The Katanas: On A New Road

We are used to seeing child stars who grow up in the public gaze having found fame in their early years, end up as a footnote of an era, film or television series, unless of course they are grounded to reality. In the company of Hope and Millie Katana who found fame as 14-year-olds on Waterloo Road [television series], it is immediately apparent that not only are these two young women rooted, they exude maturity and awareness beyond their age.

Mar 2018

We walked in during soundcheck as they were going over the material for their performance later that evening at 53two in Manchester. The event was Terminology, a music initiative for young people organised by Lisa Ellis of Brink Productions and the Katanas were the headline act. The Katanas have been signed to a major record label and have played Glastonbury, so their presence at this event, amongst young aspiring artists was further testament to their humility. “This is where we started" - Millie tells us. Indeed the Katanas left acting behind at age 16 to follow their music career.

The gig was a success, with sophisticated music. A far cry from your average chart-chasing or views-chasing artist. At one point in the performance, technology got the better of one the musicians when his iPad, containing his sheet music, turned off. Most singers would freeze in such situations, make excuses or try telling jokes but the Katanas? Broke into an impromptu jam session of Michael McDonald's “I Keep Forgetting” and Chaka Khan’s “Ain’t Nobody” with such ease of improvisation, it was a joy to witness. Everything about the Katanas says they have a clear sense of direction and a firm grasp on reality, on top of being two outstanding artists. It was the source of this assuredness that JS was eager to explore when we sat down in conversation in the main dressing room.

Interview

Millie: When I go back to Bolton, we go to dinner parties. I have to go ready with my banter boots on because we’ll be getting bantered and I better be ready for it.
Hope: You can’t be upset with the bantering.
Millie: No you can’t. Everyone needs a bit of a roasting sometimes. It brings you back down to earth. When you come over and your friend says don’t wear that you look fat. That’s rude. That’s not shady, that’s rude, and lets get that right. But everybody needs a bit of a roasting every now and then [Laughter]
Millie: I’m an entertainer me.
Hope: Yeah, I’m an entertainer.
Millie: I’m an old school entertainer.
Hope: A singer is someone who just shows up and sings, doesn’t ask to change sounds of the keyboard, nothing. There’s nothing-musical going on, they just turn up and sing, that is a singer. A musician is somebody who comes and knows I don’t want you to play that I want you to play an organ or an symphony and I don’t like that sound in this song, whatever, that’s a musician. An entertainer is someone who does singing the music and the entertaining.
Millie: It was a very difficult journey for us, it went on for a long time. We came back from America and we said we want to start again. So we went on YouTube and we found beats that we liked and then we started messing about with them. We contacted the producers, there’s a guy we worked very closely with now called...
Hope: Urban Nerd. We’ve made some crazy music off YouTube.
Millie: It’s fantastic.
Hope: Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t make music and go on Youtube and do it.

The Katanas Photo credit: Ian Valentine

JS: Your album… You’ve done this whole album by yourself?
Hope: EP, yes.
JS: Just you two?
Both: Yes
JS: There’s no features, nothing?
Millie: Maybe one. Basically, we’ve written our EP ourselves, its got all of our music on it. We’ve produced some stuff. Co- produced with Jupiter Chivver. We’re hoping for one colab with a guy called Nick Grant and he is like a conscious woke American rapper. It’s beautiful, but you need to listen to his music if you’ve not heard his music. We’ve worked with him before and we hope to work with him again.
Hope: I think as an artist you have to come to a point where you realise that you either have to have some mad self belief in yourself and understand that you alone can carry you to what you dream of. Whether that be financial riches or whether it’s touching people’s souls; you have to come to that realization. What you are bringing to the table, is your your own bread, I am the talent, Millie is the talent. We are ourselves.
Millie: Nothing happens if we don’t do it.
Hope: It doesn’t happen, you can’t make me sing music. So you’ve got to realise and come to a point that you just know that these big companies, yeah they could give you money, they could give you loads of money but can also change me and mold me into something I don’t want to be and I’m proud of this music. I don’t make music for money, I make music for it's my therapy and I want the world to hear it. Means a lot to me. So yeah we might be a headache to big companies. Because we are mad.
Millie: People think it’s rude to say that the Katanas are crazy, no we are crazy, we absolutely are.
Hope: We write songs like Jupiter.
Millie: That sh*t’s crazy. But in a great way. I don’t think I know anything other than music in this world. There’s nothing I’m good at other than this. I’m obsessed with it and with that being said of course we’re a handful. Not handful like we’re diva’s. Not divas, but I know what we want.
Hope: Honestly I think maybe we would be a handful for companies, maybe they’d be like oh the Katanas are a headache but not in a headache way where they’re saying that they want blue MM’s, only blue MM’s in a bowl and nobody can give them eye contact. In the way that I don’t like that visual, I don’t like the musician that you’ve got with me, I don’t like how that sounds because we are full on. We are full on. We are like that but that’s because we are good at our job. I pride myself about being good at my job. That’s what I like; being a professional means a lot to me pride myself off it.
Millie: We write everything.
JS: But your not adverse to taking a few lines from or a piece of a chorus or borrowing a melody, are you?
Millie: The thing is, I think there’s such a thing as lazy writing. I'm not a lazy writer, neither is Hope.
Hope: No.
: But we like putting other songs in our songs like in Paradise. We have a chorus from the Gorillas [sings] so we like putting in. We like it because it’s kinda like saying thank you. I know that the Gorillas is not here, but in my way it like thank you so much because without that piece of music, this piece of music wouldn’t exist. Paradise really, if it wasn’t for the Gorillas, listening to the Gorillas, we wouldn’t have been brave enough to make that. It’s a weird song. It’s a weird song we’re talking about the devil knocking at your door asking to take you to, if you give me paradise, whatever, and to get to paradise you’ve got to be scared, it’s a weird song but because of the Gorillas we had to put that in there. It’s a homage.
Millie: It’s a salute to my boys. Yeah so we loved the Gorilla’s, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Michael McDonald. I love different artist for different reasons. Like we’re obsessed with the past, maybe we are a bit stuck in the past but there’s only a few people to me holding it down right now. I can shout em out, I always shout em out, Childish, Gambino, Thundercat amazing. There’s some people out here doing...
Hope: Moonchild.
Millie: Moonchild. If you don’t know who Moonchild are, please, if you like our music go and listen to them. I was on the plane home from somewhere and I went onto the relaxation list for music and I came across this artist and I thought the world needs to know more about Moonchild
Hope: It's amazing, Moonchild.
JS: When I asked you what you were listening to, I was not expecting that but hoping that it would give me a basis as to why your music is the way it is. Now I got that piece of the puzzle great. Now, what else was happening then in the UK?
Hope: I loved Lamar, D’you remember Lamar. He was amazing.
Millie: I went to everyone of his tours.
Hope: He was the best show I ever went to. He was British and a black man, a british man, full band and I mean like a 20-piece band at the Apollo. That was the first live concert I ever saw. Imagine that impact on my life as a kid. I couldn’t believe it.
Millie: And Estelle. When I was growing up, Estelle was really big for me. Because she was a woman and she was saying topics that were really gritty, strange and real and I just really respected her as an artist. I loved her so much and she was a big inspiration for us as kids.
JS: Thank You

Millie and Hope are Katana, musically and emotionally…. reflective of today’s millennials.

What first comes to mind is two women whose voice is solid in volume. They speak with conviction. Proud of their northern roots, they speak fondly of what they describe as the indoctrination from their mother in terms of artist such as Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin and other greats. This set the foundation of their passion for music from their early years to growing older and exploring other genres and developing what could be described as an eclectic appreciation of different sounds that they have infused in their words “played homeage” in their music.

The Katanas: On A New Road

Interview

Millie speaks candidly of the need and importance of banter. “You’ve got to have banter”, Hope quickly finishing off by adding, “it’s what gets you through”

Throughout the interview this quickly identified as evidence of just how close they are, finishing each other’s sentences, although it was obvious that Millie appears to be the more outspoken of the two.

It’s perhaps why it was equally if not more impressive to learn that their confidence in their abilities, is such that they will not allow themselves to be comprised.

How refreshing to hear both Millie and Hope speak of themselves “we know what we like, we have good ears”. No dancing on poles, half naked for them. This speaks directly against the current industry’s commercial trend of manufactured goods over natural talent.

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