Katie Gregson-MacLeod: "It's like a fight or flight thing, when your life changes literally overnight"

Katie Gregson-MacLeod, in her own words, has “always been a massive drama queen.” It’s a surprising admission, coming from the endearingly down-to-earth 21-year-old. But that inherent dramatic flair, she reckons, is partly to thank for her deeply personal, devastatingly frank and fearlessly vulnerable approach to songwriting, which has struck a chord with millions of people in the past five months alone.

In the era of TikTok, overnight stardom has taken on a more literal meaning than ever, as the singer-songwriter, who hails from Inverness in Scotland, is well-aware. While her hard graft was already well underway – with Katie penning tracks, playing gigs and attending songwriters’ circles from a young age – her big break came in the form of a 59-second video, uploaded to her TikTok platform back in August.

It was a snippet of her original song, ‘complex (demo)’, and soon attracted praise in the comment section from Lennon Stella, Joe Jonas and dodie, among thousands of others, as well as over a million likes. A deal with Columbia Records soon followed, with Katie releasing her latest EP, songs written for piano, through the label last month.

“For the first few weeks – and probably the first couple of months – I was in a state of shock,” she tells me. “It’s like a fight or flight thing, when your life changes literally overnight. It has to become your new normal so quickly. You have to adjust to your new reality, of record label meetings and all these kinds of things which are so foreign.

“It was happening so fast, a bit of numbness was needed to get through,” she continues. “So I was weirdly calm, to the point where people would be like, ‘Why are you so calm?’ And I would be like, ‘I don’t know, I’m not a calm person!’ I was running on adrenaline, but I was composed. And I knew I needed to put myself first. This industry can sweep people up, so I wanted to hold tight to who I saw myself as, as an artist. That was my main concern going into it.”

While viral success has clearly opened doors for Katie – with over 20.5 million Spotify streams on ‘complex (demo)’ since its release in August – it’s the rawness and openness of her approach that has resonated most with fans.

“I’ve always been very honest,” she says. “It’s always come naturally, which is good because I don’t have to do the extra work to offload some of the anxiety about being vulnerable. I don’t stop anything from coming out. It’s only in hindsight I’m like, ‘Woah, that’s kind of heavy…’

“On the EP for instance, the song ‘to be eighteen’ is the saddest, for me,” she continues. “And I remember having a moment, the one time of my life where I’ve been like, ‘Actually, is this something I don’t want to share? Is this too much?’ I don’t think it is, now that it’s been received. And it’s important to me, to be so honest. I wouldn’t be able to fake anything very well!”

That “heart on the table” honesty is something she admires in the work of her own favourite artists.

“I fucking love how honest people are these days,” she smiles. “Chappell Roan, Ethel Cain, Phoebe Bridgers – these people are just so honest, to an extent that, maybe 20 years ago, couldn’t have been the case. There’s been a great emergence of so many amazing young female artists and young queer artists. So many people that are being so open in their songs. And that path was paved long before us, by artists who were a lot more bold than people probably felt they should’ve been at the time.”

Her other influences include the legendary likes of Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Elliott Smith, as well as sounds from even closer to home.

“Folk, or a guitar and a vocal, is always going to be my favourite thing in the world,” she says. “All my favourite artists shine the best, for me, when they just have that.

“I appreciate trad music in Scotland more now than I did when I was younger,” she adds. “I’ve realised how much it has influenced me. I do love it, and I miss it so much when I’m not there. All my friends from Ireland are the same as well!”

Like many of her musical heroes, the lyrics always come first in Katie’s songwriting process.

“I loved English at school, and I went to uni and did English Literature,” she reflects. “But I only did that for one year, and then I was like, ‘I can’t be doing this anymore!’ And I did History. But I was influenced by everything.

“The artists that I love are very lyrical, and that’s always what I’ve been drawn to,” she continues. “I love wordy shit, and songs that don’t really have any structure. Like with Joni Mitchell – her melodies are amazing, but the structure is hard to grasp. It’s so lyrical.”

Credit: Caity Krone

From an early age, writing came naturally to Katie – and as she got older, she was lucky enough to find a community of like-minded creatives.

“When I was 18, I started going into these folky pubs,” she recalls. “There was one in Inverness called MacGregor’s, where, downstairs every Tuesday, people I knew had this songwriters’ circle. We’d go every week and sing songs. I was writing so much that I would just play whatever song I wrote that week. That was my first musical community. It was such a mix-match of people – this folk community, and people of all ages.”

She also had plenty of Irish artists on her radar at the time and has since found friends in some of the other acclaimed singer-songwriters of her generation, including some of Hot Press’ ‘Hot For 2023’ acts.

“I was a massive fan of Orla Gartland when I was a teenager, and I love her still,” Katie enthuses. “Then there’s Sammy Copley, Lucy Blue and my friend Nell Mescal. These are people who are really exciting to me. I love Nell. I’ve heard some of her new stuff and I saw the show live recently. Her songwriting is amazing but her voice live?! I was blown away. I’m buzzing to see what she’s going to do next.”

Katie will get the chance to share the stage with Sammy and more Irish rising stars at The Road To The Great Escape, coming to various venues in Dublin in May.

“I can’t wait,” she enthuses. “I’ve only been to Dublin once and that was for a squash tournament! I just saw the hotel, the squash club and the airport – so I’m excited to go out in Dublin, and play a show there. It will be sick. I’ve got family from Ireland and I love it. I feel like we have a connection.”

While the months ahead are likely to be monumentally busy ones for Katie, working towards an album remains a central focus.

“I worried that, with travelling so much, and all this insane stuff happening in my career, I would struggle to write,” she confides. “But it seems to be having the opposite effect. I’m really writing a lot right now, and I’d love to make a record – so that’s the goal.

“Six months ago, my goal was to get a song on Radio 1, which I did,” she adds. “But now, my ambitions have skyrocketed in so many ways. The things that were dreams or abstract ideas before are now realistic goals. I’ve achieved in the last five months more than I thought I would have in 10 years.

“My main goals are now attached to how I’m writing and working instead of awards or festivals,” she concludes. “I’m just so excited to see what’s going to happen, because honestly, who knows? What these last five months have shown me is that I have no clue!”

• songs written for piano is out now. Katie plays The Road To The Great Escape in Dublin (May 8 & 9)