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By Kelly Dunn
Today I'm meeting with Kate Campbell. I'm meeting with her at a studio between breaks here in Nashville. She's walking down the hall towards me. She wearing a long sleeve, knitted sweater with black slacks. Her long brown hair falls just below her shoulders. Her brown eyes are friendly yet very intense. We begin…
[Kelly Dunn]: Hello, Kate, glad you could meet today during your break…
[Kate Campbell]: Thanks Kelly for coming out today. I've been looking forward to this interview! Where do we start?
[Kelly Dunn]: Kate, tell us a little about the past CD's you have cut.
[Kate Campbell]: Well, I'm pretty busy doing dates right. I just got back teaching a songwriting camp called, "Summer Music Acoustic Week”, over in New Hampshire. Then I did one in North Carolina. That's what I did this summer and I'll be doing more until the end of the year.
[Kelly Dunn]: What do you teach at these songwriter camps?
[Kate Campbell]: I generally concentrate more on the lyrical songwriting and the narrative. This is a camp for adults. I teach them on finding their own voice and some of the professional tools that I have learned over the years. People come in to the class at all different levels. This year I did a new class for co-writing. It was really interesting and I have gotten a lot of great feedback from the students. I essentially wrote by myself growing up. I live here in Nashville so there is a great emphasis on co-writing. Also, I did my, "Songwriting One” class which is open to any level. This is the fifth year that I have taught at the Summer Music Acoustic Week. Several times throughout the year I do one day workshops.
[Kelly Dunn]: Are these all in Nashville?
[Kate Campbell]: Oh no, I travel all over the country.
[Kelly Dunn]: Do attendees have to bring their own guitars and materials?
[Kate Campbell]: I tell the students that they should bring their instruments and material because by the end of the class they perform for everyone. It's a little nerve-wracking but it all works out by the end of the class. These are actually the hardest courses to teach because they usually go from 9 to 1:00 ‘clock. Even if the course is for a full week I don't tell the students that must finish an entire song. I don't work from that perspective. The goal is usually, from the point of view that if you have a song you are working on, or a song they wish to finish, great, but by the end of the course everyone can listen to the progress by performing their songs in front of the other students. I'd also like to think that I'm getting better at teaching the editing and showing them how to help each other out with their co-writing.
[Kelly Dunn]: Is there a website that they find out about your workshops?
[Kate Campbell]: They can go to my site, www.KateCampbell.com Once on the site they can easily look up the upcoming classes and seminars.
[Kelly Dunn]: Did you begin as an entertainer before you went into the songwriting?
[Kate Campbell]: No, I actually started writing at an early age. I didn't think that I was going to be a performer initially. I played in church but when I started out professionally the intent was to get a publishing deal and write songs. That's my true love. But now I'm known around the world as a singer-songwriter.
[Kelly Dunn]: I like your web site…
[Kate Campbell]: We try to make the web site look good but we want to make it useful for a wide demographic. For instance, if someone wants to look up just a specific date it's very easy to do. We're always striving to make the site easier to use.
[Kelly Dunn]: I noticed you are selling sheet music on your site…
[Kate Campbell]: There are good many of my songs that we offer guitar/vocal, piano/vocal.
[Kelly Dunn]: Is this written out like the guitar tabs you see on the web?
[Kate Campbell]: It looks like piano sheet music. It's more detailed than guitar tabs you see on the Internet. It's getting a little tricky. We don't know yet if we want to offer complete songs books. We also have some chorale sheet music for signing in church.
[Kelly Dunn]: That's very exciting!
[Kate Campbell]: It's constant effort trying to keep up and getting everything out there.
[Kelly Dunn]: So when you perform is it an acoustic guitar?
[Kate Campbell]: Oh yes, I'm a Gibson fan but I don't tour with those. I had Collings' make me a small Colling's that looks like an LJ1. They have the dark tobacco look. From a distance they look like a Gibson. The Collings' are a little heavier but it sounds really close to my Gibson's.
[Kelly Dunn]: This is a good plug for Collings!
[Kate Campbell] Well they've been doing this for 25 years and they do a great job and make really solid guitars.
[Kelly Dunn] Perhaps you can get an artist endorsement…
[Kate Campbell] They don't work like Taylor and others. Their theory is to rely on word-of-mouth and not so much on the artist endorsements.
[Kelly Dunn]: Did you visit their factory to have these guitars made?
[Kate Campbell]: My, "guitar man” as I call him. His name is Herb and he owns a guitar shop in Birmingham, Alabama called Fretted Instruments. You should tell every one at SongwriterPro to look him up, he's really good. We worked about a year together on this guitar.
[Kelly Dunn] So this took a year to layout the guitar?
[Kate Campbell] Oh yes! This is serious. Then it took another nine months to get the guitars. I'm usually solo so I wanted an instrument that was sturdy and pull out of the bag. I wanted it to look and feel like my Gibson's. Collings was willing to make the guitars the way that I wanted them.
[Kelly Dunn] So do you record your CD's and the go out on tour?
[Kate Campbell] It's interesting because I'm an Independent artist. So I don't have to get on a bus and do a six month tour to promote my new record. I have a very interesting schedule; I do house concerts, university events, songwriter clubs, churches and clubs. It's an all year thing.
[Kelly Dunn] I noticed you perform over in Europe too!
[Kate Campbell] For the past five years I've doing the UK. I try to get over there at least once a year.
[Kelly Dunn] Have you done any workshops over there?
[Kate Campbell] Not yet, I'm thinking about it. It's funny how I get categorized, over there I'm America but here I'm Folk so it's kind of funny. It's all marketing for the powers that be. I'm also considered more Country over there in
[Kelly Dunn] What's the difference between America and Folk?
[Kate Campbell] That's interesting thought but I consider myself a singer-songwriter than any one genre. But Folk music involves more social issues than American and Country.
[Kelly Dunn] How is your airplay going for you around the world?
[Kate Campbell] I'm always joking because my BMI check is three-quarters from the UK and only a quarter is from the US. Even though they can track every song they still consider a major part of my check is derived from Europe. It's all how BMI and ASCAP divide up the pie here in the U.S. than over in Europe. Personally, I think it's ridiculous because there's more radio stations here than there is in Europe.
[Kelly Dunn] Do you do your own booking?
[Kate Campbell] My husband and I have a booking agent that just works for us. It's worked for us so far. My husband is my management and he runs everything. We have a different agent over in the UK. Now for radio we have people that we hire and we appreciate their excellent work.
[Kelly Dunn] Does this help in sales?
[Kate Campbell] When you first put a record out the first six to nine months you see a spike in sales.
[Kelly Dunn] Are you on Satellite Radio?
[Kate Campbell] Yes, I get airplay on certain stations. Plus all the new cars are now equipped with the satellite Radio so it's getting bigger every year. And it's great because it isn't regional like it used to be. It levels the playing the field for us Independent artists.
[Kelly Dunn] You have released quite a few CD's over the years.
[Kate Campbell] We'll I've been doing this for about thirteen years now so I've gotten quite a few out there. But, some of the CD's have been re-released from the earlier CD's. I couldn't re-release the previous CD's because I can't sell them. I was essentially buying the CDs' from the company but I was just doing all their work. So I re-recorded them and I'm selling them myself! Everything has changed because of the digital age. We have the ability to own and sell our own product. It's been great!
[Kelly Dunn] So you distribute your own CD's too?
[Kate Campbell] You can find us at most major and independent music stores around the country.
[Kelly Dunn] Do you do the Barnes and Noble concerts?
[Kate Campbell] Well, I don't need to do those (laughter) I did in the beginning but they don't offer much if anything. I did the early ones because the record company thought it was a good thing. We didn't feel that those concerts did very much for us.
[Kelly Dunn] Who is your core audience?
[Kate Campbell] Generally, people that listen to National Public Radio programs, community radio programs. That audience knows they can buy directly from my site. Those people do shop at Barnes and Noble and Borders and purchase my CD's. They are an excellent audience. They've been very good to me.
[Kelly Dunn] Was their one event that put your career over the top?
[Kate Campbell] (Laughter) Not really! I kept writing and we realized, I kept trying to get a publishing deal here in Nashville, and I did get a deal, but at that time people were beginning to do their own thing. I meet with publishers for a few years with my three-song demos. We made a thousand copies of the first song. I kept performing at the writer's nights around town. But one night a man approached me from Muscle Shoals about my music and we gave him a cassette tape. From there I wound up with a publishing deal with Compass. All it happened at the same simultaneously and it has propelled me to where I am today.
[Kelly Dunn] Do you co-write?
[Kate Campbell] I co-write but it's with specific people. I still write solo for different things, it just depends.
[Kelly Dunn] It's been a pleasure talking with you today. You are an inspiration to the songwriters around the world.
[Kate Campbell] The best thing I can tell folks is to just do what you believe and everything else will follow. I'll see you next time you're in Nashville! Tell every one at SongwriterPro that I said hello!
Visit Kate Campbell's web site at: www.KateCampbell.com
Article: © Kelly Dunn - All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Article: © SongwriterPro.com Kelly Dunn - All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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