Kay Brette

This transcript has been lightly edited from the original recording for readability. Speaker labels and brief audio notes have been added for accessibility.

Transcript

Cold open

Kay Brette: They’re just not sad. I think I used to write a lot of sad songs. So yeah, I really just kind of realized that a couple days ago in front of a bunch of people. I was like, oh my god, am I healed?

[Music excerpt from Kay Brette plays.]

Main episode

Eric Chan: I’m Eric Chan, and you’re listening to Inlet Wire, your direct line to BC artists.

In this episode, we’ve got Kay Brette. She is a Vancouver artist whose newer songs are coming from a very different place than they used to. She talks about anxiety, stepping away from music, and what helped her find her way back to music with a brand new EP.

Kay Brette: So right now, within the last year, things have started to kick off in terms of releasing music. I’ve been working with your previous guest, Andy Schichter, at Park Sound Studio in North Van for the last year, just tracking some singles. And then we also tracked an EP that I’d written a few years ago, but we’re finally getting it down.

So it’s been really exciting to get stuff tracked and out and released in the world. It’s been a goal that’s been accomplished within the last year.

Eric Chan: Music was always there, but getting to this chapter took time. For Kay Brette, the way back wasn’t exactly straight.

Kay Brette: I grew up always really enjoying singing. I really enjoyed performing sometimes, and then kind of dealt with anxiety of performing on and off throughout my life. So I would kind of take breaks, heal, come back to it, and now I’m kind of in this process of coming back to it.

When I went to music school, I was like, okay, this is what I’m supposed to do. I’m supposed to do music. And then I did music school and I left it very anxious. I compared myself to the other people in my program. I saw the drive and the passion in them to do their own projects and front their own bands.

I think I was really insecure and had really bad performance anxiety, so I was like, okay, maybe this isn’t for me. I felt at the time that I needed to step into something more social work-based or humanitarian-based, so I kind of segued from music school into music therapy, which was that combination between those two worlds.

[Music excerpt from Kay Brette plays.]

Kay Brette: Finishing music therapy, I don’t know, I feel like I had some things going on in my life and I built some more confidence and I kind of got excited about music again. The spark was coming back to do music more as a career, and I’m really excited about it. That’s kind of where I’m sitting with music now, so it’s a good feeling. Feels like I’m back, you know? Back, baby.

[Music excerpt from Kay Brette plays.]

Eric Chan: The return didn’t happen all at once. A few right people and a few right spaces helped turn that spark into something real again.

Kay Brette: I never really stopped writing. I’ve always been writing, even if I’m not really performing. And it always happened, even when I was little. It was always very cathartic and I loved creating things.

But kind of what segued into performing music again was, one, Andy reaching out to me last year asking if I wanted to come in. Because before that, as most people know, making music is very expensive. To have him reach out and kind of mentor me and figure out how we can do this with the funds that we had, and applying for grants and all those things, that was a huge catalyst in getting the music out there. So shout out Andy. I’ll always shout out Andy.

Eric Chan: Working with Andy at Park Sound helped shape the songs. Outside the studio, another place you might not expect helped make performing feel good again.

Kay Brette: When I started working at the yoga studio that I’m currently working at, one of the teachers there, who’s now one of my best friends, she was trying to hype me up to do one of the music classes there, a live music class. She was just like, oh, you should do it.

So she pushed me to do that, and then I’ve been playing music for the yoga studio for over two years now. That’s kind of been a nice segue into performing my own music, one, accompanying myself and doing kind of solo performances, and then playing in front of a crowd, which was a great segue because everybody’s turned away from you in the yoga class.

So I just had kind of one of my first plugged-in solo shows, facing a crowd that was seated to me, a couple of days ago. It felt really good. It went really well. I felt like years of practicing at the yoga studio with that kind of a crowd really gently eased me back into performing again.

[Music excerpt from Kay Brette plays.]

Eric Chan: Getting back into performing was one thing. Figuring out what the songs needed to say was another.

Kay Brette: For the most part, melody comes first. I definitely hear things in music happening more easily and more commonly than lyrics coming forth. A challenge for me is finishing songs, so I can kind of start a concept. But I find more often than not, the lyric writing is the trickiest part for me because I want it to say exactly what I want to say, and I want it to be very honest and authentic. I really don’t like just putting in fluff just to fill.

Eric Chan: I first came across Kay Brette’s music at Park Sound Studio, which made hearing the story behind how she and Andy built “Coca-Cola” even more interesting.

Kay Brette: That song I feel like is the most that we really collaborated on because I didn’t have strong ideas about it going in, and I also had some inspirations from other tracks that I brought in to him. So that was definitely our most collaborative song because we were even in separate rooms at one point.

I went into a different room and I was trying to finish writing it because I had only brought in probably a third of the song when it was done. So I went in and finished writing some lyrics and stuff, and then came back and he had added all of these cool weird sounds and stuff that I just loved. So yeah, definitely “Coca-Cola” was our biggest collaboration, but it’s also one of my favorite ones.

[Music excerpt from “Coca-Cola” by Kay Brette plays.]

Eric Chan: Putting the songs together was one thing. Realizing what they were saying back to her helped later.

Kay Brette: I honestly kind of realized it on stage the other day while I was talking because I was giving little pre-rambles before each song. I was like, oh yeah, I’ve kind of… all of these are quite uplifting and, I don’t know, very introspective. They’re just not sad.

I think I used to write a lot of sad songs. So yeah, I really just kind of realized that a couple days ago in front of a bunch of people. I was like, oh my god, am I healed? I was like, this feels good.

I feel like I’m happier as a person, and I feel like that’s being reflected in my songwriting. It also makes me a little less apprehensive to share it because it is still vulnerable, but when things are a bit more of a positive message, it feels less vulnerable than sharing something that’s vulnerable and sad, if that makes sense.

Eric Chan: And that was Kay Brette. You’ve been listening to Inlet Wire, your direct line to BC artists.

Transcript note

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