Little Sparrow (Photo credit: Isabella Pendlebury)
By Jason Barnard
Katie Ware has spent much of her career carrying a name someone else gave her. Guy Garvey used to call her Little Cockney Sparrow back when Elbow were still playing open mic nights, and the name outlasted the joke. Twelve years after her debut album, Wishing Tree, picked up plays on BBC Introducing and 6 Music, she’s finally released its follow-up, Feather Moon, a record that took a house move, a wedding, a second child and a pandemic to finish.
Ware trained in opera as a teenager, then left Cambridgeshire for Manchester, singing first in the all-girl band Daze before she was recruited into the Macclesfield band Marion, who evolved into Headway not long after she joined. She wrote with guitarist Phil Cunningham until he left to join Electronic and later New Order, taking the band’s main songwriting partnership with him. Going solo as Little Sparrow followed, her operatic training reshaped into something closer to folk and fairy tale, pulling from Kate Bush and All About Eve as much as anything traditional.
Feather Moon arrives with the single ‘Follow Me,’ written about leaving Manchester for North Wales, and ‘Tears,’ a song her father, Mick Ware of Czar, wrote in 1984. Ware also talks for the first time about when stage fright nearly took the stage away from her altogether.
You started out in opera and you’ve also mentioned Kate Bush, Tori Amos, All About Eve and The Cure as early touchstones. When you listen back to your own work, where do you hear your influences?
I can hear all of those influences on different tracks right across my back catalogue. I use my operatic training in songs like ‘Sending The Message’ and then on newer tracks like ‘Alone.’ Making use of my higher register. ‘Corner of the Room’ definitely nods its head to Kate Bush and Tori. All About Eve’s influence presents itself in most of my tracks, especially the story telling. Julianne Reagan opened my eyes and ears up to using stories, mythical characters and building a whole narrative. You can write songs about love and hate but theres a whole other world out there too that you can explore creatively. And that really floats my boat!
You were in Marion which evolved into Headway. Can you tell me about that period?
That was an amazing experience in my life. I went from being in an all girl band in Cambridgeshire, to being in this well established Macclesfield band Marion. We were rehearsing most nights, right in the centre of town, on Dale Street. I was loving it! I was living my dream life! I was writing non stop with Phil Cunningham, I loved working with Phil. It was really easy. We were churning the songs out! Unfortunately those tracks never saw the light of day due to Phil joining Electronic, then onto New Order.
We had some great songs, really lively. We even had one that was co-written with Johnny Marr. Johnny and Phil wrote the tune and melody and I wrote the lyrics. A real shame we never got to release any of those tracks.
Your stage name came out of that Manchester scene, with Guy Garvey giving you “Little Cockney Sparrow.” When you think back to those early days around Elbow and that circle, what stayed with you?
Again, those early days were really great. We all felt part of the same club, the same city. We used to do the open mike night at the Down Under Bar. Elbow, the Kloot boys would be there, as well as us (Headway). We all just wanted to live and breathe music. Everyone there felt like family, that’s what stayed with me.
Your 2014 debut album, Wishing Tree, brought together songs written over several years. When you listen back now, does it feel like a document of who you were then?
Yes absolutely. I was finding myself musically over those years. I was changing the way I wrote music. I started approaching it differently. I had become a mother for the first time in 2004 and this had a massive impact on my writing. It actually freed me from just writing from the heart, it allowed me to explore other feelings, characters, different situations and fairy tales.
The album gained support from places like BBC Introducing and 6 Music, which can be a turning point for new artists. Did that early reception change your confidence in the project or the way you saw your path forward?
Yes, having the BBC support what you do is a massive confidence boost! I was pinching myself. It felt like a snowball growing bigger and bigger at quite some pace. I even told my work (I was waiting on at Gaucho at the time) that at long last I would be able to quit my job and do music full time.
However, I then split with my partner, who was the father of my child, right at the height of this period. I had to stay at my work to secure my income since I would be surviving off just my salary. I couldn’t take the risk of leaving work with a child, house and car to finance. This period knocked me for six. I have never spoken out about this before but it was around 2015/2016, that I got stage fright. I was suffering some kind of mental break down or anxiety, or maybe mental exhaustion, I don’t really know what was happening to me but I really struggled going on stage. It was such a horrible period of time for me. I had sung my whole life, I lived and dreamed it and all a sudden I was getting into states about performing live. Thankfully I’m through that now, it lasted about 2 years.
Feather Moon arrived twelve years later. You’ve kept playing live throughout, moved house, got married, had a child. What are your reflections on that period and what does a record that takes that long to exist mean to you?
Half the tracks were written before I had my second child, but once I gave birth to Harry in 2016, I was totally occupied with being a mother. I moved house but I did manage to record the EP – Just 3 in that period and brought that out. Harry was a poorly baby, he was premature and suffered with his health so my focus was on him. Then Covid struck. I think it was possibly this period of time that healed my stage fright. I think a lot of people’s attitudes, outlooks on life changed in covid. It gave us all time to reflect on what mattered and what life was about. It was so exciting being able to play music with the band again when the covid restrictions eventually lifted. It was liberating. I had missed it so much. We were always working on the album throughout this time. It had to fit in around everyones full
time jobs and childcare, so it just took forever. Once the new songs were written, Jonny and I had a new wave of passion for the project and really pushed to get it finished. We could only work on the album when Jonny wasn’t touring or writing with Paul Heaton, so that was another time restricting factor.
Feather Moon was always going to come out, she just patiently waited for the right time.
‘Follow Me’ returns to the idea of being guided or guiding someone else. What sparked that idea?
I moved to North Wales 3 years ago, just over the border, below Chester, it’s an hour away from Manchester. I never thought I would leave Manchester, but we decided to try living in the countryside. ‘Follow Me’ reflects on my life in the city, the place I laid down roots. Its my love song to Manchester. Its about my journey to pastures new, but always thankful to the city for being my guide. Manchester will always remain in my heart.
The video to accompany the track follows my journey through different places in Manchester, to North Wales where I live now.
‘Follow Me’ has a simplicity to it. Was that a conscious choice or did it just come out that way?
Yeah it just came out that way. It nearly didn’t see the light of day. Jonny persuaded me to send it over to him, it took me a couple of weeks to pluck up the courage to send it. (Yeah I still get nervous playing new songs to the band members) Jonny loved it, threw his magic on it and hey presto, it sounded amazing!
‘Tears’ must carry a lot of memory, given your dad wrote it and you grew up hearing it. What did it feel like to step into that song as your own?
It really is a delight to have ‘Tears’ on the album and to sing it at the live shows. My Dad is a huge influence on my music. Growing up with a musical Dad was great, he wrote fun songs, love songs, country songs, crazy songs. It was part of our family life, recording and singing Dad’s songs. My Dad converted the dining room into a studio. It was ace! I just thought it was normal. ‘Tears’ always swept me up into my imagination, I could dream, I really felt the sadness in the song too, it pulls at your heart strings. I loved it, it was one of my favourites that he wrote.
It was like putting on your mums comfy slippers singing this song, it felt great to sing!
Your dad’s journey from Tuesday’s Children into Czar, and then being sampled by Tyler, The Creator decades later, is quite a story. How did your family react when that call came in? Do you think growing up around someone who made music that outlasted its own moment influences how you think about the longevity of your own work?
We thought it was a scam to start with when my Dad received an email from Tyler’s representatives. I have to be honest, I had no idea who Tyler was, so I had to do some research myself. I asked Jonny (Lexus) and he said that Tyler was the Adele of the hip hop world. We all couldn’t believe it to be honest. My Dad was thrilled that someone had found one of his songs. The original song is called ‘Today’ and was released on their Czar LP by Fontana Records in 1970. We have no idea how Tyler came across this track. Tyler used it on the track ‘Puppet’ on his Igor album.
It has definitely made me think that maybe, just maybe, someone will find one of my tracks in the future and want to use that also. That would be great!
‘Moondust’ has a quality between orchestral folk and something more cosmic. How did that sound take shape in the studio?
Yeah, Jonny and I had alot of fun with this track! It was the first track I had written on the piano in quite some time, it came quite quickly and it lended itself to that orchestral sound. We were playing around with different noises one day in the studio, especially in the chorus, the vision was getting clearer and we actually got a bit giddy when we found the right sound for the arpeggios! That elevated the track to a cosmic sound. I was wetting myself with excitement, it was like being a teenager again writing music in your bedroom.
‘Moondust’ is one of my favourite songs I’ve written, and was the song that really brought back the joy of creating. Proper buzzed off it!
Your songs draw on folk textures but don’t always behave like folk songs. How do you think audiences read that when you’re playing live?
Yeah, I’m not traditionally folk, thats true, I just like singing stories, so I think that’s why the word folk is used to describe me. Anyone that comes to see me live will get it when they see me live. It will make sense.
I’m more ‘medieval space folk’, this describes me better.
When you write, you’ve said you go off on your own and come back with something complete. Do the songs arrive fully formed, or do you discover them as you go?
The songs arrive fully formed most of the time, however with the latest songs I have been more open to changes when I send them to Jonny, its been an exciting process. Again, I think shaking it up is healthy, going out of your comfort zone, trying different processes. I’m all up for that!
Even when you’re not writing directly about yourself, there’s a sense that something personal slips through. Are you aware of that happening, or only in hindsight?
Yes totally, I think bits of me are in everything I write. I only know my own feelings in this world. I can guess what someone or something else is feeling and try to portray that creatively, which is a fun challenge to try and create. I find most of my excitement in writing is imagining I’m someone else, or something else, but I will always draw from my own feelings to represent this.
Feather Moon is finally out, made on your own terms as an independent artist. What does the next chapter look like?
Playing more live shows! I would love to do more shows with the full band. Its such an amazing experience to hear us all playing. It’s like being home, a spiritual feeling. At the album launch we even had a guest singer who added some amazing Indian vocals to ‘Dry Your Eyes’, whilst playing his harmonium. Magical! More of that please!
