After meaningful conversations with friends, I always come always feeling inspired; reflective and motivated. The same can be said for this blog. I get to listen back to the interviews, relive the memories, pick apart what people have said and ask the whole world to celebrate them with me. Once each post has gone live, I am thrilled that more people get to read about these incredible people and get a glimpse into what makes them human.
I invite you all into an open letter to each of my guests after their final blog has been posted. I want to outline what their slices of honesty mean to me and how they better help me to understand people. If nothing else, see this as a bookmark in their story.
Dear Kitty,
Who would’ve thought that we would be here? Six years after I professed my undying love for you and your music, and you took a chance on this friendship, we are closer than ever. And, honestly, I can’t imagine my life without you in it now.
The way you act, react and interact with humans inspires me every single day. You approach everything – head on – with charm, honesty, understanding, patience, heart and truth. I struggle to focus on even one of those traits and yet here you are, seasoned and incredible, utilising all of them in your every day life. You have the utmost faith and hope in people and I know the world could use a lot more of that. We have so many people to thank for you being the way you are but we are here to celebrate you.
You are always there for people: a shoulder to cry on; an ear to listen; a heart to sympathise; a question to challenge. You only want the best for those around you and that is crystal clear. It really struck a chord when you said you have so many different friendships and relationships. You are the unchanging factor – you are so many things for so many people and, in turn, they are so many things to you too. It takes a lot of work and effort to maintain all of this but you do it so effortlessly.
Music has been, and always will be, in your soul. It changes you and then the world around you. The way you pour every ounce of yourself into your music, and watch as it affects everyone else, is nothing short of wonderful. Hearing you talk about your passion and career in the way you do will inspire so many others and I am so honoured that you have let me share those conversations with others. I think music in the best medicine and you are a healer.
I am learning to be kind to myself and, even just from the end of your interview, it is clear that is something you are doing too. You never stop assessing and reflecting on who you are and I think that makes a great human. Your self-awareness, whilst perhaps too strong some days, allows you to understand people better and still celebrate yourself. That is something I am inspired by every day. I want to be more like you, I really do.
Thank you for these years of honesty, understanding, patience, heart, music, love, life, poetry, words and everything else in between. I thought I had reached a point where I couldn’t forge friendships like this anymore but you have let me see the light. And for that, I am forever grateful.
“It is a story of grace that I have been saved again and again. “
The final part of Katie’s interview touches on everything from her fear to her hopes for the future. We discuss how becoming a parent changes every aspect of life as well as relentless optimism and its place in the modern world. Katie never held back and was ready for every question and this is a very special, and meaningful, interview. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Katie’s pronouns are “she/her”.
What is your biggest fear? How do you prevent that from taking over?
[long pause] I don’t have many things [that I am scared of] which is amazing. The people pleasing thing is something which plays on my mind in terms of the fear aspect. I constantly think I have done something wrong or that I haven’t done enough. How do I prevent it? I have to talk it through. I talk with Robbie a lot and, this might be a sweeping statement but, I think a man thing is to be able to compartmentalise: thinking like “they will be them, you will be you. Move on, don’t stress”. Sometimes I need Robbie to tell me that I have been brilliant and the fact I am second guessing myself is a people pleasing thing but there isn’t truth in it. As with most overthinking anxiety based habits in our brain, they are usually ‘us’ based: they are things we have imagined in our head almost. You don’t want somebody to say “it’s all in your head, buck up” but it’s nice to hear from someone else that you have done all you can. Sometimes you need someone who is able to put things in perspective because they are outside of the situation. I just don’t want to upset someone accidentally. I need to talk about it but sometimes I will get there myself. But sometimes it’s just about me coming on period! Hormones do random things to my emotions.
What is something you really want to do that you’re not doing? Why aren’t you doing it? What can you put into place to achieve it?
All the things that I want to do over the next year I am putting in place now. I am talking to live agents now, putting together a tech rider, putting a new setlist together and working towards that. I am potentially looking at making new merch. I love fashion! All I wear is big, baggy t-shirts with patterns on so why don’t I have any merch? I don’t know. I have got in touch with a female graphic designer who will make a new logo for me and incorporate that onto tie-dye t-shirts. A big personal goal at some point is to become a mum and I am not doing that just yet. Why not? Because I love my job. I am not admitting that when I do that I won’t be able to pursue songwriting anymore because I will be able to but I know it will change things. I don’t want to be naive in the fact that having kids changes everything in your life. My darling husband has had crazy success and just signed to a major label and now his, and my, future has changed massively. That affects us having kids because that could mean I am the stay at home mum. And, let me stress, that is no lesser in any way. It’s just different than what I had originally thought. I understand that when you have kids your thought processes change: it might be that I never want to leave them and I might want to leave songwriting behind. The children might fulfil me more. But then also, I might miss songwriting still and want it to evolve into something else. That need for work will still always be a passion of mine.
What type of outlook on life do you have? Where do you think that comes from?
Relentless optimism. Everyone has always told me that my entire life. I think optimism can also equal naivety and, in the past, that has led me to bad situations. It made me hold onto bad situations longer than I needed to. My optimism might be to the detriment of myself sometimes but it does mean I can almost sail through life because nothing feels bad. For that, I am grateful. You are easily pleased. Somebody could bring me an oat milk flat white and a chocolate bar and that’s my day made. A lot of people argue the nature vs nurture thing but I feel I was born with this. My sisters are different to me. They both have a fraction of optimism but I have the most. Some of it comes from my parents but I do think I was born with it. I’m not sure where it stemmed from. I have always been like it and it’s strange. There is something about nature rather than nurture.
What book/album/film/artist has changed your life? What did you take from that?
The bible. It comes into my life day after day and has done for my whole life. I read it most days. It is an unchanging book which has been present since day dot. It’s not everything that I live my life by but it is a huge factor. Scripture has changed the way I think; the way I live; the way I am towards other people; the way I am as a person; how I cope; how I learn; how I work; how I love. The bible has changed everything for me.
What song should we listen to whilst reading this about you?
“Top Of The World” by Kimbra. It’s very feminist and powerful. It is proclaiming out loud what you are good at. That’s what that means to me.
Name five beautiful things in life. Tell me why you think they are beautiful.
Little babies. New, pure, innocent, unjaded, bitterless kids. They are beautiful because of that. They are untouched by the things of the world. They are what they are and they cannot be anything else because nobody has taught them how to lie yet. They bring their full selves to you, even before they can talk, and I love it. Their smile is pure joy. Music is beautiful. My whole life is built around this. No matter what country I am in, what culture I am experiencing, no matter how you identify – music is the common ground. You will always be able to understand music together. Music is music and is always inspiring. You can communicate anything through music. The earth. Flipping heck! When I want to see God’s beauty, that is what I do. I go out and see it. We need hope right now but seeing buds and flowers, as hippie as it is, there is something about connecting with the human spirit when you see something burst forth from what looks dead. You can see a whole reflection of the sky in a lake and that is untouched by man. That is one of the biggest things. I see a lot of beauty in love. I mean affection. When I walk along the street and you see a child holding someone’s hand, and I recognise that need for affection: when I see my husband’s neck full of whiskers: when I pat my mum on the back because she is unpacking. Physical love is very beautiful. The closeness you get from physicality is beautiful. I want to say food! When I cook meals, I go to the nth degree to present them beautifully. It sounds stupid but I get so much pleasure from laying things out beautifully. With cooking, there is colour, taste, and smell which makes it more than two dimensional beauty.
If you could sum up your life so far in one word, what would it be and why?
Grace. I have made some seriously bad decisions in my life. When I look back on them, they could’ve so easily changed the course of my life to a bad path. To a path where, ultimately, I would be unhappy and unfulfilled. Somehow, even though and despite these bad decisions, I have ended up with my perfect life. The prominent feeling in my head is gratitude. I have been shown so much grace no matter what. It is a story of grace that I have been saved again and again.
What do you think the meaning of your life is?
To love. In whatever form that is. I want to love everyone around me to the best of my ability. I want to support, encourage and enthuse them. I want to love people back to life. I want to love alongside. I want to love moving forward. I want to love whilst stuck in the mud. I want to love whilst things morph. I want to love evolution.
After talking through everything, what have you learnt about yourself and your life? What do you feel the need to reflect on?
I am aware that, during this, every time you have asked me to tell you something good about myself, I have always book ended it with something bad. That is interesting because I like to have a balanced and sober judgement of myself and I want to see the same thing from two different angles. It makes me understand other people well and accept that. I might be able to see something bad but I think “yeah they are like this too, though, and that’s great”. Clearly I do that a lot with myself too. I don’t always need to put the negative spin on it too: for myself, I could just say what I am good at. I need to be invested in the truth of what I am.
My open letter to Katie will go live tomorrow.
You can follow Katie Sky on her YouTube channel, Twitter, Instagram or Facebook page. She also has a huge catalogue of songs available on Spotify and Apple Music.
HOW TO BE; 