Just Williams

Five days. Often an interminable period for those enduring the working week but in recording studio terms, the blink of an eye – the time it takes most band to get their snare drum sound right. Yet five days was the time that it took Kathryn Williams to make Little Black Numbers, one of the most beautiful, engaging and warm records you could care to come across. Think the Doves or Coldplay stripped down to the bare minimum and you’re starting to get there. Originally released last year on her own Caw Records, the album is getting a second lease of life on East West. As Kathryn approaches her press duties with the kind of enthusiasm that lifts the heart of a weary hack, isn’t it a bit odd to see an album that she financed herself released on the same imprint as REM and Madonna?

“I never even knew that,” she says. “I’ve done a deal with East West because they want to throw loads of money at the album and promote it and put adverts and marketing that’s never happened with it. I think it’s worth doing this and re-promoting it just to see if more people are going to listen to it. That’s what’s driving me, that I want people to hear it and it’s nice that people are starting to know about it. It was always my plan to keep it a secret and keep it underground, but we’ve done eleven songs in the studio for the new album and I wrote three songs last week so I’m still doing all that songwriting stuff but it’s quite nice to know that I’m not actually sick of this album or sick of the songs yet, so I must have believed in them when I wrote them. If I was sick of them I wouldn’t be having a very nice life.”

Not one to be swept up in the music industry whirlwind, Kathryn is still intent on keeping her independence and has no plans to disband Caw. “I’ve signed a licencing deal for this album with an option for two others. I built that label up from nothing and, even if it seems that it’s a boutique label or something like that, I still know that if anything goes wrong then I still have that to put stuff out myself, so I’m never going to do something because I feel I’m in a position where I have to. I’ll do it because I want to. I don’t want to ever feel desperate.”

Like Kate Rusby, Bill Jones and David Gray, Williams is an example of those who have had the faith in their own vision to go it alone, waiting for the rest of the world to catch up. She believes that this can only be a good thing for the industry. “They know that people are in it for the right reasons if they’ve started their own label, because they’re not in it to be famous or to make loads of money or for anything other than they wanted people to hear their music. If I was running a major record company, I would want that sort of band, who were prepared for the good and bad times.”

Given that Little Black Numbers was recorded in such a short space of time, was there anything about it she would like to go back and change?

“I’m not completely happy with it but I’ve grown to love it,” she says. “Same as with a relationship, you accept things in order for the greater love. There are definitely things I would change, but changing them wouldn’t necessarily make the album better, just more what I thought was perfect. I don’t want to mess around with it.”

Rewind twelve months and Williams was experiencing her first taste of major exposure, thanks to her nomination for the 2000 Mercury Music Prize.

“It was a shock but it’s stood me in good stead for all this really. It was good fun, I wanted to be nominated – it did so much good for me – but I’m glad I didn’t win.” How come? “I think I work best when I want to keep trying and I knew when I didn’t win that I wanted to get straight back to writing and working again. I didn’t want that sort of pressure for the next album anyway.”

Despite being grateful for the exposure, she’s not totally enamoured with the overall process. “There’s a lot of political things to do with the Mercury. I was like the novelty act last year, or when they talk about ‘Asian’ artists, that really pisses me off. And a woman’s never won. They always manage to stick one or two women in at the most but a woman’s never won, an underdog’s never won.”

The way things are going for Kathryn Williams, none of this will matter soon. If there’s any justice, the underdog will triumph and, you never know, but one day she may well end up running that major record company. Keep your fingers crossed.

Little Black Numbers is out now on East West