Singer – HOW TO BE;

present.

”There are two types of people in the world – those who perform and those who watch.” – Joe Tracini

Something I have become hyper aware of is my presence; in more ways than one. It’s become a chore to just “be” which is a painful irony given that I have set this corner of the internet aside to explore exactly that. It feels like this crushing pressure to be so in every moment that seeing the forest for the trees is another matter entirely. Whether it’s a conversation, a moment of serenity or an event, I cannot seem to find a sweet spot of existence.

My husband and I went to watch Ellie Goulding live recently. If anyone knows me, they know that this counts as a “Very Fucking Big Deal” and, of course, it was. Without dragging you through every moment of the two hour spectacle, we reached the end of the show and she started a speech all about being in the moment and putting your phones away. “When I started going to shows, we didn’t have phones to hide behind so, please, just dance with me for this one” she preached to the crowd. I echoed her sentiment – sure enough, when I started going to gigs, we didn’t film every exclusive and take blurry pictures from 15 metres away. We watched, we sang, we danced and we thrived. Falling on deaf ears, nearly everyone in the the first three rows whipped their phones out to hastily film what ended with a whimper, not a bang (that’s personal preference for you). What is so pressing that we have to document every waking moment of our lives? Is it that we want to share our memories with those around us? Maybe it’s that we need to feel our voice is heard and our presence is felt. “I promise you, you’ll never look at those photos again!” Ellie laughed as she started strumming away and bouncing around the stage. I’m sure she’s right.

Weeks prior, I had been to see Fall Out Boy with two friends, another “Very Fucking Big Deal”. These thoughts of being present were whipping around my head as we drove to Birmingham whilst I was battling with a niggling anxiety of having never been to this venue before. There wasn’t a moment of silence on the car ride there whilst we touched on every topic known to man, catching up after months of adulthood dragged us apart. It was bliss. And I felt present enough. We ate food, we laughed, we danced our way through two hours of nostalgic rock music, and we enjoyed ourselves. The car ride home was much quieter as I was in the back seat, tearing myself apart. Was I really there? Do I remember the music? Did the girls love the show? It’s this “post-event” evaluation which leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

I have been reading up on “flow”, an idea of time passing by rapidly whilst you are doing something you enjoy. In Csikszentmihalyi’s words, flow is “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter.” Another site tells us: ‘When in a flow state, people pay no attention to distractions and time seems to pass without any notice.” This really hones in on the idea of presence, given that these flow states mean you are solely focusing on one thing. For me, it’s writing, listening to music, playing videos games: escaping. It can be anything for anyone. An inspirational friend of mine takes great pleasure in swimming through ice cold lakes and murky depths: it screams “different strokes for different folks” entirely but the way she shares her inspiration and growth is something altogether magnificent.

Maybe we are present whilst we are engaging in something: it’s just that “time flies when you’re having fun” so it feels as though it’s over before it began. What does it really mean to be in the moment? Is it the feeling of nirvana whilst you are there, one you can barely recall when you’re back to reality? Is it mementos – photos, videos, fleeting memories – you can harken back to? Time passing by is inevitable but, when it moves so quickly you are barely there, it brings up the concern of what you are going back to when the party is over.

Everything ends, that’s a given. But why am I so unsettled with the thought of things finishing? Is there some strange, repressed notion of life which I can’t face going back to? I am happy (read as: “happy enough”) with so many aspects of life: marriage, home life, career, friendships, family. Things are great most of the time. And yet, this post-fun, emotional comedown leaves me reeling. It’s becoming its own anxiety: the feeling of dread when organising time with friends because it will soon be over. Will I be an active listener whilst we’re talking? Am I taking up too much screen time, per se? How long until I can leave? How am I going to stay present in these moments when I know that they will finish and I’ll crawl back to this feeling of emptiness?

Writing this, I feel present. It’s quiet here, and dark too. There’s magic in silence and darkness. I am not clock watching or word counting. I’m just remembering, feeling and writing. A small iota of hope comes from the knowledge that this will happen again: I can feel like this again. Life is just a series of events for everyone but you are your own main character. Be present. Listen. Talk. Cry. Laugh. Sing. And feel.

We should learn to look back on these moments with more fondness and less loss. They happened. We were there. And we can make new memories after. We just have to pull from our reserves – even when we feel empty – to make sure we can live new experiences again. We may feel one way whilst we’re in the eye of the beast and another when it’s over but it’s all swings and roundabouts, as my dad would tell me. I say that with a smile on my face as I stare at the pixelated, over-edited picture I took of Ellie Goulding all those weeks ago. Maybe she was wrong after all.

MORE LIKE KATIE;

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.

You, of all people, know it means to be; Katie.

All my love, always,

Mitch
xo

KATIE; gracious;

**“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.

KATIE; a singer/songwriter;

**“I don’t know where I want to end up but I know what I want to achieve.”**

I have been waiting for this moment where I get to explore Katie’s love for songwriting and creating music. The skill set she has will undoubtedly be inspirational for so many others and it’s a joy to share this with the world (for free, too!). Katie talks us though her clean mind, her love of lists, how she came to write songs and why she wants a build a studio in her back garden.

This is Katie’s, very fitting, middle eight and she allowed us to a shine a light on her passion.

Katie’s pronouns are “she/her”.

What does a regular day in Katie’s mind look like?

In my mind?! Oooh! If I’m being super honest, there would be lots of side servings of guilt, intermittently showing up for no reason: constantly thinking I have wronged someone or I haven’t done enough. But other than that, in mind I like things clean. I am constantly walking past things that need to be dusted or scrubbed or there are cracks in the wall that I need to paint over. This is the mundane stuff that happens in my head. I am a clean freak these days but primarily, I always feel grateful. I honestly wake up most days and think “how?!” – I feel like I am ‘punching above’ with my whole life: my house, my job, my friendships, my hot husband. I think “how did I end up here? I don’t remember but it’s amazing”. I feel super grateful in my mind. That is quite a large narrative that makes me the way I am with joy and positivity. It’s because you can’t help it because you are so grateful… it exudes all the time! I am quite an extrovert and I want to connect with people all the time: I am on my phone a lot, sending voice notes and funny messages or organising calls in the evening. Most of what I do in my mind during the day is making sure I stay up to date with people’s lives. That makes me feel connected, alive and loved.

What part do relationships and love play in your daily life?

I am quite an outward facing person so I gain energy from other people. Relationships are a big thing in my life. I like feeling close with people and updated on their lives. I like knowing what to ask them the next time I see them. It makes people feel really valued and loved. I hold relationships very highly, definitely. Sometimes that equals people pleasing for me so I have to watch that. The guilt I spoke about comes from people pleasing. It’s an insatiable monster that makes you think you need to give out more than you can and you end up thinking you are never in the right with people. That is a stupid aspect of my brain that I would like to get better at. But in terms of love? What a strange notion. My notion of love in itself has morphed again since being married and the daily choices that entails. Seeing everything of another person and loving all of the good and bad bits. Learning to love someone “as is” and loving yourself “as is” and accepting that but not trying to change each other. Also, going out of your way to do something you don’t like because the other person you love likes it is hard but you do it. The notion of love is changing from being someone else to being an active participant in this life together.

What aspect of friendship do you value the most?

I have some friendships which I would see as more one way rather than two way. This is very honest! What I am trying to say is, because I am such a people person and that is my happy place, I sometimes attract people who just want to chat with me rather than we both chat together. The thing I value most in a friendship is that people want to know about me. It’s the asking of the questions. Just “how has your day been?”. Something as simple as that! The conversation isn’t just going one way. Someone wanting to know about me. Even this conversation, even if it’s for a blog, I am loving it because it feels like you are taking interest [Ed: “Oh, I am.”]. It doesn’t matter where that asking questions take place: in a park, at a meal, on your sofa with a glass of red, I don’t care how much has been spent or where we are or the effort made but it’s in the asking of the questions that I feel most valued. Reciprocity! It’s the exchange, the tit for tat. Being on the same page and feeling equal.

What do you do to make a positive impact on the world/others around you?

It’s an odd thing to think about what you’re good at but it’s good to acknowledge it. I think I am good at looking after people. It’s one of my favourite things to host people and cook for them. I have had it spoken over me that I would be a mother to many. This was in a Christian setting but, hypothetically speaking, I would have a lot of people coming to me to chill and be looked after. I feel alive when looking after others. Also, I am quite scared of saying stuff to people and coming across as a knowitall. For most of my friendships, when they come to me and are struggling, I will always be like “why don’t you talk to them?”. I will always have something I want to share: wisdom or a tidbit. There are lots of younger girls who want to talk to me about the music industry and I can tell them what I think. They appreciate that and recognise I might be a step ahead of them in the journey. I enjoy imparting wisdom in that way because it’s a pleasure for me to help people. Although, I do want to be careful that I am not judgemental, assumptious or bossy. I know I can be those things sometimes. Sometimes it’s easier for the person outside to see compared to the person inside. I am always fearful of being those three things, though.

What do you do to stay motivated?

Lists! They are all around my house. Books and books of lists. The thing that has made me thrive in all areas (managing a bar, being a songwriter, being involved in church stuff) is my organisational skills. The reason I have excelled at the things that I have been pushed into derives from me writing things down and I then I can’t not do it. I guilt trip myself into thinking it’s staring at me from the paper until I do it. I have a list of house jobs on my phone that I need to do – and I don’t need that list! – and that could be slightly on the neurotic side but it keeps me motivated.

What was your deciding factor to pursue songwriting?

There was a pivotal moment that I can tell you. I started writing songs at 13/14 on a rubbish Yamaha keyboard: it was more like jingles. I could hear melodies in my head but couldn’t play the piano and I didn’t want to write with anyone else because I was too embarrassed about my music (which was pretty much nursery rhymes). I have sang my whole life and I know I’m an alright singer but I thought it could never be a career. I went to NGM [New Generation Music] to study singing and street dance… Yes, that was me! At one point, there was a charity night and Ray Goudie, who was the leader who has now passed away unfortunately, he was encouraging us to go onto stage and say something that we wanted. He wanted us to be vulnerable. I was 18, really young and annoying, and I said “I want to write more songs”. Ray took the microphone off of me and said “as of this moment, I am taking you out of dance and putting you into a songwriting room. When they are dancing, you are writing songs”. From that point on, I was in a room by myself, songwriting. That was the first time I realised someone thought I was good enough to do that as a job. Over the years I identified what my writing style was and felt more confident in the ideas I was bringing. I became an artist myself and then started writing for other people. And today, I am a fully fledged songwriter. The moment I said it out loud was pivotal and Ray made that decision for me and pushed me. But it worked. Cheers Ray!

How does writing songs link to your personal life? And how does it affect your sense of accomplishment day to day?

Great question! Say the first half again. [laughs]. It is everything. Especially during COVID, I am self employed. I can write from the comfort of my own home which is amazing. Not many creators are like this but I love being my own boss. I get to organise all of my own time and schedule every week. My profession means my personal life is super chilled. It’s not work vs play because work is my dream job. I don’t have this “9 to 5” mentality. For me, I know I work harder in the week so then my weekends are chilled. I do tend to keep the weekend and week separate. The upside is you can say yes to the workload you have capacity for and you get paid for something you love. The downside is that you feel you should always be working. People email me all the time. I work with people in LA who are on an opposite time and I sometimes feel I have to respond to that straight away. Sometimes it is a lonely profession too. You have to find everything within yourself because, if it doesn’t come from you, it’s not going to happen. This sense of accomplishment thing is hard. In my logical, rational brain, I would say I have done over and above what I thought I would do. If I list my achievements out loud, I am like “never in a million years would that happen.” However, because the music industry is as it is, it makes you think you can always get bigger and better, and there is such a focus on statistics and likes, you constantly want to better your numbers and you are encouraged to do that. You have to keep beating your records. The only problem is you will never realise when you reach the top of the mountain. You don’t stand there and celebrate the big things: you are told to think your next video could get 2 million views next time and that robs your small celebratory moments from me and that’s not right.

What is your end goal in terms of your professional life?

I don’t know where I want to end up but I know what I want to achieve. I want to tour in China which could happen by the end of this year. I want to work with more younger female artists on a body of work: on an album and be their emotional support and songwriter. I would like, at some point, to transition to A&R label and manager side. I have seen so much of this side and I want to take that knowledge and wisdom and, by using my organisational skills, it would be a fun way to go. I do worry it would make super bitter [laughs] to see the reality of behind closed doors. Also, one of the bigger goals, I would love to own a studio with Robbie or build one in our back garden and people would come to us to record their album. Robbie would produce and I would songwrite and we could host along the way. It encompasses everything we are good at: hosting, writing, producing, organising, cooking, family time. That would be the dream for later on in life.

Katie’s final questions will go live on Sunday.

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.

KATIE; confident;

**“I will never dilute myself down for anyone ever again.”**

I had the honour and privilege of talking to one of my favourite people ever, Katie, a few weeks ago. Our friendship is far more than skin deep and we discuss these things quite frequently and openly so it means a lot that Katie would let me share her story so publicly. We delved straight into her marriage, her relationship with God and what she has taken from a lockdown of songwriting.

These first 8 questions are the merely the beginnings of a much bigger conversation.

Katie’s pronouns are “she/her”.

Before we start, let’s get to know you in 30 seconds.

My name is Kat, Katie Sky, Kitty, Kit-Kat, Aunt Kathy! I have many names and guises but they all stem from my real name Catherine. I was born in Greenfield in Oldham, up north. I have lived in Bristol for 14 years and am not going to move any time soon. I am a singer and songwriter full time -professional! I love writing songs: it’s the reason I am alive and I am addicted to it and I will continue to do so until I am not cool enough anymore. I like reading books, I love cooking, I am still trying to be a runner as everyone is in lockdown. I love travelling to other countries, understanding different cultures and learning about different people. I am a Christian and a lover of Jesus. That’s it…. This is way more than 30 seconds isn’t it? [Ed: “yes, it certainly is Kitty”].

What has your experience with COVID been like?

In general, I feel super lucky that I managed to get married just before COVID hit and I moved in with my husband so I haven’t had to be by myself. I am an extrovert and wouldn’t have been able to cope with that. I have had Robbie [husband] to weather this storm with. We have had lots of bonding in our first year of marriage and that’s been amazing. Music has really stepped up for me over the last year too. So many people have been struggling financially and questioning their career choices because society has literally stopped but that has not happened for me or Robbie. It’s been coming in: lots of paid music jobs. I had a lot of releases last year. I think 17? Last year, during the peak of COVID, music was saving me. It will always save me but, financially through COVID, it has saved me. The downsides of it is missing family and friends. The thing which has upset me the most has been not seeing my 1 year old niece and nearly 2 year old nephew who are growing so much and changing and I haven’t been there for any of it. That has been the same for everyone around the country but that has been my biggest struggle: not seeing those two little squidgies! I am hearing “now they can stand up, now they can walk, now they can say your name” and I want to see those stages but I feel I have missed out. It’s scary because you feel like you will never get that time back.

Reflect on your mental and physical health. Do you look after yourself enough? What methods do you practice to ensure you are well every day?

This is interesting because I have taken up a few more recently. Something I have done every day for the last month and a half is flossing my teeth! I wanted to get better at it because I want Invisalign. My dentist literally said to me “if you do not floss every day for the next three months until I next see you, I won’t give you Invisalign.”. That ultimatum really works for me.
In terms of other mental health attitudes, I like listening to good music every day and having a dance around my house. People put things on social media saying that dancing is a physical way to put yourself in a positive state of mind. A little dance will cheer me up! The other thing I do a lot in my mind is pray. I always want to become a better version of myself and a part of Christianity is wanting to deal with and be self aware of the things we are not good at and the things we are really good at. You acknowledge the two and their differences and then focus on how to influence the people around you for good.

Do you consider yourself to have a solid support network?

Yes. I was thinking the other day – if you go onto someone’s Whatsapp, isn’t it telling how many groups you are part of? I’ve got hundreds! Not sure if that’s a good thing or a burden. But I can see the amount of amazing people I could text to say “I need you” and they would come running. I am stupidly grateful for that. My friends are all different people – from all walks of life – but there is always common ground no matter what friendship it is. As well as having two best friend big sisters, I have obviously got a super fit husband who is also my best friend. He will listen to me talk even if he doesn’t understand me. There is so much support from him. Then a plethora of friendship groups who would do anything for me too. As I am saying it now, it’s crazy how many people I have in my life who I love.

What type of relationship did you have with your family whilst growing up?

I’m the youngest of three: I have two older sisters. We are textbook “eldest, middle and youngest child”. The older I have got and have studied these “syndromes” and characteristics they are, the more I realise we are textbook. Even now, I am seen as the baby and my parents are like “oh well done!” if I do anything. Parents can never switch off – they are going to be my parents for the rest of their lives. It doesn’t matter that I am old enough and ugly enough to look after myself. They will always ring and say “have you drunk enough water?”. That is something that will always make me laugh: that I will always be the youngest to them in a good way. Having two older sisters has been amazing. They are so wise and they have gone through everything first. They got married before me; they had kids before me; they moved home before me. It might have been different it they were brothers but to be the same sex as your older siblings, and to have such incredible examples to follow through life, [is amazing]. We all have very different personalities but there is still that thing where I look back and realise I was using them as the example of the right things to do because they did it first, before me. It’s amazing to have two older sisters that I love and respect as much as then. Then Mum and Dad – flipping heck! I am so grateful that they are still together and that is such a rarity. They have been an incredible example of what marriage is and what love looks like. They were the type of parents who let us try anything we wanted to do. I did violin for 7 years when I was younger and I got up one day like “I don’t want to do that anymore” and they said “yeah that’s fine, you’ve tried it!”. Then I wanted to be a goth and Mum let me buy spiky goth chokers and that was fine. Then I wanted to be a majorette and they loved that too. Looking back, I am so thankful. They were quite strict as parents: we had lots of rules in terms of boyfriends and chores. But now I see that is the reason why my work ethic is as strong as it is because they made me work for it. I worked in a fish and chip shop at 16. It looked strict at the time but they were trying to bring these characteristics out into the forefront and it’s worked. I am still super close with Mum and Dad – they call me every other day. I am still super close with both of my sisters in my life. I go straight to them for any wisdom.

Where do you find your daily inspiration?

It depends what you mean! If it’s inspiration for songs, it could be anything. I am reading a book at the moment that is inspiring. I could be watching an episode of Fleabag on Amazon Prime and think “yes feminism! I want to write a song about this”. It could be a conversation I’ve had with a friend when they are struggling with mental health and I can write it from their perspective and tell their story. It could be literally anything. Listening to other people’s music does it too.
If you are talking about inspiration in life, that is anything too! I am currently writing this week’s food shop and I am on BBC GoodFood and am excited about everything I can cook. I get very inspired by food because I am a foodie. Also going for walks and being around nature especially during lockdown. Seeing all the buds on the trees, and noticing this shift to Spring and things getting ready to burst forth, is very inspiring. I’ve got plants in the garden which are about to get there. There is a lemon tree in my back garden and the lemons are slowly going yellow and that is inspiring me too.

What do you do for a living? Is it your passion?

I am a full time, professional singer and songwriter. It’s the reason I am alive.

What do you think is the first thing people notice/think about you?

I think they’ll probably say “wow, she’s loud! Okay, this lady has a lot of confidence.” Or that I am super friendly. Maybe too friendly? I would say loud and friendly. It used to be my hair because it was blue and strangers would be like “oh I love your hair!”. Other than that, they might say something about what I am wearing because I like big, bold patterns.

What do you think is the biggest hardship that you’ve faced in your life so far?

I’m not sure if I would call it a hardship but the worst thing that I have experienced is a relationship I was in nearly ten years ago. I was engaged to a guy and it was the first time in my life where I lost my sense of self. I forgot who I was in this other person. I think that happens more than we would like to admit. I am quite a naive person but I have a thicker skin now because of things like this. Back in the day, I was naive and super friendly and that characteristic, put in contact with someone who would use that against you, was a bad combination. That’s what that relationship was unfortunately. Definitely at the time I hated it but, looking back, I wouldn’t take it back because I understand now I had to go through that to understand who I am and who I am supposed to be. I will never dilute myself down for anyone ever again but I wouldn’t know that now without that. It was an emotionally manipulative and sometimes physically abusive relationship whereby I was pretty much marrying this man: I had a dress and a date. It got very very bad and went into self-destruct mode and took me a while to figure out how bad it was. I managed to get myself out of the situation and never looked back. Thank the Lord for that. Losing who I was for the benefit of someone else is the hardest thing I have faced. That’s not what love is but I know that now.

Katie’s middle 8 will go live on Wednesday.

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.