Good morning everyone and welcome to another Music Monday – on a Tuesday as my youngest wasn’t well yesterday.
Today I’m featuring the lovely Kristi Kates who is an amazing music streamer on twitch. She is based on the East coast of America so sadly streams a little early for me but I often see her being really supportive in other streams. Her community is always really welcoming and I’m always thrilled when I can catch a stream as she has some beautiful original music, as well as some fun covers. She was kind enough to answer some questions for me which I’ve included below.
If you would like to follow Kristi on twitch or social media you can do so by clicking the links below.
How To Listen:
Kristi sadly doesn’t have any original music on music streaming platforms yet but there are some lovely covers and a few originals on YouTube. I have included my favourites below. You can of course also listen to her on twitch and I have included a few twitch clips below too.
Interview:
Tell us a little about yourself?
Hi! I’m Kristi – I’m a musician, singer-songwriter, and sometimes actress or voiceover artist when I get those opportunities. I live just north of Manhattan (New York City, USA) and I love performing, creating stuff, and travelling.
What first got you into music?
I started reading when I was 3, and singing along to music not long after; got my first (toy) guitar at 5 or 6. When I got gifted a proper real guitar and a little Casio keyboard at 12 years old, I started learning how to create my own music, and that was it.
Who inspired you to make music?
I’ve always listened to lots of different music, but it’s the post-Britpop era – Travis, Coldplay, Snow Patrol, Keane, Radiohead – that’s stuck with me.
I love that mix of poetic vocal lines, storytelling, and elegantly-ordered beats and arrangements, and I wanted to figure out how to recreate that type of songwriting with my own music.
How would you describe the music that you typically create?
It would probably be classified as indie-pop, I think? Much like the inspirations above, I like to be a little fantastical with the lyrics, and I like a good, catchy pop melody.
I try to put a bit of optimism in, too; I think it’s important to try and keep a positive outlook in songwriting as well as life in general, as best as we can.
What is your creative process like?
I’m always writing down ideas or singing them into the voice recorder on my iPhone; but it varies as to how an actual song is written. Sometimes I’ll purposefully sit down and dig through my notes/recordings, sometimes a song will just kind of arrive out of nowhere!
Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Oh nooo, that’s such a long list! Well, Tim Rice-Oxley, Neil Finn, Taylor Swift, and Jack Antonoff would all be amazing to write with; Chris Martin, Gary Lightbody, and Regina Spektor to sing with; and Nigel Godrich, Brian Eno, and Finneas as producers… that’s a start!
Clearly big dreams, ha ha! But why not?
If you could go open a show for any artist who would it be?
Coldplay – I like the colour and positive energy of their live shows so much, and I think they’d also be great fun to hang out with after the gig.
What is one message you would give to your fans?
“Thank you!”
While I’d always write and sing regardless, without people listening to and resonating with what you perform, it’s a bit less rewarding, isn’t it? I feel quite honoured by the people who support my music and other projects.
What is the most useless talent you have?
Uhhh… well, I can do the cup-flipping rhythm trick from that Anna Kendrick song!
Do you sing in the shower?
Ha ha! Not generally – I think I’m more apt to sing while cooking.
What would you be doing right now, if it wasn’t for your music career?
I can’t picture not doing music, as it’s the one thing I’ve consistently wanted to do most of my life.
But if my music skills mysteriously vanished, I’d probably either do more acting – or something with animals, perhaps be a zookeeper.
Where have you performed?
Lots on Twitch the past several years! Also many of the smaller venues in NYC and a few each in L.A. and Chicago. And I was fortunate to get to perform on the Official TwitchCon Music Stages in 2018 (San Jose CA) and 2019 (San Diego), that was super fun.
What are your favourite and least favourite venues?
Favourite: Joe’s Pub and Rockwood are both excellent for live music here in NYC! On the opposite coast, I really like the Hotel Cafe in L.A.
Least Favourite: Anywhere that the musicians are secondary, and therefore basically being ignored; for instance, I don’t much enjoy doing restaurant gigs or such where your music is primarily background sound. Fortunately I haven’t had to do those in quite some time!
Do you have any upcoming shows?
I don’t have any shows booked IRL at the moment, thanks to the pandemic – but I do perform live on Twitch 3x a week. We do Mon/Fri/Sat live music shows – the Monday show is like a coffeehouse gig, while Fridays and Saturdays alternate between a “stage” set and assorted music theme nights.
How do you feel the Internet has impacted the music business?
It’s much easier to reach out to people you’d like to create music with, because the traditional avenues (agent, manager, etc.) between musician-musician have dissolved somewhat, which is great as I think we’ve all been missing collaborating over the past couple of years.
I also think – hope – that musicians performing online during the pandemic has been something of a helpful escape for people. Music is a necessity, after all 🙂
What is your favourite song to perform?
I can never answer the “pick one” sorts of questions, ha ha!
I think at the moment, I’ve been enjoying throwing some dance-pop into our sets, as that’s a bit different from the music I usually do.
Which famous musicians do you admire?
See my list of inspirations above! 🙂
What is the most trouble you’ve ever gotten into?
I’m not a terribly trouble-prone person, thankfully!
I did sneak into a ton of live shows here before I was technically old enough to even be in a bar/venue, but I never got caught, probably because I don’t really drink, so I never pressed my luck.
I just wanted to stand in the back and spy on the bands and the techs and the crew, so I could figure out how everything worked on a big “real” stage!
What is the best advice you’ve been given?
Don’t compare yourself to other performers or trends; keep your focus and energy in your own lane and on creating your own sound and story, and people will find you.
If you could change anything about the industry, what would it be?
I wish the DMCA would be updated to reflect current times. It first became effective in 1998, and the music industry has undergone seismic shifts since then, between digital music in general and the internet. All of the restrictions and fines and whatnot don’t help us share music properly (so that musicians CAN get paid fairly, and can reap the benefits of people who love their music wanting to share it!) – they only slow everything down, and create unneeded friction between creatives and industry people.
What’s next for you?
We have some big seasonal stream events coming up on our Twitch channel between now and the end of 2021, including our Halloween weekend and then our full week of annual holiday content in mid-December, which has become a yearly tradition!
For next year, I’m planning to evolve my sound by finally sitting down to properly learn a DAW so I can start producing and releasing my own music, at least in demo form; and then getting back into an actual recording studio at some point to properly record some songs and expand upon some collaborations. I’m so looking forward to it!
Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions!
Music Monday Playlist:
You can listen to all previously featured Music Monday artists on a special playlist I’ve created on Spotify.
Thanks for reading and happy listening!
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