Meet Katie Gregson-Macleod, the singer finding strength in independence
After going viral, getting signed to a major and then dropped by them, the Scottish singer discusses comeback single ‘Teenage Love’, finding solid ground and gaining a new balance to her writing
Katie Gregson Macleod’s new single ‘Teenage Love’, her first since splitting from her major record label, has been in the works for many years.
The propulsive and affecting indie-rock song has been alongside the Scottish singer-songwriter when she went turbo-viral with the track ‘complex’ in 2022, through the major label signing that followed, and then the split that followed.
It’s fitting, then, that it was finished and released as the first song of her new era at new label home Last Recordings on Earth, the brainchild of Matt Maltese. The song began life in 2022 before being discarded, just to feel like “the perfect home” for a disembodied outro section that was written last year, MacLeod tells Rolling Stone UK.
“I see benefit in honouring those past songs, even if I wouldn’t choose to say any of those things the same way today,” she says. “I think that it still has value, and I’m constantly trying to separate myself enough to allow those moments to breathe and to evaluate.”
Listen to ‘Teenage Love’ and read our Play Next interview with Katie Gregson MacLeod, about the new single, the restriction and subsequent freedom of her time at a major label, what comes next and more, below.
You can also listen to our brand new Play Next playlist, featuring MacLeod and other artists recently featured in the series, below.
‘Teenage Love’ started being written in 2022 – what’s the story of the song between then and being released this year?
After I wrote it, it landed in a pile of songs while I was at the label that were just there but never going to get tapped into. I always really loved it, and we played it on tour. After that, I felt like I grew out of it. It often happens – you write something in a very specific time period and then you leave that person behind, or that time period behind, and it no longer feels authentic. Six months later I wrote what became the outro to that song, and those six months felt like a lifetime for me because that whole period of my life was really crazy and I was experiencing lots of new things the first time.
It wasn’t until the end of last year when I was on tour with Nina Nesbitt that I was experimenting with the idea that ‘Teenage Love’, that song from two years ago, might actually be the perfect home for this outro. It was all based around a certain chapter in my life, and a certain tone that worked together. I played it for these three shows with Nina and then a video from one of them actually got quite a lot of attention. It made me think, ‘Oh, maybe this is actually does work’.
Are you often re-evaluating your past selves and the songs that person wrote, to maybe bring them back into the present, or was this unusual?
It’s not linear. I’ll have days or weeks where I’ll hear one of those old songs and I’ll love it. ‘Oh my gosh, that really has legs’, or that really speaks to me. Other days, you’re like, ‘Who was that? I wouldn’t make any of those choices!’ The thing about ‘Teenage Love’ is that I never went off it as a song. I never felt like I disagreed with the lyrical choices or the tone or the feeling of the song. It was just that it wasn’t exactly a song that I had this tight grip on needing to put out on my album.
The outro helped give it new life and helped me see in a different way and as a much more cathartic song. The outro says a lot of the things that the bulk of the song didn’t. It’s pretty brutal, points fingers and it keeps things very direct. I see benefit in I honouring those past songs.
What was the process of splitting with your label like, and how did it affect both your creativity and your life as a whole?
I compare it to the end of a relationship that you know wasn’t working. Neither of us are happy. When you leave that, there’s an anxious moment. But then the relief of being able to do whatever I wanted on my own timeline. I literally felt like I’d been asleep for two years, or like this whole part of me had been laying dormant and was suddenly reignited. It was this creativity, this spark, this excitement again for the first time in a long time. That wasn’t all because of the label, but that was quite a big trigger for me.
Literally within a week [of the split], the plan was set in motion and the people were on board, and it just felt so easy. I was like, ‘This is how it should have felt the whole time.’ It was nice to have a moment of being able to look back at my work over the last couple of years and work out what I want to lead with. A record about love, made in the way that it was made, just felt like the right kind of moment.
Was there a lot of pressure to follow-up the viral success of ‘complex’ when you signed to the label?
Yeah, I think so. When I was signed, I was signed with one song, this song that had done more than I could imagine. Although this crazy whirlwind is an amazing feeling, it’s external validation on this mega scale. When you go into it was one song, people can fill in the blanks as to what the rest will look like and what the journey will look like. I felt like I was constantly concerned with trying to explain who I was and what I would be, and there was a lack of cohesion in the vision with the label. ‘complex’ was one song and it could have gone a million different directions afterwards, and then we just didn’t agree on what the direction would be. That’s not to say it was like it was all them or all me, it was just a very confusing time and a very weird creative and emotional fallout from a very unnatural experience.
What then made you feel able to sign again with Last Recordings on Earth? Were there things you knew needed to happen differently?
I wasn’t even looking at labels. To be honest, I was like, ‘Give me a break!’ I’d come out of a really crazy couple years. Although it wasn’t a long time, it was a really transformative time in my life. So I felt exhausted. I wanted to do this independently, on my own terms, and I wanted to dictate everything and not have anyone to answer to for a while. [The offer] came out of left field. I knew Matt and have done for a couple of years. He was my first ever writing session. After ‘complex’, we wrote a song called ‘White Lies’ together.
We had a coffee and he ran the idea by me. I think if it wasn’t Matt, then I don’t think I would have been signing with anyone. It wasn’t like I was shopping around with this [new material]. I was quite tired of trying to explain myself or explain where I’ve come from and what I want to do. Even with Matt, I was like, ‘Is this really soon to be in relationship again?’
The first date afterwards is always a hard one…
‘Am I rebounding?!’
Matt shares your experience of being dropped by a major label, after his debut album, Bad Contestant – did that help him understand your experience?
Exactly. He knows that I’m stubborn and driven and I write my own stuff and have quite a strong vision of these things. His experience of major label [system] means that he’s able to understand the level of input that’s needed, when it’s not needed and the role that he should be playing. He’s got nothing to prove as a musician – he’s one of the best songwriters that we have – and his experience at the label definitely informs his ability to do this. That compatibility there is a huge thing and we definitely agree on a lot of things.
You’ve also recently moved to Glasgow from London – was that a decision made in tandem with leaving your label and because of it?
It just worked out that way. It was crazy going into this year, waking up in Glasgow in a new empty flat, just bare bones, while at the same time going into this new chapter with the [new] label. It felt like Kismet a little bit, but it didn’t happen purposefully. I came out of my old label in March last year, and everything always moves slower – you know what it’s like in the industry. Everything’s always just waiting and waiting and waiting for something. I remember I was signing the contract with the new label and moving up here the same day I was finishing ‘Teenage Love’. One day when all this stuff fell together. It was bizarre!
How was the process of writing after your label split, and what can you say about what’s coming next?
I was working for the last few months of being on the major label as though they weren’t there. That was the only way that I could write effectively. I was writing for my album. Things had been coming together for a while. My sonic direction was something that I had really strongly in my mind, but not been achieving with the label. When I was dropped, it wasn’t a huge shock to the system in some respects – my objectives remained the same. I wanted to finish writing the album and I wanted to land on this feeling and music that I hadn’t landed on yet.
With the music that’s upcoming, it was quite a nice re-entry into the world of recording and releasing. It was all these songs about love that I’d written while I was on the label, and they fitted nicely together. Diving into the album straight away was quite a big undertaking, especially with how shaky the ground had been, so I felt like this was the perfect re-entry and sonically a chance to experiment with the world that I wanted to work within. It’s a stepping stone, and every little thing I do is a movement towards where I want to be, and, and this new music is my first step towards that album world.