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Katie Ainge: Her 10 Year Journey To Finding Her Music Identity.

June 19, 2019
Writing a great song is similar to putting a 500 piece puzzle together. There are a lot of little pieces that need to fit purposely together before that puzzle can be whole, seen and appreciated. For over 10 years now, Singer Songwriter Katie Ainge has been fitting words and music pieces together to make great songs and music. The journey into performing and songwriting started for Katie at a young age and has painstakingly piece by piece made her into the unique artist she is today in 2019. Katie Ainge spent her childhood experimenting with various musical instruments and this for her created a deep understanding about how music is constructed. She spent time studying the piano, picking up chords and intervals and all the nuances to building music. She had a short period of time where she tried a woodwind instrument in school band diving into the background of group musicianship and how one instrument contributes to the larger whole. All of these small but influential little experiences would contribute to her knowledge base and comprehension about what music is.
It wasn’t until her teen years that Katie began to put all the pieces together. In 2003 her Rock and Roll Grandpa passed away and this event significantly contributed to her motivation to writing songs and playing music. He was her music idol as he would tell stories of his years playing Bass guitar in bands during the 1960’s Rock and Roll revolution in Akron, Ohio. He would tell of the good times and the rough times and of times working with distinguished musicians he had the chance to play with who would later go on to be well known artists like Joe Walsh and Kenny Rogers. In honor of him, she decided to buy and learn the Bass guitar and found herself quickly exploring Rhythm and Blues, Jazz, and of course, Rock and Roll. Katie wrote her first song, “Walk Away” at age 14. This song explored the possibility of living in Utah and choosing to not be like everyone else in their beliefs. During her High School years she would during the day play Bass in the school’s Jazz band and then at night do rowdy Rock and Roll live concerts with her brother and friends in a band called “Arienette”.
“Arienette” came on the scene when Katie asked her brother, Kenny, to rock the guitar and be a part of a unique compilation of sounds in her band. Katie would write all the songs and then also help everyone develop their ability to putting it all together. They recorded a CD and played to large teen local audiences. Their music was Rock in Roll intense with deep meanings and creative instrumentation. Arienette had one song “There, There” that was over 7 minutes long where everyone in the band played an instrument solo. The song was about the end of the world and waiting for the song to end gave you that sense. Another song during this time, “Drag the Lake” that was popular talked about abduction. Arienette rocked it for a while until Kenny, who worked at a local record shop, started introducing Katie to new and old songwriters like Bob Dylan, Bright Eyes, and Townes Van Sant. At this time she knew she couldn’t keep writing songs on the piano anymore and of course the Bass guitar wasn’t built for songwriting so her  brother, Kenny, taught her the Acoustic and Electric guitar. The music world opened up to her. She began writing songs about everything and everyone around her. During this period her songs were based on her emotional roller coaster life experiences and what she was going through. “Adrenaline” a song about liking someone so much that you can’t get enough of them was one of the songs that Katie wrote during her discovering herself as a person period. One song that says it all for this up and down period in her life happened when a friend was tragically killed in a car accident and everyone had to deal with the raw emotions of losing this person forever in their lives. She wrote “The Hardest of Fights” in memory of him and that song would become the title song and theme of her first solo album.
After the “Hardest of Fights” album release Katie began playing music in coffee shops, restaurants, all types of venues, with just her guitar and voice. She spent the next few years trying to find out who she was as a person and as a musician. She found faith in a higher power and started leading Sunday worship at a local non-denominational church. She found peace in the worship music and started writing Christian music to share on Sunday with her congregation. This lead to her 3 rd CD a Christian Solo album entitled, “Then Sings my Soul.” This album was inspiring and brought about a “Song of the Year” for her masterpiece, “He is Here”. The best experience to come out of this time would lead her to three years on the road touring all over the United States with a non- profit Christian Missionary group called, “The Extreme Tour”. She would perform for at- risk teens and Church groups all across America. She would share her Faith, Love and her Music. Daily live spontaneous performances were customary and would lead to Katie establishing her stage presence and allowing downtime for songwriting. After returning home from touring, Katie would write and record two more albums. The first album “Now or Never” would have the song “Fond of You” on it and would be featured in 2018 in the hit TV show “The Fosters” Season 5 Episode 18. The album “Thrive” she recorded in Oklahoma with Producer Don Johnson (Emma Lou Harris) and it has a rich instrumental sound that she doesn’t usually have when she performs live. “Thrive” was an album of hope. She wrote the songs believing that there is a reason to hold on in life and keep moving forward. In the fall of 2017 a life changing moment happens. A music friend contacts her to play in his Americana band and she says yes.
Katie really wasn’t a listener of Folky type of music or was she very familiar with what it was all about. She had mostly been a little bit of Rock and Roll, a little bit of Pop, and a little bit of Christian, so far in her career. But this Americana band needed her to learn the mandolin and she quickly picked it up, along with lead vocals and occasional acoustic guitar playing. As Katie started to perform regularly with this band over a period of a year and half she found herself maturing as an artist. No longer was she writing about love and angst but about adult life and the things that mattered around her. She wrote songs about her family, her home, her struggles, books and TV shows, anything that brought about thought and underlying deep emotions. The word came easy but she now had to maneuver that Pop Rock sound to an Acoustic Americana sound with strong touches of bluesy guitar and catchy rhythms. She listened and studied other artists in this genre and began feeling her way through what she believed Folk Americana music is. The more she played and learned about Folk music the more she realized this is what she wanted her music sound to be like. Not to be flippant, but she had finally found her soul music  where she could not only write words that fit this genre but also the music was the right fit for her. The pieces had finally come together making the picture whole.
Over 10 years had passed since Katie Ainge seriously started on her journey from who she was as a Singer Songwriter to who she is now as a Singer Songwriter. She believes now that all of the many years and the many pieces finally fit together shaping her into the Americana Folk artist she is at this point in her life. Not only on stage but when writing songs. Katie recently released her first try at her new sound of Acoustic Americana Folk songs in a three song EP called, “Ashes”. The song “Ashes” was written after binge watching “The Walking Dead” and experiencing the death of a favorite character. There are many more songs to come as she is furiously writing and recording at this time. You can find all of Katie Ainge’s music to stream and her new EP on Spotify, Itunes, Apple, Pandora, and her website, 

She was featured in recently released Lifoti's June 2019 influencer issue, you can check it from below link's for your country:

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