Kate Earl On 'Stronger'

My favorite track on the album, that's a hard question to ask... As of today, I think "Loyalty" is my favorite because of the range of the emotions on the track, dynamically, sonically. Between the beginning being very stripped down and delving to that at the end, just surprising you with that. Also the message and the words to the song.

Everyday life. The journey that I've taken over the last couple of years in addition to wanting to portray my own story and my own journey in a way that relates to a lot of different backgrounds.

It was very important for me to talk about self empowerment and embodying one’s own journey without any self pity and without too much of the doubt that comes with the challenges of being a musician and a single mother. It's where I'm at and what's unique to my scenario and taking on the topics in a way that really reflect human experiences such as longing, loyalty or love and not really backing away from any particular details or putting a certain light on things.

We're both from Downtown [Records], so we sat down and we happened to have chemistry right from the get-go and I told him that even though the topic that we're dealing with is really heavy, I felt a lot of freedom — the heavy guitars, the lyrics. And Dennen has a lexicon of words. He had a way to help me craft my songs. The process happened, we met in February and we were done writing by June. We started it at Downtown, and we would start to write the melody and I'd work on the lyrics while he recorded the guitar.

The theme of Stronger is the title. It's to make lemonades out of lemons. I could have cried through this record. This particular moment honestly for me was a time to feel proud of the challenges that I've faced and what I've gained.

I'm kind of a country girl. I grew up in Alaska, by a gas station surrounded by the forest and the sea. I just had so much nature engrained in me and the ability to be outside at any time. It gives you this awareness of how small you are in the universe and how brilliant all of the systems of nature are that work together. I think there's a certain thing that happens in the community where they're very close and that's why community is an important theme for me on this record, in terms of the musicians that I called like Blake Mills, Brett Dennen, Sean Hurley, Zach Rae, Alanis Morissette, Victor Indrizzio, all of them either separately or collectively on different projects for years and years. So it's just really lovely to be a part of it.

Yeah, like I said I'm from a small town from a very far away and cold place, and since I'm here I see how fast the cars drive and actually experience traffic for the first time at a different pace. There are certain things that have affected me, there are many many qualities that I really admire. I enjoy that, and there's a comedy to it so there's definitely a survival mechanism. I wrote the song "California" about being in Hollywood and the nonsense and the very real rigors. It's not exactly a parody, but it's a very cheeky take on being a musician here and I think that so many other people can identify who have dreams to do the things that we did and to pursue the dreams that you're not able to do in the town where you come from.