Artist Interview with Sophie from Sophie & Nate

Kaz Harding had the incredible opportunity to sit with Sophie, from Sophie and Nate, in an artist interview, all about their latest and upcoming releases.

In the interview, they discuss:

• The development of Sophie’s musical journey and how she got to where she is today..
• How she experienced and overcame some of her vulnerabilities surrounding singing..
• How Sophie transitioned from a corporate world in the legal industry to a full time career in music
• The releasing process and experience that Sophie and Nate went through
• How COVID has effected their process and life through this period

What it was that first got you into music?

I actually used to sing a lot as as a child and was really into the Bette Midler era of time and would always have old singers playing around our house. I was in every possible choir that I could get my hands on as a child and then in about year nine, I moved to a co-ed school. I was at a girls school for a couple of years and then went there and I think my voice kind of dropped. I’ve got quite a low voice now and I was a soprano before that. I was like, ‘oh, I don’t like this gravelly sounding voice’, at the time and stopped singing completely.

I love public speaking and getting up on stage whenever I can but the idea of singing just really terrified me and then I just stopped doing it for years for probably about 10 years. Maybe four years ago or so, my cousin who I used to sing with when I was 10.. She she convinced me to get up at one of our family do’s and we did a little acoustic duo with the two of us. It was the first time I sang again and I really loved it. It was really exciting so I started slowly doing that.

Then I met my partner who is Nate of Sofie and Nate. He sent his apologies today.. He was a singer-songwriter and we met actually, at a garage sale of one of my friends, who is also an incredible singer. She was someone who knew from me from early high school and so she was like, ‘yeah, let’s jam some songs together’.. I was feeling particularly bold that day so I was singing along as well and so was Nate. He was new to the city and so we were like, ‘let’s start a band’. It was very platonic and we were really good friends for a while.. then we moved in together, fell in love, but now we’ve been dating and playing music together for the last two and a half years.. so yeah, that’s my singing journey

Something you touched on at the start was public speaking.. So many people would be so afraid of getting up there to public speak.. How do you think the fear with getting up and singing was different to the public speaking?

Yeah, it was quite bizarre because I was always a very confident child and adolescent, and loved the idea of any kind of singing event.. I was like, ‘I’ll do it’.. It’s like ‘wonderful.. I get to just chat at random to random.. so they have to listen.. wonderful’ but then singing to me.. It just had this sense of vulnerability and a chance of getting it wrong, which I know feels so ridiculous saying it out loud now, but it felt like a really different sense of self.

I also think probably being trained a lot as a child and being in particular choirs as well, I just could feel that my voice wasn’t particularly right and the little semi-tones that were off, instead of thinking ‘oh, that sounds unique and interesting’, I’d be like ‘oh, no that’s that’s incorrect’, as opposed to actually, taking it and running with that.

I was fine with any kind of karaoke or joke singing in the car, but it would always be as loud as my group of friends can be seeing Shania Twain.. but as opposed to actually doing something which I felt as a really vulnerable experience.. singing.. which is quite bizarre given my my whole family is very musically inclined.

We actually have a family musical thing every year, as our family reunion. We have about 100 people come to this little music at Macca’s and everybody has a time slot to sing and play music. It’s great..

What what was it that made you decide to become a full-time musician?

My background is pretty different.. I did politics in my undergrad and I did law after that, at Melbourne Uni. Through that time, I was looking at doing human rights law and the idea of going to The Hague and prosecuting against war crimes.. just light stuff.. and towards the end.. I always absolutely adored school and I really loved uni, but I went straight through the the six years without breaking anything up or having the gap year or doing anything like that.

At the end, I always secretly wanted to be an actress and singer and all that kind of a thing, but I was like ‘no, I’ll just do that on the side’ and never ended up actually pursuing any of that. Then for a few years I worked for Amnesty in London and the Refugee Center in Sydney and a few bits and pieces like that, including a tech for disability startup that’s based in Sydney for a couple of years.

I’m 28 now and so probably started about it maybe two years ago just doing a few casual gigs on the side with Nate and then more and more.. I was like ‘this is the time to give something a whirl, if I actually want to try this.. and it’s not a side hustle.. it’s too hard to actually be creative in working a nine-to-five job and then coming home and doing an hour at night. I really applaud people that do it, but for me I think I was trying to still do that ‘no, I can do this’ and then for one hour, ‘right, we’re being creative now.. we’ve got a half an hour slot let’s go’. Surprisingly nothing came out of that.

We did our cover gigs around Sydney for a while, but never really wrote anything and I think again, that vulnerability of writing something as well and then that thought of immediately putting something out there and people being like ‘no, I’m not very into it’ and you’re like ‘okay, that’s fine.. sure.. it’s great.. oh god.. I’m caught me up in it’, as opposed to being like ‘I enjoy writing and singing songs and that needs to be enough.. and enjoy just the process of it’.

I transitioned working a bit in film towards the end of last year and we were earning kind of our full-time wages, being musicians and and doing bits and pieces of acting work as well, up until of course COVID-19, where you’re like ‘oh, stability in jobs sometimes is fun’. It’s been a bit of a nightmare recently.

What has your experience been through COVID-19?

Originally, we were planning on moving overseas, so we actually packed up and packed up out of Sydney and with the plans to move to Canada in February and went away for maybe three weeks to write music, which we ended up writing our core group of songs then, in Kangaroo Valley at a friend’s place. Unfortunately we started the isolation just a little bit too early and we’re like ‘we don’t want to speak to anyone.. we don’t want anybody in our grill’ and it was just before everything happened. We’re like ‘would have been really great to get in those last couple of hangouts with friends’.

After that, we ended up going down to Victoria and thought about the idea of moving back to Melbourne, which is where a lot of my cool group of friends are. That’s taken us on various journeys of things of about to move into a house and then everything in Melbourne happened. We were planning on getting our things out of storage in Sydney and went back up there and then thought, ‘we can’t really go back to Melbourne because the borders are now closing’, so we wanted to make sure we stay isolated somewhere. It’s taken us up to Queensland where my brother lives. I get the positive chance of actually meeting my nephew and being the only one in the family that’s able to meet my nephew for the first time, who’s four months old and gorgeous. We’re going to stay in Queensland, I think, until the end of the year, which is an incredibly lucky spot to be right now.

What’s your creative process.. As a couple, is there somebody that’s more involved with the songwriting?

Well, all of the songs that we did previous to the COVID era of time were songs that Nate had written and also written the music for and then since that time, when we went down to Kangaroo Valley and started writing together, it’s been pretty much Nate at the the actual process. Nate is usually fiddling around with the guitar.. He’s an incredible guitarist and will be playing various things and he might come up with a particular riff and melody and then usually from there I’ll do the the lyrics and and the melody of the actual the actual song.

Most of the ones we’ve actually got out at the moment have been ones that have just come out within a 15-minute period. I think that’s how both of us have decided the way that we like to write the most. It’s like it just comes out.. we press record on the on the phone recorder and then we just see how it goes for 20 minutes and then just stop it and then type up all of the lyrics. I’m like ‘oh, cool.. that’s what I was saying.. oh good’. We’ll workshop them a bit from there or ‘that makes no sense at all.. let’s change things.

It’s really collaborative and Nate’s heavily involved as well, with that writing part.. for instance, ‘Lonely at Heart‘ was one of the ones that was particularly collaborative because it came out of a few lines that were just the chorus. Then we went back and he started playing the actual verses. All I could think of then, was just about maybe six or seven verses. Nate was like ‘we need to cut this down Sophie.. this can’t be a ten minute song’. Then we went back to a bit more of a structure and cut and pasted a few things within that one.. and for instance ‘So Much Safer‘, which is something that we’ve put up on our Instagram but we haven’t recorded it yet. That was a song that Nate wrote the lyrics for and the music for.

It’s been a bit of a give and take of a few things and there’ll be a few songs that I record on my phone and then I come back to him and he’ll do the music for. That’s generally our flow.

Lets jump into the demo that you’ve released.. It’s called ‘Inside: Feelings. There’s a lot of emotions going on in all of the songs. There is quite a theme going on with your songs.. was there a message that you were trying to put across when you put those songs together?

I think that three in particular that we recorded first and as a heads up, if anybody does head to our Spotify, we were planning on getting all of our songs.. so our eight or so songs recorded properly and it was as everything was hitting and jobs.. we work a lot of our freelance jobs as well and all those were going away.. probably not the best time to drop a lot of money on a recording studio. So with the thought of ‘we’re not sure when the next time we’ll actually be able to record’, we were like ‘let’s just do it at home.. we’ll put out some demos out there and and then at least we can feel like we’re progressing and keeping going with the spirit that we really enjoy playing and that hopefully some people connect to the songs’.

So, they’re all done on Garageband at home by Nate but I think each of the songs feel quite different. All of them are coming from quite a genuine space of.. I’m quite a positive person across the board, but I think all of us at this time as well feel dark and lost and confused and unsure what we’re doing with everything. I’m loving all the really positive content that’s coming out during this period of time. That definitely lifts me up and it makes me feel really good.

Some of the songs that are really that kind of feeling but I also think that it’s really important to actually sit in the feelings that we are feeling, which is rubbish a lot of the time and confused and unsure when we’re going to be back on. I think that there’s a lot of really lonely people out there as well right now.. Especially when we think of Victoria at the moment.. of people that live by themselves for instance and don’t have the ability to now go or see anybody at all. It’s sitting in those feelings as well of being like ‘yeah, I’m feeling for you and and it sucks so that’s that’s a part of ‘Lonely at Heart‘ was with with a bit of that in mind of being like ‘I think we all feel that way and I know I certainly do. I think it’s really strong as well to be able to see. I think a lot of the time it’s easy to think that you’re the only one feeling those feelings and to be able to share that message.

You’ve also got some other tracks coming out that you’ve recorded as well.. Would you like to go through those songs? Do they follow on from what you’ve already started creating with your demo?

I think ‘happiness’ in particular was one that very much we were hoping to have recorded, to actually put in that first demo because it’s definitely part of that. I think especially coming from me it felt really quite genuine in a lot of the lost and confusion that I am feeling at the moment, especially with career choices and and what we’re all going on. All of our songs are quite laid back and have that vibe to them, so definitely ‘happiness’ is on that but the other ones have.. oh and ‘So Much Safer’ which Nate wrote, is kind of also on a similar theme of the world.. crumbling around hustle and that feeling of wanting to help and and not really being sure of what you can do in a lot of senses.

‘Hold you too’ and and ‘She knows it’ which are two other ones, are a little bit more of random slightly more upbeat.. as upbeat as Nate and I usually get, but ‘Hold you too’ was probably a little bit of a shout out to some of my girl cousins and some of my best friends that have had this as well of dating guys in our younger years and and being like ‘I know I probably should really like you but I just don’t know why I’m just not really that keen’.. so it’s based on the fact of ‘I just don’t really want to hold you too but I think you think that I’m great and I think that you’re kind of great, so this should kind of work, but just for some reason we don’t.. We’re missing the mark with each other completely here. We are both being like ‘yeah everything’s great.. cool.. wonderful’..

Nate led the the writing of the chorus of this and the theme which was somebody burning the wick at both ends and feeling like they’re quite overwhelmed and always really busy and probably quite frantic.. but also just really loving it and falling into it and being like ‘yes.. I feel like a basket case a bit of the time but you know what? I’m into it’, so maybe a bit of an ode to my vibe.. hard to say but yeah it’s one of my favorite ones. I’m looking forward to actually putting that one out there a little bit more.

When are you planning on releasing those songs?

They’ll be in the next two months. We don’t have an exact date yet but we’ve got the little teasers on our Instagram page now of acoustic chilled versions of them all and then the actual release onto Spotify and Soundcloud.. all the things. It will be in two months, with a date to be confirmed.

The process you’ve been through obviously it’s been a bit different because of COVID but what would you recommend if somebody is watching this and they’re inspired to get out there and release their own music.. What would you recommend to other artists that are looking to do that?

I think like the best advice that I got when I was particularly like ‘oh, we probably can’t release something yet because we need this and we need these other steps and I looked back on a lot of my other experiences with music being like it was always something.. it was ‘I can’t really play guitar very well so I need to wait for that and I need to wait for every little step of the way as opposed to.. I could have very easily reached out to one of my multiple friends that played guitar and were like ‘hey, can you sing a few songs with me?’ and so it was always that next step.

I’d say probably for anybody that wants to release stuff, would be to just record it.. record anything even if it’s on your phone or like a live version on a small mic or whatever it is, as just something to put out there and feel like you’re going to the next stage and then I know for us, it really helped as well when we were gigging full-time. I was quite shocked with how quickly it happened. It went from emailing people and never hearing back from anyone because we just didn’t have any content out there and neither of us are very good with social media. We are very slow on it and barely upload anything and it was like ‘of course we’re not.. we’re not really getting gigs’ and as soon as we just started having a few little bits and pieces in like on a few of the different pages of literally two songs of recording them with our iphone, then by the end of the year, we had gigs every Friday, Saturday night and a few times through the week, and with a couple of weddings or whatever it was in between.

I’d say just like put some stuff out there.. We’re in an incredible era and period of time that we can take a lot of that into our own hands and I’d say also connect with other musicians because the few few gigs that we’ve done with musicians either before or after us playing.. Actually really supporting their work and sticking around for the four-hour show or whatever that you get to listen to incredible artists that have beautiful original music and then that are now like good friends of ours. Then you know when we can’t do a gig, we’ll message them immediately being like ‘oh, we got asked to do this.. do one of you guys want to do it?’ and the opposite way around always happens as well. Things like Sounds On The Couch are so good for that.. even listening to to the girls that played before us on our show a few weeks ago.. It’s been like really lovely seeing Kelsey’s show last week and when she did then her solo show, I was like ‘ah, great.. wonderful’.