Composing for Film and Television with Kaia Kater

Rosalyn: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to ReFolkUs. Our guest today is Kaia Kater. Kaia Kater is a Juno Award nominated and Polaris prize, long listed songwriter of Canadian Canadian heritage. Her voice and deft song craft have garnered a claim from CBC, BBC Music, and Roland Stone. Her recent film work has included original music for the CBC, BET+ Emmy nominated series The Porter, as well as a song placed on global TV's Mary Kills People. Kaia has toured internationally, including notable performances at NPR 'S Tiny Desk and Carnegie Hall in 2021, Kaia took part in the Slate Music Residency at the Canadian Film Center and released new single Parallels. She's currently working on her full-length album for release in 2023.

Welcome, Kaia.

Kaia: Hi, Rosalyn. Happy to be here.

Rosalyn: I'm so glad you're here and I've been really looking forward to chatting with you. I got to see you fairly recently at the ‘ol Folk Alliance International [00:01:00] Conference. And it's always a delight and pleasure to get to catch up with you. How are you doing?

Kaia: I'm really good. It's a very beautiful day in New York City where I live. and I'm talking to you, so life couldn't be better.

Rosalyn: Ah, that is very sweet. So you're calling in from the big apple. You've taken quite a journey to get there musically, probably life-wise as well. When I first met you it was way, way back in the day in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Probably a little bit of a different scene than New York City.

Can you give us a little bit of a background of what your journey was like, and, you're a young person with a long career, so, take us back to those Winnipeg days or before.

Kaia: Yeah, for sure. So, born and raised, partially in Montreal. My mom always worked in arts admin or some form of like, Music admin festivals. She used to [00:02:00] work for the National Arts Center, so often we'd move for her jobs. We were in Ottawa at one point. I was in high school, early high school, and she was running the Ottawa Folk Festival and then she got a job as the executive director of the Winnipeg Folk Festival.

So we moved in December.

Kaia: Yes, in December. This was like early 2009 I think. And so we moved and I started high school, like second semester at a brand new school, which is, you know, and I was like maybe 15. And really terrified

Rosalyn: Were you playing music at that point? Had you started?

Kaia: I was, yeah. So I had started playing, I was playing the cello for a long time in classical music and then playing guitar on the side. And I had taken up the banjo and a guy named Mitch Podolak, who was actually the founder of the Winnipeg Folk Festival and a big presence in the Winnipeg music [00:03:00] scene.

He basically encouraged me to play clawhammer banjo. His whole thing was that he taught people how to play clawhammer banjo, and also cooked great barbecue. Like those were his two goals in life. And so he got me young, he's Leonard Podolak's dad if, if anyone knows the Duhks. And so, yeah, so you know, Mitch had been consulting on the ABO Folk Festival stuff, so he would fly to Ontario.

and give me lessons and stuff like that. And then it was really fortuitous because when we moved to Winnipeg, we were in Mitch's town and so he set me up with lessons from a guy named Daniel Kulak, who is a treasure of a human and just an incredible banjo player and bass player. So I sort of like, moved to Winnipeg and then all of these like really cool connections, including with you, Rosalyn were kind of burgeoning.

And I also met Allison deGroot, who's like an incredible banjo player too. Who played in a band with you called, Oh My Darling. So [00:04:00] many connections.

Rosalyn: Oh my gosh, I feel like, you know, Mitch, along with Estelle Klein really like, created this whole model of what we consider the Canadian Folk Festival. and Mitch was such a huge, huge influence on so much of the Canadian Folk landscape.

It's so cool that you got to meet him even before coming out to Winnipeg and established that connection, and he has such a deep knowledge of specifically clawhammer banjo styles. I remember going to visit him at the Home Routes office and he just kind of sets up, shop there and leans back, I imagine probably just playing banjo all day. and you go in to have a meeting about something or other, and it's mostly just looking at YouTube videos of cool Banjoists he is into at that moment, and also, yeah, Danny Kulak, legend in his own right. incredible, Incredible musician and human, Allison also yeah. A-plus people coming out of that Winnipeg, you know.

Kaia: And that was a really cool, time to be in Winnipeg [00:05:00] because your band, your string band, Oh My Darling was sort of forming and, starting to tour. I think at that point, already touring. And also Taylor Ashton, who's a great clawhammer player and incredible songwriter.

Taylor Ashton was hanging out in Winnipeg at that point, and he had a band called Fish and Bird. And I don't know, I just I feel like there were this group of young people who are like five to 10 years older than me who I just like loved. I loved hanging out with all of you, it was really fun and so inspiring.

Rosalyn: yeah, we'll have to do a whole other podcast on the Winnipeg Claw Hammer, Renaissance of 2009. So then from Winnipeg where did you go from there?

Kaia: So I graduated high school and I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was really stumped. And so I decided to go back to Montreal where my aunt was living and just take a gap year and work. so I waitressed for a year. you know, continuously through [00:06:00] my teenage years, I'd been going down to the states to go to these week-long Old Time Camps, they call 'em, where they usually take place on a college campus, but it's empty during the summer. So you can go down and they fly in some teachers and you take classes for a week and then you know, at night there's square dances or jams, so it's this way of learning old time music in a really concentrated format.

And Mitch again was the one who encouraged me to go and he encouraged my mom to send me down, so, we had a garage sale actually once to raise the funds for me to go to this camp called the Swannanoa Gathering. Then another time I had a benefit concert, so I was constantly raising money to fly down to the states and study with these teachers.

While I was waitressing in Montreal, I decided to apply for a scholarship to go to the Augusta Heritage Center camp that's in Elkins, West Virginia at Davis and Elkins College, and so I sent in this little EP that I had.[00:07:00] And I was like, well, I'll mail it to them or send it to them, and then they can hear what I've been doing and where my playing level is at.

And it turned out that Davis and Elkins College had been looking for musicians who played string band music specifically to come down to the college and form a string band called the Davis and Elkins String Band and tour the string band around West Virginia, which is where the school is located, as a way to share the culture of Appalachia and also maybe encourage other Appalachian students and kids to come study there. I had no idea that this plan was in motion, but I had just randomly sent my CD and so they were like, okay, we found our banjo player, we found the person that we wanna ask to come study here and be part of this thing that we're building. They got in touch with me and they said, we'd love to talk about offering you a scholarship. I don't know if you're in school, it seems like you're [00:08:00] not. why don't you come down May-long weekend and just check it out. Just check out the campus. And so I went down with my mom and my aunt and my grandma and yeah, they just gave me this scholarship proposal that was really amazing and would've made it sort of like an equal price for me to go to Canadian school versus an American school that are, you know, private American colleges are stupid expensive.

And so I was like, yeah let's do it. So by 2012, I was in my freshman year in this tiny town, Elkins, West Virginia, on scholarship. I'm just curious about learning more about old time music.

Rosalyn: And when you submitted that ep, was this your material? Like were you songwriting at that point?

Kaia: I was, but I was quite shy about it, so if someone asked me if I was a songwriter, I'd say, no. I'm a banjo player who likes to write songs occasionally.

Rosalyn: and you were able to do some - it just seems like there was a lot of creative projects going on around that time that you were at the college. But you did [00:09:00] some interesting interdisciplinary collabs I remember with dancers and other multidisciplinary artists. Did that help you spark that creativity to start composing?

Kaia: Oh, that's a great question. Yeah. So, a little background is they started this string band program which wasn't necessarily accredited program. Like they didn't have a music major, but they had a couple classes that you could take in string band music, and they also had a clogging class, like a percussive dance class that was specific to Appalachian dance.

And out of that class they actually introduced an entire dance program. It's called a vernacular dance program. So swing dance, tap, traditional Quebecois dance, Appalachian stuff. So there are a bunch of dancers who are incredible, who came down and followed the musicians down to this college.

and so it was through that, that we started having these mini collaborations and we were all in our late teens and early twenties. And it was kind of cool because we were into this really niche kind of music. But [00:10:00] the dancers had this entirely other language for swing music and jazz and tap.

And so it was just really cool to collaborate with them. And I think, the program provided this kind of safety for me to say to people “oh I'm studying string band music”. But then there were these pockets where I could have some creativity and where there was room for me to write songs and it was fully embraced. You know, and so I think it was like a nice little cocoon for me to spread my little wings and try stuff out and, and then I would go home for the summers and waitress again and make records. it was this nice kind of balance for me, even though looking back I was just busy all the time.

But it was like a little incubator, you know? And then at the end, in 2016, when I finished, College and graduated. I put out Nine Pin, which was my second album, but it was the one that I actually toured with.

Rosalyn: Incredible album Nine Pin. Let's talk a little bit [00:11:00] about when you started recording your own music and what that was like for you. So I know that you do a lot of collaboration with producers and other artists. When you were making Nine Pin, was there a concept to it? Did you go in with an idea of the album you wanted to make, or was it more of an organic process?

Kaia: I have been working with a guy named Chris Bartos, who's an incredible producer and musician. He plays the five string fiddle. he's very good at electric guitar. I first met Chris we basically jammed on fiddle and banjo, like at a festival.

And what struck me about Chris is, he was like 20, maybe 30 years older than me, but he always treated me like an equal. And I've noticed that like as a pattern with or mentors who have really gotten along with like Mitch or Chris, is that they meet you where you're at and there's like no talking down to you, which as a young woman, like you know, that when you're learning [00:12:00] an instrument, it can be very common to have people treat you poorly or even if you're not, just living your life.

So, I collaborated with Chris on my first album, Sorrow Bound, and then again on Nine Pin. And I told Chris, I said like, I'm playing hours of string band music in West Virginia. I don't wanna make a string band record. Like I'm already doing that. I'm already playing with like fiddle and bass, and like rhythm guitar.

I just don't wanna do that. And he was like, say no more. So, we went into the studio. I only had money for one day in the studio in Toronto. This was at Canterbury Studios, and it was like a thousand dollars a day, which seemed just mind blowing to me. And Chris is like, he's a bit of a, like, funny duck.

This was my winter vacation from school. This is like winter 2015, and he's like, all right, we have to wait until like the phases of the moon line up we have to. [00:13:00] Just like practice with the band and then wait and pick the day. And so he, like, I don't know, something about it.

I think this is something that Neil Young did anyway. You know, I was 23 and I had a million other things to do and we picked the day, we went into the studio with the band. The band was Brian Kowa on bass. Chris on five string fiddle and Caleb Hamilton on trumpet and like que tari played few drum things, but it was like very much like not a string band thing, you know? And so we did that and like miraculously, I think I did like nine or ten songs in one studio day, which now, right now seems like, what the hell are we thinking? Like, that's wild.

Rosalyn: I need Chris's moon calendar. That's wild.

Kaia: Me too. And then we brought in some folks for overdubs. I know you sang on a shape note song that I was doing and a lot of friends and favors and kindnesses and [00:14:00] then somehow it just took off. People really liked that approach. Which I was surprised but I just had a lot of amazing people in my corner including Devin Leger, who's a publicist who you know at Folk Alliance.

I was playing those tunes right before I graduated, and that's where I got my first publicist, Devin. And that's where I got my first booking agent was at Folk Alliance in 2016. And so that's how it all took off. And ever since then I've been doing things a little sideways as a banjo player.

Rosalyn: the album, which again, I will just keep saying is incredible, as is the rest of your body of work. But it, and correct me if I'm wrong, that kind of ushered in like the next phase of your music career. Cause then you started really hitting the road, right?

Kaia: Yeah, I did. And that was a shock because I had seen you tour, I had seen my friends who were older than me tour, and so I knew people and musicians who had tour tonight, who I could ask advice, but you don't really know what it's like until you just get out on the road and kind of do it.

It felt like a cold [00:15:00] water plunge from the safety and the predictability of my classes and my degree. So yeah, 2016 and 2018 I went to the UK. I was touring in the States. I was touring a little bit in Canada. Had zero boundaries or knowledge of when I should not work and turn off my computer.

You know, my anxiety was like totally climbing, but I didn't even know what anxiety was like. I was like, “oh, I don't have anxiety”. But I definitely had anxiety. And just really, to be honest, going into debt really for the first five years of my career from 2016, I went into a lot of debt, promised that things would sort of eventually even out and I would start to get SOCAN royalties and stuff. But looking back, it was just complete chaos, saying yes to every gig. Didn't know that I could say no to anything.

Rosalyn: Yeah, that's so interesting. Can we talk about this for a little bit [00:16:00] because as someone who also struggles with boundaries, and the anxiety that goes along with not having them; burnout is on the horizon when you're starring that hard, you know, a lot of people had to take that pause during the pandemic, but you said that your hard road time was until 2018. Was there something that happened in 2018 that made you pause and go, “maybe I can change the way that I'm doing things here.”

Kaia: Yeah, for sure. So, I've been going, going, going, no knowledge or understanding of, like we were talking about, what a boundary is. No. Understanding that I could say no and it would be okay, and just a ton of heaping pressure on myself and then also other people looking at me and saying “you're successful, you're successful” and I was like, “you should see my credit cards. But like, I guess I'm successful?” and I was touring in the UK with my partner Andrew, he's a bass player and he toured with me for a really long time. We tour less together now. But yeah, we were in the thick of [00:17:00] that and I was in the UK and after every show I would just berate myself - it was getting bad. I wanted to be perfect and I wanted to have this because, I mean, I think that's the other side of growing up around so many songwriters and so many incredible musicians; is I knew where I wanted to be, and I just wanted to get there.

And I had no understanding that it takes time, a really long time, to hone your craft, and sometimes you're just young and green and like, that's okay. People love to see young people performing, even if you're not a prodigy or if it's not perfect.

So I was on stage I'd been totally wiped out. I'd been touring nonstop and I was on stage and I was performing a song. Felt this weird sensation come up, like my head felt hot and my body felt really bizarre and what I later know, is that it was a panic attack, but when it was happening to me on stage, I thought I was dying. I was [00:18:00] like, this is my last moment, might as well go out in style, on a festival stage - all right, this is what's happening. I'm dying. So that ended and I was like, “what the fuck was that?” That was the point where my body was just really trying to communicate with me that it wasn't okay, because my mind was not picking it up at all cognitively, consciously.

It was a long path after that to just being like, holy shit, I need to back off. Like, I need to really take my foot off the gas. I need to communicate with my entire team that I'm only human and I can only do so much, you know, and I need to go to freaking therapy. Like, I need to go to therapy.

So that was 2018 when I was like, okay, maybe I can only do three weeks on the road at most before I start to sort of lose it. It turns out that most musicians on the road have a limit to what they can do, and they don't [00:19:00] wanna be on the road for a month because it fricking destroys your body and your mind.

Rosalyn: Yeah, you brought up the idea of the perception of success and I find that really interesting as a conversation because success and being too busy or burnout, on that burnout trajectory, sometimes look exactly the same.

Or we have this idea of success means that you're busy all the time and you're working all the time and you're gigging all the time and you're presenting that stuff is happening. “Don't worry, I'm not resting, and stuff is always happening”. It's a lot of pressure and certainly social media added to that a billion times.

Were you able to, when you realized that, okay, something's amiss here, something's up, I gotta make some changes, how were you able to roll with that pressure that's still there, whilst taking care of yourself?

Kaia: Yeah. Well, so something I started doing, I realized, and this may seem very obvious to [00:20:00] listeners and I apologize, but I realized that because I have an irregular schedule, often I'll work weekends, and then what I used to do is get home on like Monday or Tuesday and just be like, oh my God, it's the work week. I have to work. And what I didn't realize is, no, I just had my work week. And to frames of capitalism in weeks and weekends and feeling like if you're not productive during the week, then something's wrong.

This woman named Beth Pickens, she works with artists and she works with boundaries within the art that you create in non-traditional careers.She talks about how you should take two days, but if you can't take two days, take one day where you don't do anything that's related to monetizing.

My songwriting is actually related to monetizing, and so I can take a day or two days off songwriting, maybe I learn to play the bass and that's completely different than something that I [00:21:00] would ever monetize. Or an email. Answering an email is related to monetizing something. And so having that framework, I always thought it was like, well, if I'm not playing music, then I'm taking a day off. but then I'm answering emails related to my career. And so that really helped me form this idea that I need a weekend too, you know? And I need a couple days off answering emails too. Even if my weekend is like Wednesday, Thursday or Monday, Tuesday, that has been hard to stick with.

But it was really helpful as a framework to understanding what we do as artists, which is, in French they call it, ***. Like even giving a lesson, you're not taking a day off. You know, like, cuz that's monetizing something.

Rosalyn: that's amazing advice, and acknowledging where our workplaces are, you know, I remember the first time I ever went to therapy and speaking to the therapist, talking about a situation that [00:22:00] happened - you know, my, my colleague said this, but it was, 2:00 AM at this venue. And then she's like, “why are you working at 2:00 AM?” I was like, whoa. There's a lot you don't understand. You know, “why is your boss calling you at 1 am on the weekend?”, well, great question. It's because we're doing events and we're putting on showcases that go until 3:00 AM at conferences and there's a whole world of work that exists in uncommon, unconventional to the general world of work, places.

I think for a lot of folks working, not just as artists, but in the music industry, it can be hard to recognize, when you're putting in those hours, even if it's in something that's a little, maybe it's fun. Oh my gosh. Maybe you're having fun!

I don't know, maybe. That's really interesting and awesome that you got to work with somebody in the mental health space that understands being an artist and what that's like, working in the creative space

Kaia: Yeah, absolutely. hear what you're saying [00:23:00] about saying you're working until 2:00 AM and having people like wide-eyed and being like, what? And you're like no, it's cool. I like it.

Rosalyn: Yeah, exactly.

Kaia: But like also, it's killing me.

Rosalyn: Yeah, I know that's such a fine line because yeah, when you were talking about hours, I had two babies recently-ish. And that meant as a person who's working an industry job, but in an arts organization space, which can be typically a nine-to-five space,I was up all night. I'm still up all night with kids and during the day sometimes I'm just staring at a screaming like, “I can't”, my brain is not in that function zone. But for some reason at 9:30 PM, that's the sweet spot. And I'm like, pew-pew-pew (laser sounds).

Now I can answer all the emails and do all the reports I had to do, and I’ve been on a bit of my own journey there of being like, “and that's okay”. This seems like [00:24:00] it's crossing a boundary, but it's actually not. It's working with my schedule and my life and what makes sense for my own physical and mental health at the moment where I'm at, this stage. But to the outside person, you know, they're getting an email from me at 10:00 PM and they're like, “Rosalyn, stop, What are you doing?”

Kaia: Right. Like maybe they think you've been toiling away on that keyboard for like 12 hours, which you haven't.

Rosalyn: I mean, sometimes I have, but in this specific scenario, I haven't.

Kaia: Yeah. Working non-traditional hours it's really a different thing. I think Corin Raymond said it's the job of the night people to take the money from the day people.

And it's the job of the day people who work all day to give their money to the night people. And it's this little economy that we have. And then the night people then go buy groceries and give 'em to the day people. And it's circular.

Rosalyn: I like that. I really like that. So then after this, Going back to 2018, there's this shift in where your head's at in [00:25:00] terms of touring and being on the road all the time. Is that when you started getting into composing for film, were those two things, did those happen around the same time?.

Kaia: Yeah. It was actually the start of that because I was part of this group it used to be called Toronto Women in Music or something now it has a different name. It's more inclusive. It's not just like cis women. But basically there was this artist named Laura Dickens who was just a great, great electronic music artist, they were like, “well, why don't I just like, give some lessons for free on Ableton”, which is a music production software “to people who have often felt like excluded in production spaces?” And so Laura was like, yeah, I'll offer it. And I just happened to live two blocks away from Laura in Toronto and they were offering the lessons at their house. And so I, I was like, all right, cool. I'm gonna go. [00:26:00] And I downloaded the little Ableton free trial 30 day thing, and Laura basically walked a group of us through how to use Ableton and this was 2018. And it opened up a new world for me.

I had been working in garage band and just feeling generally, in my previous albums, feeling like it was really hard to articulate what I wanted. And Chris was really good and he listened to me and it was totally symbiotic. But I was like, I wanna get better at just doing something myself, or if I have an idea, putting it down exactly the way that I wanna hear it.

And so that started my journey in Ableton and music production. I went to a SOCAN Foundation run program in 2020 that's called Production X Equity which we can put in the show notes. I'll send a link. And it basically, you can apply if you're part of a marginalized background and you want to learn Ableton for a week. So that was the next course [00:27:00] I went and did. And actually Laura was one of the co-teachers in that, and it was a group of us and it felt really safe and cool to ask questions and to show each other what we were doing or to help each other out. And so those sort of collaborative initiatives that were happening in Toronto around that time gave me enough confidence to start recording my own music or including some production stuff in my live stuff, in my live shows. Which then gave me the confidence to apply for this film program, this composing program. Cuz I was like, oh yeah, I know how to record stuff and you know, build a synth sequence or whatever.

Rosalyn: And the program you're talking about is the program at the Canadian Film Center. Correct?

Kaia: That's right. Yeah.

Rosalyn: Maybe talk a little bit, let people know what that program is like and and what that experience was like for you.

Kaia: The Canadian Film Center has a program called the Slate Family Music Lab, which takes three songwriters and three composers. I think they're referencing [00:28:00] instrumental leaning composers. and it's a six month program. It's a bursary program, so you get paid to participate. There's no fee to participate.

And they take you, it's a part-time program. So usually they have an intensive right at the beginning and then it sort of tapers off. But they take you through the fundamentals and basics of composing: what a cue is, how a TV show would typically run. And then they give you these case studies where you get a particular kind of film or a scene and you work with a mentor in learning how to score, let's say a romantic comedy or a drama or a horror film. Each unit has its different genre and you go through it and you can send feedback back to your mentor. They usually, there's like a couple of drafts that you do. And yeah, and so it just takes you through the whole thing. And then at the end, your final project is you get to come up with a concept for a short film and they find a director [00:29:00] and a writer and producers and actors to build that into a film, your idea, and then you get to score it. And you don't have any sort of feedback from anyone, it's your project. So you get to decide the artistic vision, whereas there's some, you know, projects in the program where you're put with a director or a writer and you get to experience them giving you feedback.

it's really comprehensive and kind of amazing. Because you get to fail in these really safe environments versus being on a really high stakes film production where you gotta know what you're doing.

Rosalyn: That sounds amazing. So coming out of that program then, how did you start to enter into doing that professionally? Was the Porter your first gig doing that kind of work, or did you have some other work leading up to that?

Kaia: I had done some work on some short documentaries. I have a couple of friends in West Virginia who have a production company and they really liked my music. And when they found out [00:30:00] that I was doing film composing they were like, why don't you try out this short documentary or this or that?

So that was mostly my realm. And then a woman named Kaya Pino, who works at a music supervision company called the Wilders. She got in touch because they were working on the Porter and she knew my music. And we had met a year prior to me doing the program and I said, what can I do to write for film, and she was like, “do more of it. Do some exercises, get better”. And so I think she saw that I was really trying to go in that direction, So she suggested my name as a songwriter on the show. And I don't know if folks really know a ton about it, but it's the biggest black led TV series in Canadian history.

You know, the directors producers were willing to take a shot on me, but they offered me one scene and they had very specific ideas about, how do you write for this character? They were like, we don't want something shmarmy, we don't want her to be longing. We want her to be [00:31:00] like, you know, the scene was that she was auditioning and she needed to sing something that caught people's attention. And then I had, it was a four day turnaround. It was like, all right, write it now. And so I had to come up with a melody and a demo, and then I sent it to them and they ended up really liking it, which was amazing because after that they would come back with more scenes and projects for me. But originally it was just this one scene and it sort of felt like the character was auditioning, but I was also auditioning for this role as a songwriter on this series. So it was very meta.

Rosalyn: That's very cool. Yeah, I've got to see some clips of your work there, and it's so amazing. It's really exciting to see someone performing something and be like, “oh, I know who wrote that!” And to have a little glimpse inside of the process of how the magic is made.

So What advice would you give then to somebody, an artist, who is interested in getting into composing, and where would someone start?

Kaia: Well, my first piece of advice would [00:32:00] be to get comfortable on some kind of software. So that can be Logic Pro Tools, digital Performer, Ableton. Get off Garage Band. If you've been using Garage band, try something else. A lot of people I know go to Logic because it's a MAC program and, a lot of the shortcuts feel more natural than pro tools.

Ableton's also a great music creation software, so if you're looking to do multiple things as a songwriter and a composer, Ableton can be good for that. Get yourself used to that first; try recording yourself. Apply for that SOCAN program if you are part of a marginalized background, that can be really helpful cuz there's a framework for learning Ableton.

And then don't be afraid to put out a thing and say, Hey I'm looking to get into film composing. Because I think there are people in your immediate network who might be directors and who might not have a huge budget for somebody to compose. And so maybe you offer to do a couple things for free just to see how it feels [00:33:00] and see if you even like it.

And then, keep putting out records. Those are really good for this Canadian Film Center program. I'll just quote from them what it takes to apply. So they say to apply, songwriters must have written songs that have been placed in film, television series, web series commercials, video games, theater, and or released by a record label or have a publishing contract.

So most musicians I know already have a label, even if they're on their own label. So you can really get into this program just off the stuff that you've written yourself. And then, you know, do a little bit of both. Like try writing a song for a film. Try composing for a film and see what you like better.

Like, it turns out that I vastly prefer songwriting for film than composing for film. I find composing to be a little bit long and tedious sometimes, and with composing you work inside of your box. And as a performer, [00:34:00] I really ended up missing being in front of people. And so with songwriting contracts, it's really nice because I get to write a song for a film, but then that's done and then I get to go perform.

So it's really about figuring out what do you want your life to look like in 10 years? Do you wanna be mostly at home? Do you actually really like being on the road? I think those things will determine what kind of path that you take, but you always have a path forward. And I think songwriters especially we have way more skills than we give ourselves credit for.

I think that switch into songwriting for TV or composing for TV is not as much of a daunting jump as you would think. So that's what I would love to leave people with, if you're interested in this, you can do it. It's totally achievable.

Rosalyn: that's incredible advice. And I love the space that's left there for creating your own balance, you know? It's been so wonderful to chat with you, Kaia. Thank you so much for coming on here and I wish you all the best. Before we wrap [00:35:00] up though can you tell us a little bit about what's the next thing that you got going on?

Kaia: The next thing is I have an album tentatively called Strange Medicine that will be out hopefully in the fall of 2023. It's 10 songs all written by me, and maybe a more personal album than I've ever put out. So I'm excited to release that and then tour it.

Rosalyn: Incredible. And where can people go to find all of your stuff, everything Kaia.

Kaia: You can go to my website, which is www.kaiakater.com, and I'm at @Kaiakater on all the social media sites like TikTok and Instagram and Facebook. So you can connect with me there. You can also sign up for my Email list if you're curious about, you know, keeping in touch and maybe coming to a show.

And then if anyone wants to just drop me a line who's more curious about learning about film composing, you can do that through my website. Just type in the contact [00:36:00] submission box and then it'll be sent to me and we can talk

Rosalyn: Incredible. That's so generous, Kaia. Thank you so much. I definitely recommend checking out your incredible catalog of work. We didn't even, I mean, we didn't even touch on Grenades, Kaia has just a really amazing body of recorded work that's out there. So I really encourage folks to go check it out wherever you listen to music, and we'll link it in the show notes there. Thank you so much, Kaia.

Kaia: Thank you, Rosalyn.