Formula Indie Sessions _ Interview with Luke Catley
What is your earliest memory connected to music?
Music was always part of the fabric of our home. My mum was a music teacher, so instruments were just there. I remember learning piano notes from books very similar to the ones my own children use now, which feels like a quiet full-circle moment. I was also at church my whole life, so grew up singing and learning songs there every week, being in an enviroment where people were playing music live and it was moving people deeply.
How did your passion for creating music begin?
I don’t remember a moment where it started – it feels like it was always there. Recently my mum found a little chorus I’d written as a child, and it reminded me how fascinated I was by the idea that you could just… write a song. That sense of wonder never really left. I have memories of picking up the song books that we would use to learn the songs in church and learning the chords on my mums old guitar (the one I used to record this project actually) and then thinking that it would be amazing to write my own songs. All through my time in church I wanted to be writing songs that people sung, songs that had emotional weight and were meaningful.
What’s the story behind your current music project?
Over the last decade I’ve been learning how to live with a long-term health condition. It’s not life-threatening, but it’s been life-altering – days and weeks in bed, missed family time, missed weddings, trips, time with my kids, a complete career change, and an ongoing need to live at a different pace than I used to.
Alongside that, my faith has been stretched and unsettled. I now live with more doubt than certainty, and I realised I was existing between things: the old and the new, faith and doubt, hope and despair, dissatisfaction and gratitude.
“The Inbetween” came out of that journey. It’s three songs that walk honestly through hurt, questions, and hope without trying to rush to easy answers, and certainly without addressing the entirety of the experience, but just fragments of it that felt like they fit together as a project.
How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard your music before?
Warm, intimate, guitar led songs, somewhere in the space between indie-folk and singer-songwriter. It’s certainly influenced by the church CCM world, but more lyric driven and emotionally honest that alot of modern CCM. I like to think of some of it as helping say how we really feel, and some being spacious and giving opportunity to breathe rather than be overwhelemed.
What is one thing you’ve learned that completely changed the way you make music?
In the church world we always had a very defined brief; theres a core message, a theme, and there is no need to deviate from that much. As a result I’ve always been fairly song structure focused, and quite literal in my writing. Over the course of the last few years I’ve been learning to write more conceptually and to allow myself to write into feeling rather than fact. It’s totally changed the way I write and has unlocked new depths in my own songs. I’ve become one of those people (who I never used to understand) who says that they are still finding new meaning in their own lyrics after the event of writing them.
What tools, instruments, or software are essential in your creative process?
I use a range of tools. I’ve written on guitar, piano and direct into a DAW (I use logic). Recently alot of my writing time has been quite constrained to I’ve returned to the simplicity of a guitar, me and notebook. Utimately I find I’m happy to use whatever tool I can, but the key thing for my creative process is finding the emotional heart of the idea, once I ahve that I find the ideas can flow via whatever tool is available.
Which indie artist or song are you loving right now?
I recently bought “to everything a season” by The Magic Lantern on vinyl. Jamies craft of song, lyric, story and feeling is really excellent and all packaged up in an album that is absalutely great relaxed dinner party listening.
How have your personal experiences influenced your music and artistic vision?
I have alot of questions about life, and I’ve learned that other people tend to have questions too. The feelings of being unable to explore those questions in other setting have made me really quite determined to create spaces and musci where people can feel welcomed and able to explore their questions, their feelings and themselves without worry.
What emotions or messages do you hope listeners take from your work?
Oh I’ve never thought about the question that way round. I often find I’m hoping that listeners are able connect with what emotion they are already carrying. I guess by the end of my EP I hope listeners are feeling comforted where tehy need it, that life is full of joy even in the pain. That neither joy or pain cancels the other, or makes them invalid. That life is worth exploring and living to our fullest and that its worth living a life we choose, rather than a life lived for us.
What’s the most important lesson music has taught you so far?
Simple is good.
Where can our listeners follow and support your music? (Website,Spotify, IG, links)
You can find me on instagram (@luke_catley) and Spotify. I’m also on bandcamp who I have alot of love for – great for indie artists!
Looking toward the future, what’s your dream for the next chapter of your musical journey?
Right now I want to keep exploring how I right – family life is going through alot of change right now so if I’m able to look back in a few years and know I kept creating, kept finding out about myself and managed to put out more music that feels true and personally meaningful I’ll be really proud of that.
What do you hope listeners will discover about you along the way?
That I have really comfortable socks.
