Kim – Let’s talk about your releases.
Kate – You know I’ve been independent the whole time. I have six records. The first one is a worship record. Then I did this great record called These Could Have Been My Greatest Hits. It was a compilation of all of these demos I’d done for major labels. I thought, “You know, these are great songs and they’re never going to hear the light of day, and they’re not Christian…” But it was just a blast of a record. Then I did Live From the Strip. That is the record that has been the cornerstone-type model record. It’s gone all around the world. It was five years ago and it was live, done at the Roxy on Sunset in LA and it is just amazing. It’s totally a worship service, but it rocks. It got great reception. Then, not long after I made that record, I found out that my mom had terminal brain cancer. That is what inspired The Old Hymns My Mom Loves. I wanted to just make a CD or just a cassette for her of guitar and vocals just to help her. All of my friends heard about it and wanted to play on it and it ended up being an amazing record. Then I had the idea of “OK, we might as well press it up and sell it.” And then I thought “You know, I’ll give all of the money to my dad, who is being hit with medical bills.” It ended up that that record covered every medical bill that my mom had. It was amazing. A couple of years later I thought I needed to make a record for my dad. So for his birthday I surprised him with Old Hymns My Dad Loves. The first thing he said to me was, “Do you know something I don’t know?” He thought that found out he was dying or something. Then I did some EP records, so that’s six, on my own, and then I signed with Floodgate Records and it’s been incredible. I signed last April – well, I said yes last April (2004) and then it took me until October to actually commit. I’ve been independent for so long I kept wondering why am I doing this? But I signed the contract in October and by December, actually before Christmas, we had tracked nine songs. The street date is June 14th and this record rocks! The real thing about this record is that in April I had vocal cord surgery and they said that I might never sing again. I got this deal and then I didn’t know if I’d ever sing again. Most of the songs were written either in the silence or as a result of the silence. So it’s really been a masterful God thing. You know, just letting it out and giving me the songs. I’m not really a prolific writer. I write, and when I write a song it’s generally good, but I don’t sit around and write all day. I have too many children and too much laundry to do. I had eight weeks to write this whole record and I’ve never been involved in anything like that before. But we did it. The songs are great and it’s totally a concept record. It chronicles the journey of being the Prodigal Martha, which is the doer. You remember Mary and Martha? Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet and Martha was busy doing the work of the Lord, but she’d forgotten to just sit still. I realized that all that I was doing – all good and noble things – family, ministry, all of that stuff … somehow I had let being still slip away. So I’m the Martha. Prodigal Martha – it’s my return back to the stillness. Ironically, it’s this hard driving rock record. But it starts in that really broken place. The chorus of the title track goes “Father I know it’s here. It’s been so long since I’ve sat at your feet, will you recognize me?” It’s a great journey. I think it’s quite relevant for people in the church. I believe that we all get hung up in that. We’re all doing good work. It’s not like I slipped and went into prostitution and had a heroin addiction. I just kept doing ministry things.
Kim – Staying so busy doing the work of God that you forget to just spend time with Him.
Kate – Yes. And that’s not the will of the Lord for any of our lives. I mean, we certainly have seasons and what-not – times of “nose to the grindstone” stuff. But when we get to the point that we forget to just sit at the feet of our savior, we’re going to get screwed up.
