Newcity Chicago: Kate Myers
Published by: Newcity Chicago
Date: April 17, 2009
Format: Web (www.music.newcity.com)
Type: Music Feature
Twilight Nights: Singer-songwriter Kate Myers gets emotional
For Kate Myers’ first ever battle-of-the-bands contest, she placed third. But this was no high school or community-center battle of the bands. It was a battle of “Twilight”-inspired songs, hosted by an all-things “Twilight”-related fan site. “I read ‘Twilight’ a long time ago and after reading a scene in the book, I wrote a song about it,” says Myers. “The emotions I got from reading the book were so intense, I had to recreate it through song.”
Though her other songs are not inspired by bestselling vampire books, they do mostly deal with life and love and other emotions that surround her on a daily basis. “I’ll have the music written and I’ll play with it for months and then the lyrics will just flow out naturally after that.”
Coming from a musical family—a brother who is also a singer/songwriter, a father and uncle who played together in a rock band during high school, a grandfather who plays the trumpet, an aunt who is a singer, and cousins who dabble in various instruments—music was an obvious choice for Myers. At 5 years old, she was given a portable Sony tape recorder with a microphone so she could record herself singing whenever the inspiration came over her. “We’re like the Partridge Family during the holidays ’cause my cousin and uncle own a recording studio in Clinton, Illinois and the whole family sometimes will jam together and we all switch up on the instruments.”
Myers is also a multi-instrumentalist herself. She plays drums and trumpet, is currently taking violin lessons and is considering learning to play the clarinet next after toying around with one that belonged to a friend. On recordings, though, she mainly sticks to playing guitar, piano and banjo, letting seasoned musicians handle other instrumental responsibilities.
For live shows, Myers takes the stage by herself. Among other reasons, it’s a result of seemingly constant movement. After attending college at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson in New York, Myers moved to Los Angeles for about six months and plans on heading off again, to graduate school, this summer. All of this has made it easiest for her to be a solo artist. There are no other schedules to worry about and she’s free to come and go as she please, playing shows along the way, as long as she has her guitar and a piano.
Musically, she enjoys the challenge of performing on her own. “You express things differently with a band. You get to rely on the drums to hit in your chest and the music to flow everywhere else. By myself, I have to create a sound the hits you with the same intensity, but just coming from a different place. It’s fun trying to find these different angles of songs.”