A couple of stalwarts of Western Australia's live music scene, singer-songwriters Katy Steele and Timothy Nelson will share a stage together in front of just 100 people at Subiaco Hotel on Thursday night as part of the 2022 Suburban Vibes programme (that runs until 16 October).
"Looking forward to another show with my friends at Suburban Vibes! I'll be playing solo with Timothy Nelson on 13 October. I can't wait!" beams Katy.Suburban Vibes has returned to Perth's Subiaco with a live music programme of seasoned performers alongside the best up-and-comers featured in intimate, bespoke gatherings tailored to music lovers.
"We'll be bringing our rugs and festoons to create a super cosy vibe," organiser Regan Grant says. "Suburban Vibes is about creating a space of intimate and chilled performances from amazing musicians.
"We want you to immerse yourself in their music and stories, and to experience these performers in a more vulnerable, stripped-back environment."
Ahead of their show this week, we asked Katy and Timothy to interview each other about what they've each been up to respectively as well as asking some advice-related questions.
Katy interviews Timothy
I see you are on tour with Eskimo Joe; how is it going and any funny tour stories? What was it like learning all those songs?Touring is going very well thank you. As I write this, we are about to play our second last show at the Enmore in Sydney.
It's pretty incredible to play these songs every night, and especially on this tour where we play two albums back-to-back. It was certainly a little daunting knowing I had to learn so many songs, but fortunately they are all incredibly memorable. Many of them I've had in my head since I was quite young too.
I don't read music, so I just played along to the recordings for a while until I had it down. I don't really think about bars or crotchets. . . actually I find it easier to absorb a song if I l can earn the lyrics somewhat and take my cues from the lead vocal.
The mood on this tour is particularly sweet because the guys are looking back over 25 years as band, and you have dedicated audiences that were there since the beginning and are now bringing their kids along to the shows as well. Eskies haven't done their own headline tour like this for an extremely long time either, so there's been a lot of attention paid to the production and making them the best shows possible.
I've enjoyed wandering the halls of these beautiful venues (I've wanted to play at the Forum since seeing Wilco there in 2010) and catching Adalita's set each night. The guys are also playing 'Sweater' for the first time in 20 years as well, and in the original three-piece line-up, so during that one I can go have a beer and just watch.
Aside from all that, no crazy stories to report I'm afraid, it's all fairly tame, good fun 'round here as far as I can tell. . . then again, I did play with The Kill Devil Hills for eight years, so my threshold for crazy is fairly high.
When you write songs, do you sit and work over a long period of time or do you find yourself working in short spurts? I only ask, as I'm the type of artist that will sit at the piano for ten minutes and be somewhere else entirely – completely in the zone and then *boom* I'll remember to hang the washing out and I'm kinda out of the vortex. I'll then come back to it an hour later. What flow works for you?
I'm impressed you still remember to hang the washing out. If I'm writing music, I tend to lose track of other responsibilities.
It can be quite stressful actually. I usually have one or two ideas for songs in my head at all times, which makes it incredibly hard to concentrate. I try to write things down or sing melodies into my phone and then move on, but that doesn't always make it go away.
I can start new songs all day, it's finishing them I struggle with. I can happily write with a guitar or piano if there happens to be one in the room, though lately I've been doing most of my work in this little studio space I've got now, so there's a lot of mucking about with drum loops and MIDI as well.
I'll probably spend a good three or four hours on a new song. Often the structure and the melody is there, it's just the lyrics that need finishing, usually the second verse. Sometimes I finish songs that same week, others it takes years to come back to.
I have noticed, if I start with lyrics first, and treat it almost as a poem before putting it to music, the melody and the chords always turn out vastly different to my other songs. I have an Indoor Fins song called 'Colin' that was written like this. . . I'm trying to do more of that nowadays.
Every song I write, I get so caught up in the fantasy of it. . . thinking about the world it exists in, and the characters within it. . . sometimes I don't finish a song because I'm not ready to leave it yet.
What is the one song that you can put on that instantly puts you in the best mood – makes you wanna dance – no matter how you feel that day?
I can virtually always count on 'Sparky's Dream' by Teenage Fanclub to put a smile on my face.
What do you think about the current state of the music business? How do you find the process of 'making content' and the constant social pressures we are now under?
I think we're in a place where in many cases, the artist is also the manager and the label.
So to think along those lines might be a little at odds with your artistic side. Knowing how to exploit and capitalise on something so sacred is almost pure insanity. But you have the freedom to be whatever kind of artist you like, and more opportunity than ever to broadcast and distribute it.
So we do live in an amazing time, it's just that the landscape is so oversaturated with artists that it can feel almost impossible to ever cut through the noise.
The social media side of it seems to change so regularly, there's always a new platform to get your head around. I suspect TikTok will run its course at some point, it all seems very desperate. . . this culture of 'blow my song up before I blow myself up'. I don't think it's particularly good for our mental health being on those apps all the time.
A smart way to do it might be to create more content than you consume. A positive aspect is that we are seeing the algorithms work more in the favour of helping you discover something new, rather than only those you already follow. Prior to TikTok, it was very hard to reach people outside of your immediate audience.
Authenticity is the most important aspect though. You need to figure out a way to get comfortable in front of a camera, or phone, and be able to exist on these platforms every bit as naturally as you do when you perform on stage; and do it in a way that doesn't make people cringe.
But I think this all comes way more naturally to the younger generation. The same way music videos made sense to anyone starting out in the '80s or '90s. So I imagine the changing of the tide will leave many behind but then again, that's how it's always been.
One song you wish you had written?
If I can only choose one, then today it's 'Flame Trees' by Cold Chisel. Imagine being able to say you wrote that!?
Timothy interviews Katy
I managed to catch a couple Little Birdy gigs back in the day. I was still in high school and had just started seeing bands for the first time, and I loved the songs from those albums. I remember there was a period where I think you had a publishing deal and decided to leave for NYC. What was that time like for you?It was a big time for me.
I felt as if the band had done all it could at that point and I wanted to go and do my own thing – experiment, write and work with other people. NYC seemed like such an idyllic place for me.
It was quite a hard time, but I did manage to work/ get a lot done and recorded three albums worth of material. But I just kept kinda hitting walls when it came to releasing stuff. Couldn't seem to find the right song to go out with, so the gap kept getting bigger and bigger between releases until it felt like a mountain. I'm so happy to be on a roll with releasing again and I'm so excited for this new album.
The motivation to write new songs is a funny one. I think in the beginning, for most songwriters, there is equal parts wonder and hunger driving the show. Our relationship with songwriting would go through all kinds of phases. What is different for you about it now, compared to when you wrote your earliest songs?
I definitely write more now knowing what's a good 'chorus' and what works and what doesn't.
My ear is definitely stronger for picking up chords and understanding what works etc., but I would say that recently I've found lyrics harder to write. Maybe it's always been hard, but I think with having kids you miss out on having that time to just 'be bored' and I miss that time where your brain becomes mushy from being bored and I used to spend time listening to memos and figuring things out.
I love Split Enz and I have a special place in my heart for the Birdy version of 'Six Months In A Leaky Boat'. It was perfect. And I remember triple j used to absolutely flog your live cover of Paul Kelly's 'Every F...ing City', and for good reason. When it comes to covering someone else's song, do you find the lyrics attract you first in that case or is it the melody?
I was attracted to the lyrics in the Paul Kelly song as I have never done the European thing like a lot of youngsters who are just out of school.
I was touring Australia and the world consistently from the age of 19, so I think when I hit 27 this song resonated with me, and it felt like a great song to have in the catalogue. He captures the spirit of those cities so well and you feel like you’re travelling with him in that song.
It's a challenge to remember all the lyrics, but they are now tattooed on my brain forever as I tend to play it at most of my solo shows.
What artist or song in particular first made you want to write your own songs?
Carole King, PJ Harvey, and Kate Bush are three definite inspirations for me. Carole King really inspired me as a teenager and specifically as a female songwriter – she's always been my number one in terms of songwriters.
Kate Bush inspires me more artistically and creatively, and PJ Harvey inspires me with the rawness of her work and lyrically – I feel quite connected to her music as a modern writer.
Do you feel more comfortable on stage or in the studio?
Probably on stage to be honest. Most of the time it feels like I'm in my living room that's how natural it feels to me. Ha!
Katy Steele and Timothy Nelson play an intimate show as part of Suburban Vibes at The Subiaco Hotel (Perth) 13 October.
