A lot of the tracks that never ended upon the
album are staple songs in our set list these days. There are definitely a
lot of things that I learned and I would do it quite differently the next
time. On the other hand, our second album is ready to go, we only have to
get in the studio to get it recorded.
Quote from Jaap: When all the song material was finally finished
after those three years, we wanted it to have it on the shelves as soon as
possible, so we picked a date one month after deciding the album was
finished. In these 5 weeks our lives were a total f*ckup. We barely had
any sleep, were working till three ‘o’ clock in the morning, going to
our daytime jobs at 7.30, coming home and going straight back to working
on the CD. We passed the deadline with 5 days, which, in my opinion, is a
d*mn good job. Considering we had to organise all the promotion and the
release party ourselves as well.
How has the reaction been to the CD?
The reaction has been quite as expected for a completely unknown band
releasing their first CD. We have noticed that a lot of people really like
it without being a huge hype around it. We had a lot of positive reviews
in the media. The album has only had a positive effect in getting our name
known and getting more gigs. The sales aren’t even coming close to the
expenses we made but finally when we mention the band name to people more
and more have heard about it before. We’ve managed to get gigs in
Amsterdam, Germany and lots of other places around Holland.
Katbite toured NZ in 2005- how did that go?
Jaap: It was an amazing experience. In a way it was one big
endurance test for the band members. How would they go on together if
you’re around each other 24/7 for 3 weeks in a row? The band members
learned a lot from each other. I think we would have never got together so
well with a tour in Holland, for example. The New Zealand audience is much
more difficult than the Dutch. In Holland there is still a respect thing
about musicians, even when it’s one big piece of crap, they will still
clap their hands and ask for an encore. In New Zealand, the audience was
much more honest. Overall, the reactions were pretty good, and the members
built up some kind of diesel engine.
Kat: I really wanted to see the looks on the faces of my band
members and Jaap, when they saw how beautiful the New Zealand landscape
is. For me it was really wonderful to be able to share that with people
that I’ve met in a country at the other side of the world. One of my
dreams is to move back to New Zealand, live in the middle of nowhere, and
get occasional visits from overseas friends.
What do you see as the main differences between the music scenes in New
Zealand and Holland?
The main difference is immediately noticeable in the available budget to
buy equipment. Holland has the piss taken out of them a bit in the rest of
Europe, for punk bands that turn up with one guitar, having the same value
of the total equipment of the other band performing that night. It is far
too much focused on commerciality here. I don’t think that is either
positive or negative, but I do think it means that we have more
opportunities to play live here. We played 18 gigs in New Zealand at the
start of this year but since getting back to Holland, even though we
haven’t been on tour, we’ve played about 40 gigs in the past 8 months.
Playing live is the most important thing for the future and growth of the
band.
What are your plans for the future?
I want to look after my cats, and I want to make my house to something
beautiful, eventually. I have the idea that I’ll be staying here for
about another five or ten years. After that I’ll be walking past customs
at Auckland airport. I’m still hoping they scrap those student loans
pretty quickly. I don’t think I’ll have kids yet. I’ve got far too
much to do, to many books to read, to many countries to go to, too many
bands to see, too many gigs to play, too many bills to pay as it is!
If
a New Zealander asks if you're feeling crook should you be insulted
or touched at his consideration? And why is going to bed with a hottie
no reason to get excited in the Land of the Long White Cloud?
