Home to the Highlands for viral sensation Katie Gregson-MacLeod's debut tour
THE thing about Katie Gregson-MacLeod’s story of the world going mad for her song Complex last summer is that all the landmarks are just down the road from us in Inverness.
Perk, the coffee shop where Katie worked in her university holidays – and where record companies came to try and sign her up – is in the city centre.
It was at her mum and dad’s home in Inverness that Katie has said she wrote the song that became a viral sensation – 2.5 million people watching the Tik Tok clip over four days last August.
Stories of such viral success have never come with Inverness locations attached before, so it's perfectly apt that the latest chapter returns here.
It’s where Katie recently announced her first tour would bring her, leaving London where she has lived for the past few months to return for a series of four solo Highland and Islands dates.
Now, signed to Columbia Records and having been to America, played lots of gigs and with constant recording and writing, Katie looks back to those early days of staying afloat in the overwhelming tide of adoration the song Complex brought to her – and to Inverness.
“Those first days were just insane,” Katie said. “The primary feeling was excitement, but it was also ‘What’s going to happen next?’.
“I was totally riding the wave, which is crazy to me now but it was like a fight or flight response. My confidence then baffles me now, the way I handled that first few weeks – and I was dealing with an industry that I was relatively suspicious of.
“You had to be really confident in yourself and I had to hold on to my sense of being what an artist had to be. I don’t think I’m so certain of that now, but I think it was survival mode then.
“It was just surreal. That first couple of weeks will probably be the craziest of my life and I don’t think I've processed it – I don’t think I’ll ever process it emotionally.
“But now I’m just here and it’s like this weird thing where I think ‘Fast forward to five months later…’ I don’t think it was till this year that I really slowed down.”
Katie talks of slowing down, but is busy recording in a London studio, then will be getting ready for the four-date tour.
“The places we are going includes islands where a lot of my family are from, Skye and Lewis, and it’s lovely. A bit of a full circle moment. It’s also quite an iconic route. I remember Mumford And Sons doing it.
“I’m just really excited, I can’t wait. Highland crowds are unbeatable. It’s also my first experience of touring.”
There will also be local supports: “Support slots are an important avenue to developing as an artist,” Katie said.
“So I feel that was crucial when I was 18, 19 and I would love for that to be something I can help someone else with.”
Katie has been settling in a little bit in London too, her university degree has been deferred.
“I’ve been here since August and that is where I have been spending my time. And I love it because this is where my work is and I’m feeling part of the scene a bit and I’m enjoying my time here.
“But it is different when you live here.
“Even though I was down here before, it was living out of a suitcase or in hotels. It is different living here.
“I feel as if I’m someone who lives properly in London now. Before I was just working all the time, but now I’m not working all the time I can explore my other life – but on the social life, we’re good on that front!
“I just joined a squash club yesterday because I used to love squash and I played it a lot at uni. But I haven’t played it since the summer – so that feels officia, as If I’m in London now!”
The 2021 EP Games I Play was followed by 2022's EP, Songs Written For Piano, which came out after the single version of Complex. Is Katie thinking about the debut album there is so much hunger for?
“I want nothing more than to make an album, I feel I am ready for it. I write all the time so I’ve got lots in the works. The music is there, it’s being made and the songs are being written. And just the fact I’m able to have the chance to do an album I’ve wanted to do for a very long time, I’m very lucky. I’ve got some amazing producers on board and I’m totally hyped and buzzing for an album.”
When asked, Katie said she did look to her own personal songwriting heroes for cues about her own music and songwriting.
“The latter half of last year and the early part of this year, when it did get quieter, I went back in terms of writing and listened to my favourite writers – I listened to so much Elliott Smith, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, my songwriting gods, Jeff Buckley and these people and I was going back to my appreciation of the craft I just wanted to feel connected to, those writers who put the writing, the lyrics, first.
"Obviously, I want to feel every bit of material I am releasing is my best work. In terms of careers I think what they were expected to do is so different from what I do now,” Katie said as we talk social media presence.
“The landscape – and the speed of things is very different now.”
It’s complex, you might say ...
Katie's Highland and Islands dates are: the Ceilidh Place, Ullapool, on Tuesday, April 11, An Lanntair, Stornoway, on Wednesday, April 12, Portree LAS, on Thursday, April 13 and finishing at Eden Court, Inverness, on Saturday, April 15.
Follow Katie: TikTok @katiegregsonmacleod
Instagram @katiegregsonmacleod Facebook @katiegregsonmacleodmusic
