Katie Nicholas (Songwriter Diaries • 50 Songs)

🌈 Find out more about Katie Nicholas & Songwriter Diaries at songwriter diaries.com 🦋 "When I was 20 I released my first album then dropped off the face of the planet for years. I couldn’t stop writing but I went mute... I grew up playing music around Liverpool when I was 14 in old grotty pubs where dad ran open mics. Life was about late school nights and a community that felt like family. At 16 I was a pop-punk Paramore wannabe and by 17 I was back to the country bops and making weird videos like the one for "Chemistry". At 18 I moved to London as an apprentice designer. I dragged my heels but mum said I should get out, see the world and get off her sofa. I was a fish out of water, desperate to escape the 9 to 5 so by 19 I was hanging about label row in South Kensington and some jarg “mentor” had me sending dozens of songs at a time - for what reason, I don't know. I pretended it didn’t cut me up when he stuffed his phat face with pizza and butchered me with “well, you’ve got the looks but you don’t have the songs”. I put out the album anyway, everyone was on board, it got its award, but I lost steam and couldn’t keep up with where it was going. I was just in a job I hated and thought I was crap. Truth is my journey has never been smooth and I’ve had the wind taken out my sails in many spheres of life. All I ever wanted to do was share the songs that got me through, and it’s felt like I’ve been trying to catch up since 2015 (when I was 20). I don’t do anything in half measures cause I never know how long I’ll get a good run for. Whether I spend 2+ years on a business plan with an ex-partner I move cities for, all for it to fall through and land back on my arse in my childhood bedroom... or go record and self-fund an album in Nashville, in a desperate attempt to catch up with myself, and it never releases... or I develop a stutter, lose my job, have a cancer scare, fail miserably in love, and then when I finally set some sad music free and my mum passes away just before I do it. That's probably why I’m as mad as I seem. I’m just trying to give back my younger self all the things she wanted when life had other plans. I’ve gotten so used to creating and keeping it all to myself that this thing I’ve been working at for years is now terrifying me - it’s all peeping around the corner, ready to jump out. So, in any case, friends - watch this space. I’ve been bursting at the seams here so expect some kind of… explosion. ok?" Follow me on instagram.com/itskatienicholas