Thursday, September 27, 2012
By John Benson
When then-teenager Katie Herzig decided to pick up the guitar, the first song the Colorado native learned to play was Ani DiFranco’s “Both Hands.”
Though a few years later she would see DiFranco live at a concert in Vail, Herzig never crossed paths with the fiercely independent-minded musician who over the years has dabbled in soul, funk, jazz and electronic music. That is until now, when Herzig opens up for DiFranco on Saturday on the Kent Stage.
“There have been several artists along the way that kind of show you how far you’ve come in certain ways,” said Herzig, calling from Rochester, N.Y. “After seeing her live, I was just in awe and really inspired. I still have memories of the very first Ani show I saw. So when I was asked to do this gig, it’s a little random and far away, but I was like, ‘I think it would be really fun.’”
Perhaps Herzig can pay homage to DiFranco by playing “Both Hands?
“Oh my God, no way,” Herzig said, laughing. “That would be so embarrassing.”
It makes sense that Herzig would find inspiration in DiFranco’s experimental acoustic motif. Such adventure defines the rising Nashville artist’s most recent studio effort, 2011’s “The Walking Sleep.” For the better half of the past decade, Herzig explored the quintessential folk singer-songwriter mold with acoustic guitar-based tracks.
Though heavy record sales eluded the artist, her music didn’t go unnoticed. Herzig’s songs have appeared in television shows such as “One Tree Hill,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Cougar Town,” “Bones,” “Bored to Death” and “Drop Dead Diva.”
However, when it came time to write “The Walking Sleep,” the Music City performer had been listening to everything from Coldplay and Phoenix to Vampire Weekend. What resulted was a sea change of sorts, with Herzig embracing musical boundaries that previously would never have been explored.
“This latest record is one I started out making by just layering strings and percussion and samples of different kinds of digital stuff. It was a marriage of things,” Herzig said. “It’s definitely a lush record.”
The album includes the ukulele-inspired “Wasting Time,” the restless “Make A Noise,” the dynamic “Midnight Serenade” and the drum loop-heavy “Way to the Future.” Basically, Herzig combined digitally programmed sounds with organic instruments to create a fresh musical identity.
Invariably, the one question is whether her cultlike following will welcome the digression. Such is the struggle most artists with longevity have to tangle with at some point in their career. Herzig remains realistic about the relationship with her fans.
“There’s always going to be people who prefer the earlier more-acoustic stuff, and then from what I can tell, a lot of my fans have stuck with me and embraced the change,” Herzig said. “The way it translates live is, it’s still very much these acoustic elements, and there’s always been this thread of like the songs, which is what it all comes down to. But each artist kind of has to have the freedom to let themselves explore, otherwise you’d just drive yourself nuts.”