Adriannah Popkey: I am here with Kate Bollinger to discuss her new album that just came out on September 27th, Songs From a Thousand Frames of Mind. How are you, Kate?

Kate Bollinger: I’m good thank you for having me, how are you?

AP: I’m good, I’m so stoked to talk to you! Okay, first of all, selfishly, I’m so excited for your show here in Minneapolis. I’ve been loving the singles and the album! I just gave it a little relisten this morning, and I was wondering if there are any particular songs that you are excited to perform in front of a live audience just in terms of being able to have people absorb and respond to these tracks that you’ve been working on for so long.

KB: I’m really excited for that show too, it’s going to be fun! I am really excited to play the whole album. I wasn’t touring with a keys player for a while so it’s going to be nice to have this guy, Noah, who’s playing keys with us now just because the album obviously is so piano heavy. We were touring some this year and we played a handful of the album songs before the album was out, but we were playing without keys and it just sounds so much better now, so I’m excited for that. I’m excited to play ‘All This Time’, just because it’s one of my favorite songs to play, and then some of the more ballad-y ones like, ‘I See it Now’, ‘Lonely’, and “Sweet Devil’, I think will be super fun.

AP: Absolutely! Speaking of being able to incorporate more keys into this record, did you experiment with anything else production-wise, or things that were new and different for you like instruments or technology in that process that you were able to explore?

KB: Yeah! That’s a great question, so I moved from Virginia to LA about two years ago, and when I first got here I was just trying a bunch of different things and working with different producers and musicians to see what sounds I could explore. I did a lot of experimenting before the record was made, and then I pretty much realized that I just wanted to do it on the East Coast where I’m from. I wanted to have my friend from high school who’s my original drummer play drums and Sam Evian who I’ve recorded with a couple of years before and connected with, I got him to produce the album. So in a way, there was a lot of experimentation beforehand, and then I realized I just wanted to go home to make it! At the same time, as far as the sound, we did a day at this other studio called Still Way Sound which is also in upstate New York, not too far from Sam’s place, and this guy Eli Crews had a bunch of rare circusy type instruments, so he played sousaphone…

AP: (Laughs) That’s so Awesome

KB: it was really fun, but I don’t think we kept it in the recording because it was too crazy, it demands a lot of attention (laughs). We added whistles and bells…he had a pre-Rhodes keyboard, I think it’s called the Chamberlain. It’s a super early vintage keyboard. Anyway, the day we spent at his studio was super fun.

AP: That sounds incredible. I would never expect a sousaphone; even if it wasn’t included, it’s just such a random instrument! Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the album works so well as a holistic vision, and I was wondering if that happened serendipitously or if as you were working on it, you had a picture in mind you were trying to curate in terms of the sound.

KB: That’s an interesting question because I think I knew for a long time that I wanted to make a record that jumped around a lot and wasn’t all living in one genre or all stylistically the same throughout. A lot of the albums that I listened to when I was growing up that I was sort of referencing at least in a subconscious way, do that. I loved Feist, and some of her early records Let It Die and The Reminder, feel like you know her because you experience 10 completely different sides of her artistry and personality which I think is cool. The opening song on one of them is a more acoustic, suave-sounding song, then she’ll have a song that’s recorded live in the park where you can hear birds, and it’ll sound like a four-track, she has a Bee Gees cover, a more sultry or dance type of song…That’s my favorite kind of album, one that feels like a mixtape or a collage, so that’s what I tried to do.

AP: You accomplished that perfectly!

KB: Thank you!

AP: Although there is variance in the type of sounds that you’re bringing to the album, every track works together cohesively. I adore it!

KB: Thank you, that’s so nice. 

AP: I get that sense with your lyrics too, every sentiment is very transient. You’re letting the lyrics take you where you need to go. How do you feel like you can accomplish that? You’re not trying to use any complicated metaphors, it just translates so well for me.

KB: I started writing songs when I was young because my mom used to write songs and both my brothers did, and it was always a way to process things and express something that I was feeling. I think that’s why I’m not trying to write some flowery poem, it just comes out the way it needs to. It happens one of two ways, I’ll either have a melody that will then turn into lyrics in this subconscious way, I’ve tried to describe it so many times…I think a lot of songwriters have a similar experience with this. Or, I’ll have a melody and I’ll hear a word or a syllable in one part of the melody and a different one in another and I’ll write down the word I hear and will fill it in. It feels more like a puzzle when I do it that way, it’s a little less subconscious. But usually, it just comes out.

AP: Like you said you’re kind of toeing the line between staying close to your roots as a songwriter but also being able to explore things that are new to you. I’d love to know where you see the record in your evolution as an artist and how this process has allowed you to grow and discover more things about yourself and your creative process.

KB: It’s funny that it’s technically my debut because in some ways it feels like my debut album I guess, because I think for a long time I started collaborating with people. I had a band for the first time when I was in college and I started working with a producer and we were doing so much together. Especially me and John, my producer, we were writing a lot of signs together and he was producing them, recording me, and mixing the songs. So it felt like such a collaborative thing at the time, which was great and it was so fun. I think I’ve kind of stopped making music on my own for a few years which was weird because it started as a solitary thing. It was something I always did in the privacy of my room for my whole life, so then when it became this collaborative thing where I was bringing other people in and compromising a little bit on the sound or the way that the songs ended up being, in some ways I just got away from listening to my gut feeling or my instincts for a long time. This album sort of feels like I’m getting back to trusting my instincts, not to say it wasn’t collaborative, with Sam and the players, but I think I’ve had a much stronger vision going into the recording for this one. It feels like my first solo statement, yet in other ways, it feels not like a debut since I’ve had so much time to figure out what I want to do. 

AP: I see that for sure. Relating to that vision that you had, my introduction to the album through the singles went hand-in-hand with the videos, which I adored so much. I thought they were so fun. Whimsical even! I feel like there’s just a brevity to them which is so lovely. 

KB: Aw, thanks so much!

AP: So, I was wondering what kind of creative freedom did you have with them? What served as the inspiring forces behind what you wanted to bring to the forefront with the visual aspects of the album?

KB: I knew that I wanted to make a lot of videos, but each one happened separately from the rest. Every experience making the videos was different from the others, but it was one of my favorite parts of the whole thing. A big part of it was that I found some friends in Los Angeles who are some of the closest friends I’ve ever had and they are also really great artists in their own right. My friend Emma makes historical costumes and she has all of these amazing costumes that she’s made, so she would lend some of the costumes for the videos like in ‘To Your Own Devices’. My friend Eve is a florist and an actress, so she did some floral arrangements. I got the two of them to act in all the videos, it started because I was inspired by my friends honestly. A lot of the videos that we made I would just come up with some silly scenario that Eve, Emma, and I could do together. I would bring it to them and they would make it so much more amazing! They were really important to the process. It’s fun, I like thinking of an idea and obsessing over it, making a mood board and bringing it to my friends and riffing with them about it. A lot of the time we would go around to showrooms in L.A. and find costumes which was fun. They just felt like these collaborative art projects. 

AP: It was so fun for me to notice some of those ‘recurring characters’ if you can call them that. Just feeling like this is someone that gets to collaborate with this group of people to make these projects is so enjoyable. It’s so cool to see that throughline. 

AP: Before we go, I have a silly random question! If you had to describe the album using three colors, what would they be?

KB: Ooooh. Wow. Okay, green definitely. And red, which sounds like it’s going to be Christmas, but it’s my favorite color scheme, green and red, but not in a Christmas way. And yellow, I think.

AP: Perfect! Alright, thank you so much for chatting.

KB: Thank you! It was so nice, I loved your questions.

AP: Thanks again!

Songs From A Thousand Frames of Mind is available to purchase and stream now! Go to katebollinger.com for more information.