This weekend, exciting homegrown singer-songwriter Katie Grace is returning to the Mouth of the Tyne Festival, where last year she and her band wowed the crowds on the main stage with a compelling mix of folk, country and indie dreampop. This time, Katie is looking forward to playing a more intimate solo set on the Sunday for Sammy stage on Front Street, right where she regularly played as a young busker many moons ago. She’s also here to promote the release of her new single, out on Friday. ‘Dead on the Floor’ showcases Katie’s melodic, contemplative vocals and reflective lyrics while swelling fiddles and guitar loops build to anthemic choruses and a chaotically poppy crescendo. I Love North Shields caught up with Katie amid her busy week up North to find out how she got to be where she is today.
I meet Katie Grace fresh off the train from London, where she has just graduated with a BA in Music from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. “I was so glad to see the sea fret as I approached Tynemouth!” she exclaims, on what has to be one of the hottest days of the summer. There are so many other reasons why the singer-songwriter is pleased to be back in her hometown of North Shields: “I need to get back to the North East to reset. I think it’s important to stay part of the local music scene.” Despite being determined to pursue her musical career in London after her studies, Katie is passionate about “keeping it local” and continuing to support the North East venues where she cut her teeth performing music from a young age. “Don’t get me wrong. I love London. It’s similar to home in many ways – all the ways that are important to me.” Since leaving everything she’s ever known and moving down south to study, Katie has become part of a wonderful network of musicians and creative people: “It reminds me of the close community in the North East, everyone supporting each other.” Katie admits that even though growing up here shaped her as a musician, she had to move to London to develop further. “There is a great scene here, but it’s still a bit more spread out, in little pockets. That’s changing though. I think if I was five years younger, I might not have needed to move away.”
Katie has loved music for as long as she can remember: “We always had a piano in the house. Then my dad got a guitar – I sat plucking it on my knee. It was far too big to play! It was my favourite thing.” She points out, however, that desire alone is not enough, and that education and community groups play an essential role in fostering talent: “We had an assignment in school, to write a song. I had always wanted to write a song but never had the catalyst.” Katie went on to join the ‘Standing Upright’ music project based at Queen Alexandra Sixth Form College and later John Spence High School. “I went there every Wednesday for two hours. It was such a diverse group of people. It wasn’t really about the music. We learned how to express ourselves, work together and respect others. It enabled us to come out of our shells.”
At just 11 years old, Katie became confident enough to busk regularly in Tynemouth: “That taught me how to deal with hecklers. I had all sorts – people trying to speak into my mic or chat to me while I was singing. I even had someone play harmonica at me! There was a guy who used to sit in front of the castle with his guitar – he would be mean and tell me to get away from his spot. So I started playing outside Children of the Revolution (a childrenswear shop). When the one-man-band was nearby, it was hard to compete.” All this was worth it, though, as there was sometimes money to be made: “When the football was on, people would keep giving me cash every time they came in and out of pubs – they were too drunk to remember they’d already given me some!” There were tough days, too, with freezing weather and hardly any profit. Then Katie found the buskers’ night at the cosy Lowlights pub in North Shields. “While my peers were out partying, I was hanging out with a bunch of old blokes playing the piano!” She is eternally grateful to this and other local venues such as Three Tanners Bank and The Engine Room for giving her the space to try out her early songs: “When I was 15, I was passing The Engine Room on a dog walk with my mum and she encouraged me to hand in my card. I ended up supporting Ceitidh Mac and Elaine Palmer there.”
The eclectic mix of pub characters Katie mixed with in those early days fed her love of storytelling, which is intrinsic to her music: “You could knock on any door in Shields and it’s guaranteed that someone will have a great story to tell.” She grew up listening to her dad’s collection of classic rock and country music, songs full of stories and a standardised structure perfect for learning the art of songwriting. While her peers were getting into pop, Katie was getting serious about country: “I loved how Kacey Musgraves wrote about how she felt. I was quite unapologetic about it but I was probably just annoying. I always wanted a banjo!” Of course she got into the usual indie music at teen parties and attending gigs by artists such as Sam Fender, Fontaines DC and Beabadoobe: “It was because of her that I first got into open tuning, not folk music.” The folk element of Katie’s music is now obvious but it is as if it was ingrained in her before she was aware of it: “I was told I looked and sounded like Joni Mitchell before I even knew who she was.” Katie’s pure and ethereal voice is evocative of another era, undeniably influenced by singers from the Laurel Canyon folk scene of the 1970s such as Carole King and James Taylor. However, her lyrics are arguably more aligned with the earlier protest songs of the 1960s, as she does not shy away from being political: “Music is people, politics is people. Even at 10 years old I loved watching the news. One of the first songs I wrote, ‘Ready’, was all about feminism, criticising the boys who hurled abuse at us in Year 8. They hated that we were smarter than them. I remember playing it in the foyer of The Glasshouse in Gateshead.”
Coming from the North East, Katie feels this makes her more open about saying what she thinks, especially as a Gen-Z songwriter having grown up with everyone expressing their opinions all over the Internet. This brings up the topic of the social media ban for under-16s: “I’m fully in favour of it. I’ve lost years of my life scrolling on my phone – so many apps! I used to read books. I could have made so much more music.” She is conscious of the dangerous influences on young women and men and of how social media is no longer just there to connect people: “It’s all about advertising and shocking content to keep people hooked.” At the same time, she appreciates the benefits of exposing young people to the stories of others, making their attitudes less insular than those of older generations: “We see it online and it’s immediate. I’ve also met so many amazing musicians through the Internet, so I’m thankful for that.”
Katie obviously thrives off the creativity of others: “ The young people I was around up here were playing similar music – we were all pushing each other, giving each other feedback. I learned the art of songwriting in the North East.” But in London she found different experiences and began to explore more varied genres: “I learned about jazz and harmonies, about how the music can add to the story as well. You can bring both the music and words together. I started pushing myself with my guitar playing and production. I love learning from people that are better than me. I wanted to do that.” Katie talks fondly of several role models who have been inspirational on her journey to becoming an accomplished singer-songwriter: “Obviously there’s Sam Fender – he’s from where I’m from and making it. But he’s still grounded and has time for everyone. There’s Daisy Kane, she’s involved in so many projects. Sunderland’s Isabel Maria and I have the same manager. She’s doing so well, so is Heidi Curtis. I like to meet women from the North East down there – it’s inspiring. I really look up to Imogen and the Knife – I see myself in her. We met at a Brooke Bentham gig and she convinced me to put less pressure on myself, to be alright with taking it slow and living my life. She said that’s what you write about. I’m not ready to be mega-famous!” If she ever does make it big, Katie’s northern roots will always keep her grounded. In 2023 she won the Alan Hull Award, an annual prize in memory of the founding member of folk-rock band Lindisfarne. She used the prize money to record the single ‘Tangled’, a song about growing up with her friends in the North East: “I hadn’t known anything else. I thought I was never going to leave – I knew so much and so little at the time.”
At the tender age of 21, Katie still has plenty of growing to do and time to see where her music will take her. At a crossroads having just finished her studies, she talks emotionally about the bond formed with her fellow course mates who have become members of her band: “I was freaking out in my finals – I got proper stage fright! But then I saw my friends laughing and I knew I was going to be ok. It was so nice to get on stage with those guys. We’ve all grown up so much over the last three years with each other. Between the ages of 18 and 21 I have been five different people. I thought I knew everything when I got there, but now I know I knew nothing.” Katie was struggling with her mental health before leaving for London and wrote her upcoming single, ‘Dead on the Floor’, two weeks before she left home: “I hadn’t made new friends in years, didn’t know how to do anything. Then two days in, I loved it! I have now lived enough life that I don’t look at it with a ‘Dead on the Floor’ attitude any more. The journey up North with her bandmates to record the song she wrote up here was a real full-circle moment for Katie, working with Chris McManus at Blank Studios. “I had met Chris through recording music with the community organisation ‘Skimstone Arts’. It meant so much to come back up here to record the new single with him.” Katie used some of her newly acquired skills to produce the song on her own computer before re-recording it with Chris and adding the band. Drummer Archie also contributed to the production.
So what do Katie’s southern band members think of it up North? “They love it. When we came to play Mouth of the Tyne last year, the first night we performed on a tiny stage at The Loading Bay in North Shields and then the next day we were billed to play in front of a huge audience at Tynemouth Priory. The band didn’t know what was happening when they couldn’t see through the fog on the day of the festival – I told them not to worry, it would burn off by lunchtime!” I note that the weather and nature seem to be a running theme through Katie’s music – ‘Thunder’, ‘Waves’, ‘From the Wildflowers’. “Growing up on the coast – it’s difficult not to be influenced like that. At school lunchtime I used to get fish & chips and eat in the castle grounds, looking out to sea.” It was an emotional moment when she returned there to perform on a huge stage, from where she could see her childhood busking spots. “I thought, how did I get from that to this?”
This Sunday, Katie will return to the Mouth of the Tyne Festival, this time on the free ‘Sunday for Sammy’ stage at the end of Front Street – exactly where she sang as an 11-year-old busker. “It’s going to be great. Lots of my old friends are coming. I feel so lucky.” Katie constantly expresses gratitude at how she has been able to get to this point. “My parents have always been really supportive. I’m privileged to be able to make music and go to uni in London at all. Down there I meet so many people who take it for granted. I laughed to myself when I was presented with top-of-the-range facilities including Steinway grand pianos. I thought back to the time at John Spence when the piano wasn’t sounding right and I opened it up to find a piece of garlic bread inside!” She credits local initiatives such as Skimstone Arts, Sunday for Sammy and the Alan Hull Award for making this career a possibility for her: “They have opened up so many doors for young people in the North East, letting them know that being creative is an option. Now we’ve had the Mobos and the Mercury Prize – in the next 10 or 15 years, music is going to be such a driving force up here.” Whenever she returns up North, Katie always tries to extend her weekend stays so that she can still go to the Lowlights for 2 hours on a Monday night, playing music surrounded by some of her oldest friends. “I’m thankful for my roots and I’ll always be proud of where I’m from.”
Katie is performing on the Sunday for Sammy Stage at the Mouth of the Tyne Festival on Sunday at 2:15pm
The new single ‘Dead on the Floor’ is out next Friday on all streaming services
Listen to early demos on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/katiegracemusic
Follow Katie @_katiegracemusic_ and https://www.katiegracemusic.co.uk
