Katy J Pearson is being authentically herself

“People seem to really like the tunes, which is great,” she shares, looking back on her album preview shows. “You never really know. You can just write things and be like, ‘Oh, I like this,’ but once you release it, it's not really yours anymore.”

Pearson has previously described herself as a ‘1970s Texas mom; her 2020 debut Return owing a lot to country, folk and Americana. Sound of the Morning, released two years later, played more with pop, but Someday, Now, is firmly the poppiest of the three.

“It feels like a nice, exciting sonic progression – like me exploring a new sound,” she says. “I think it does feel quite authentically ‘me’; where I’ve wanted to go for a while, but it’s taken me a while to get there, I guess. When I did the first record, I was so adamant on it having very traditional kind of indie-folk-rocky vibes, recorded quite dry. I think that was coming from a place of maybe being burnt from a time before.”

For the new album, Pearson worked with electronic producer Bullion – Nathan Jenkins to his mates – and she describes him as having “got what I was thinking in my head and showed me what I thought.”

She continues, “It’s very hard to explain sonic ideas sometimes, so to have someone that's like, ‘Do you mean this?’ And you go, ‘Ah yes, that's what I mean,’ – very liberating!”

On the face of it, indie singer-songwriter Pearson and electronic icon Bullion might appear strange bedfellows, but it came about through Orlando Weeks, formerly of The Maccabees. “When Orlando put out his album Hop Up, I went down to Bullion’s studio to sing my parts on it,” she says, “I met him then, then I didn’t see him for ages, and then I heard that he got in touch and was interested in doing a session. I was quite intrigued myself – I didn’t think I’d be someone he’d maybe reach out to normally; I was really pleasantly surprised!”

Pearson came for the session equipped with a few songs she’d been working on, and it clicked – to the point where she’s said she thinks the new album is her best work yet. She caveats it here by commenting that most artists will always consider their newest work to be their best, but says too that Bullion was a “large part” in why she feels so positive about Someday, Now.

“He was very good in making me feel very involved in my own work, which doesn’t always happen, and I think every producer has a different way of working in a studio, but for me – in terms of where my songwriting has gone – it feels like it’s the best I’ve done so far.”

November will mark four years since Pearson released Return. Upon mentioning this, she marvels at the time that’s passed. “It feels so weird – when you said ‘four years’ I was like, ‘What? What’s going on?” she laughs. “But it feels really good. I look back on [my past] work and it’s all a representation of me through my life. I used to be shitting on my old albums like, ‘Oh, I fucking hate it’. But now I’m like, every artist has albums in the back catalogue where you think, ‘wow, they’re amazing.’ Everyone has a place of showing where they’ve come from and I love that, you know. Maybe with this record I might gain a lot more new fans and they’ll go, ‘Oh, she has two other albums.’ It feels really special that there’s a career behind me that shows where I come from.”

It’s shaping up to be a busy few months for Pearson, who’s heading on tour with The Last Dinner Party across Europe in October and November – and could perhaps find some new fans here, too.

“It’s fantastic to see a band of women doing fantastically well, as they deserve it,” she says, “They have such a strong visual identity, they seem so in control of what they’re doing, and they’re just really talented.”

While they’d already followed her on social media, they saw a Pearson set at End of the Road Festival in 2021, during their early days, in which she performed a cover of Miley Cyrus’ ‘The Climb’. “They messaged me about that – we just got chatting on social media and stuff – and then they were like, ‘Do you want to do the EU run?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, alright!’ – I was just really flattered that they wanted me … And, you know, it’s the first time I’m going to be on a tour where there are more women than men, hopefully.”

Chappell Roan proclaimed at Coachella in April that she’s “Your favourite artist’s favourite artist”, but this moniker certainly seems to apply to Pearson too. The Last Dinner Party are big fans, there’s her work with Weeks, and then she’s also worked with Yard Act – and appeared on stage with them at Glastonbury this summer.

“They got in touch because they really liked Return,” she explains, “And then when I played a socially distant show at the Brudenell Social Club they came down. We were doing a remix thing, so I thought maybe they could do a remix of “Miracle”. I feel really lucky that I’ve really hit it off with everyone I’ve met. I love meeting other artists and musicians. With Orlando, I was a massive fan of the Maccabees and years ago, we just got set up on a writing session together. This was, like, nine years ago.”

They kept in touch ever since, Pearson describing them as ‘really good friends’, and he asked her to sing on Hop Up. It’s a similar story with Rhian Teasdale of Wet Leg, too, as the pair have known each other since they played a show in Bristol together. She was part of a duo with her brother, Ardyn, at the time, while Teasdale was making music under a different name.

“It’s lovely when you have these really old friendships and you see your friends doing so well and you can support each other. The industry is such a mixture and there is an area of it that can be a bit toxic, but I think I've managed to carve out a really safe space for myself with good people”, she summarises. “There's still a lot of work to do with more female artists having more platforms in the indie world, but seeing Wet Leg, The Last Dinner Party, Porridge Radio, Naima Bock, Sorry… The fact that there are more women around makes the industry a nicer place.”

Concluding happily, she muses, “It's all just good vibes. I feel very lucky”.