Like the music on our website? We do too. It’s by Keppie Coutts, an amazing Australian singer-songwriter now based in LA where her sweet and soulful music still has us entranced. Her attitude to life and her adventurous spirit has us totally inspired. Here, Keppie emails us from her new home base in LA….
Tree Of Life: We love the music behind our new season video.What it is you are trying to communicate with your songs?
Tree Of Life: As a child, what song really moved you? Did this affect the kind of music you ended up creating yourself?
Keppie Coutts: “I remember a lot of music that really moved me…but I mean, literally moved me! I would put Chuck Berry on my parent’s turntable, and literally dance til I was in a frenzy and covered in sweat, then collapse in a puddle on the floor…I’m pretty sure I would sleep for five minutes, then put something else on…Janis Joplin, Donovan, Muddy Waters. The when I was about 10, my dad introduced me to Tom Waits, and Ween was also a household favourite. It’s really hard to locate one song from my childhood above all others. I guess a common thread is that I didn’t really listen to the radio – I listened to my parent’s LP collection. So in that way, I was learning music from the 60s and 70s - loving and relating to songs and voices rather than production might be the common thread from my childhood to what I do now.
I think a pivotal song that shoved me into action was ‘Out of Habit’ by Ani DiFranco, which I heard for the first time when I was 15. The first line is insanely brilliant: “The butter melts out of habit, you know the toast isn’t even warm”. Being able to use an image to say something important and emotional, without even telling you what you should feel, you just do feel it. Then the other earthquake line in the song is, of course, “my c*** is built like a wound that won’t heal, and you don’t have to ask coz you know how I feel”. The word, the image, and the statement…it was one of the first and most powerful feminist awakenings in my life!
Tree Of Life: You've just moved to LA to take up some of the amazing opportunities coming your way, including being produced by John Mayer. What's it like being a singer songwriter in the middle of Los Angeles?
Keppie Coutts:“The song that John Mayer produced was waaaaay back in 2008! I wish I could say he was my neighbour and we drink bubble tea on Sundays…but, alas.
Moving to LA was also moving away from Boston, and just a good change. I had found myself in a position of teaching songwriting to people in Boston, but when my students had questions about the industry, I could only shrug and sort of say ‘Let me know when you figure it out’. I didn’t really say that, but you know what I mean J
I wanted to get my feet wet, and figure out what is really happening on the ground.
What I am finding is that the situation is pretty much ‘choose your own adventure’. My music is not Top 40, so maybe the situation has always been this way for people like me – you create your own path. There’s no one way to do it. No other person’s experience is ever going to be a blueprint. All I can really say after nine months in LA is that it is a bizarre experience. Nine out of 10 people you meet are involved in ‘the industry’ in some way (or they are trying to be). It has the effect of feeling like being in the most active creative community on earth, and then also has a sort of numbing effect, like, ‘oh, you’re also an actor/singer/performer/producer/screenwriter/director/waiter?’.
That said, I’ve met some amazing people, played great shows, made music with great producers, and am starting to work with an incredible LA-based duo who will be producing next project.”
Tree Of Life:
Where do you live in LA?
Keppie Coutts: “I live in West Hollywood. Hollywood is kind of like George Street in Sydney…enough said. West Hollywood is much greener and prettier, and is right at the foot of the Hollywood Hills, which are stunning. LA has a lot more physical beauty in the landscape than I had ever thought it would. The hills, canyons, ocean, and mountains can be unexpectedly breathtaking.”
Tree Of Life: Has the experience changed the way you write or perform?
Keppie Coutts: “Yes and no. I think that getting entrenched in the industry dwindled my creative flame a little bit. Unsurprising, I suppose. I had to sort of claw my way out of my own mind, take the information I have learned in the last year, and put it in a mental drawer to look at later so that I could get back to the drawing board without feeling pressure to write in a way that I perceived as being in demand. It’s always changing!
Tree Of Life: Tell us what is coming up for…?
Keppie Coutts: “I am gearing up to record a new project. I have been throwing around ideas for a new record, and right now I am excited about the idea of doing 4 mini-EPs. I write some songs that make sense together, and then, for example, I have a Mexican Cowboy Murder Ballad. And another that sounds very American Songbook. And then there’s one about Yoga. And then I balance that with wanting to produce some songs in a contemporary folk style, but also wanting to do much more experimental stuff (I am loving listening to James Blake right now…). It got me thinking that there is no real reason to do one album the same way. The format of the album isn’t limited the way it was with CDs. So I’ll be recording one of the mini EPs with this LA duo, two of them self-produced in a different studio, and the fourth with another producer who I love and produced an amazing track with.
I also teach a lot, volunteer with teen girls and also with sick kiddies in the hospital, as well as doing a lot of yoga. Keeps me busy and happy.”
