What is your names?
My name is Lizzie Cates.
What is your genre of music?
Country Pop
Give us a little bio about you as a band.
I’m a country artist and songwriter in Nashville, TN who loves to write about my feelings (haha) and tell stories through my songs. I am originally from Reno, Nevada but moved to Nashville a little over three years ago. I love to be relatable to people through my music and make people feel less alone. I also strongly believe that I am far from perfect and always try to be myself no matter how silly I am. In fact, my whole thing is being silly on stage and as real as possible.
What made you go in to music?
I’ve always just been obsessed with music. I grew up in it. In particular, country music had been engraved into me since I was born. My mom and grandma loved it. In fact, my grandma was the one who told me about Nashville and always used to say “If you wanna be a country star, you gotta be in Nashville”. When I couldn’t fall asleep as a baby, my mom would rock me singing “Somewhere Other Than the Night” by Garth Brooks until I would fall asleep. On my fifth birthday, I had gotten a pink sparkly Barbie guitar and I locked myself in my room even though I had friends over and I wrote a song. I’m pretty sure it was just “Twinkle Little Star” but reworded called “Lucky Star”. I, of course, had no idea how to play the guitar so I am sure it sounded absolutely terrible. I have a twin sister and growing up we would always have to share birthday parties. She always hated me for this because she is not into music like I am at all, but I made all her friends and my friends sit down and I played them my song. Every birthday after that I would do the same thing. You could say that I have been writing since I was five years old. I used to just take karaoke tracks of songs and write my own lyrics to them. At the time, me being a little kid, I had no idea that was copy-right infringement (haha). To me, that was song writing. I also LOVED writing my own fairytales. My dream when I was younger was to become part of The Dixie Chicks (now called The Chicks). I would pretend I was singing with them onstage in my room singing to my stuffed animals lined up in a row. It wasn’t until I was 12 or 13 when I learned how to play guitar. I had gone to see Brad Paisley and Taylor Swift was opening up for him. We were near the front by the catwalk stage and Taylor came out with her guitar and sang songs about her life, something I was already doing. I went to a private school where there was only 14 kids in mine and my sister’s entire 7th grade class and writing songs wasn’t considered “cool” back then, but seeing Taylor (only 16 at the time) sing these songs made me feel less alone. I vowed to be able to make someone feel like that with my music. I figured the only way I was going to make it was to learn the guitar. I would play until my fingers bled from the moment I would get home from school till when I fell asleep. After I learned a few chords, my whole world of song writing opened up and I was unstoppable since then. I used to write 2-3 songs a day!
Are you a signed?
I am not.
You have released your new single ‘I Like The Way’, tell us more about the single.
I am so beyond excited to have “I Like the Way” out into the world. I’ve been working on this song and been hiding it for almost a year. I have been writing like crazy and working on my next album and when we first wrote this song, I knew pretty quickly that this was going to be the sound and style of my next project. I knew I had to go with my gut feeling on releasing this song as the first single. I feel like this song is a reintroduction of me as an artist, and my goodness, the love I have been receiving is so overwhelmingly incredible.
What is the meaning behind the single?
I wanted this song to be a fun upbeat song. I love writing in metaphors and at the time, I was obsessed with New York City. I thought of living in the city as scary and unpredictable but challenging, keeps you guessing and beautiful. I thought that was a great comparison to falling in love. Falling in love is about looking at the simple things. Liking at the good and even things that can annoy you and yet falling anyway. Love is kind of like walking a “tight-rope”, either it will work or it won’t, but you have to jump and fall to find out.
Describe the track in two words.
If I had to describe this song in 2 words I would say Romantic and Fun.
What was the writing process like?
I absolutely loved writing this song. I wrote this song with Kate Hasting and Josh Beale of Hasting and CO. I have a ton of ideas and titles written down in my phone and I had come up with this idea a couple days before. I was super excited about it! I read off the tagline “I like the way I like you” and Kate was like “uh, yeah! That’s the song we are going to write today!” We started the song in April of last year. We just wrote the first verse and chorus. It’s a funny story because we wrote the line “you handle my Corolla like a Masserati” and at the time, I was driving an old Toyota Corolla that was falling apart. I was saying how much I wanted to get a new car. As I was leaving the write, I had just gotten on the highway and I got into an accident and totalled my Corolla. I texted Kate and Josh and told them what had happened. Kate called me and asked if I was joking. I was not. (haha) We finished the song in September.
What was the recording process like?
Recording “I Like the Way” was one of the best experiences I have ever had. I got to record this amazing Nashville producer named Robbie Artress. We first did the demo, and from the very beginning, we just clicked. I already had so much of the production in my head and I would mimic the instruments’ sounds with my voice. Robbie loved it and executed the sounds so quickly! I was shocked! He just got what I wanted. It was incredible. We actually loved the demo so much that all of the components of the finished song minus drums, bass, organ and some electric guitar we kept. Which included the vocals.
Who did you work with on the single?
Kate Hasting and Josh Beale helped me write the bones and lyrics of the song. Robbie Artress produced the song along with sound engineering and mixing. We decided to put Robbie down as a co writer as well because he really helped shape the song early on. We brought the demo to two brothers, Gideon and Gabe Klein, outside of Nashville who own Shuffle Brothers Studios and had them play drums, bass, organ and some more electric guitar. The song was then mastered by John Naclerio who is Robbie’s go-to guy.
Will we a music video for the tracks?
There will be a music video actually! We filmed the video last October because I was in New York and wanted to seize the opportunity knowing one day I would put the song out. The video is of me dancing around New York City and it’s super fun. I don’t have a release date as of right now but expect it very soon.
Will we see a EP or Album and if so what can we expect?
There will definitely be an EP or Album coming in the future. I am not sure if it is going to be a full album or just an EP. I have a lot of songs written that I need to pick through. Narrowing down songs is the hardest part. My team and I are still discussing the extent of the next project. I can say that I already know the title and whole vibe for it, though. I can’t say too much about it yet, but I can tell you the vibe of it. I’m calling this the songwriter album. I wanted to show off my ability to write metaphorical and poetic songs. Those kinds of songs always seem to be my fans’ favorite songs. I write with a lot of people, but for this next project, I have narrowed down some of my favourite’s and wanted to show off their talents as well. Most of my co writers are also producers, so I wanted to show them off as well. So, there will be a couple of different producers I will be working with. I am just so excited to release all of these songs. “I Like the Way” was a perfect introduction to this next project.
Follow Lizzie right here
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