If we know anything about Britain, it’s that some incredibly talented musicians come from across the pond and this next singer and songwriter is a prime example of that. Georgia Ku has been in the music industry for a hot minute now. She has written for the likes of Fifth Harmony, Dua Lipa & Martin Garrix, Rita Ora and she also wrote and sung on the hit song “So Close” by NOTD. Georgia Ku is a talented musician to keep an out for in the coming months. Ku just released her debut EP on Atlantic Records and we had the chance to chat with Ku about her new music and much more!
Let’s start off with you being from England and now you live in Los Angeles. Talk about the music scenes in both places.
Where I’m from, it’s weird cause London is the capital. So for me, whereI’m from I can get to a certain level of music and then it’s time to take the next step and move to London and be more submerged in the bigger city because that’s where you get the feel for more real life and everything. The hustle for me more so started when I moved to London because I moved when I was 18 and I went there and continued studying music. I’ve already studied music for two years in Newcastle and then moved to London and studied for another year. For me, London was definitely one of the stepping stones I needed to make in order to finally move to America.
How would you say both places influence your music?
I wouldn’t say it’s the place itself, for Newcastle it was more my family. My dad was a big music listener, he had a very neclective mix of music growing up. I was introduced to everyone from Diana Ross to Stevie Wonder to Oasis, all across the board at a very young age. I was brought up from a very young age listening to a variety of different music. It was more so my dad who influenced me a lot. I don’t know why but I just loved singing and performing at a very young age and my dad always knew that I could sing because I would sing nursery rhymes, so he knew when I was very young that I could sing. For London, kind of what I said before, it kind of distanced me to go for what I wanted even more, there’s a lot of people trying to do the same thing, so I was doing everything to set myself apart from others, kick myself to reach my goals of what I wanted, because it’s very easy to get lost in a big city like that. I think I had to conquer London first in a way to get ready for Los Angeles.
Now you’re finally getting ready to release your debut EP, what does that feel like finally putting out a body of work for the world to listen to?
It feels amazing. I’m so excited. I was actually saying before, in a way I’m grateful I’ve had more time in the last few months to focus on my goals and what I wanted to get out and get things finished faster. Having those deadlines is nice cause it makes you work even harder and makes you put everything into that work. I was already doing that but having to learn how to work remotely and work with collaborators remotely, I was just so grateful to have technology to be able to do this. I’m really proud of this body of work, from the minute I wrote them, the very starting process to the very end of mixing and mastering, I put everything into this EP. I’m proud because it really is very specific and very real to me and my experiences and stories. That’s what makes me love it the most.
You named the EP “REAL,” after the song. What about that song inspired you to name it after it?
To be fair, I was thinking about the project as a whole and I felt like not only that song being one of the focused songs as the title of the EP, but more so thinking about the whole body of work and knowing that all of them are very real and very authentic. I just felt like it was the perfect simple word to sum up the whole project. It was very easy and was a no brainer and I think when things come to you like that, it just makes the most sense and feels right.
What was it like putting the EP together especially during quarantine?
Luckily the majority of the songs were all written, most of them were finished, there were some tweaks that I needed to do and there were some second verses and bridges I needed to write on a couple of them. But, I’m grateful I have my own set up at home, so I’m able to record everything myself, so that definitely made everything a lot easier. Every single one of my songs has a different collaborator on it, so I’m super thankful to each one of them who really put the time to push through and knock all of them out in such a short time span. Even with the mixing and the mastering, really setting aside the time to listen to every aspect of it, to see exactly how I wanted it to sound. It’s super important for me to include everyone in each of these processes’s, so I would make sure everyone was on board and check in to see how all my collaborators felt about the mix. It was really cool because even though we’re all doing it remotely, everyone was a team, even with my label and market and management and A&R, everyone working together remotely shows how powerful it can be when everyone comes together and puts their head down and work hard.
Do you have a favorite song off the EP?
I don’t know, that’s a hard one. I love all of them honestly. Even when I would listen to my mixes, I thought, would I listen to this myself? I want this to get to a place where I want to listen to it over and over again. Normally I’m sick of listening to my own voice by the time songs come out but with these I wanted it t to be a body of work where I myself was excited to listen to it. Every single one of them holds a special place in my heart, they’re all very close to me. They’re all different I love “Big Plans,” because I love the intimacy of the song itself and it’s not overly produced. We purposely didn’t over produce it for that reason, we wanted to keep it more intimate. That’s definitely a favorite. “Hold Me Close” is another one, it kind of came out nowhere and it was something that I wrote, that I never really wrote for myself initially but when I heard it back I loved it and to hear it go from the very stripped sound to the production it has now has made it ten times bigger and ten times better and I just love the energy behind the song.
You’ve worked a lot in the music industry behind the scenes writing songs for Dua Lipa, Fifth Harmony, Rita Ora and more. What inspired you to finally start writing and recording your own music under your own name?
A couple things. People would tell me that I’m an artist and I’m meant to be an artist all the time and I would just say no, I’m very happy being behind the scenes, I don’t want to be in the spotlight. I was afraid of being an artist because I didn’t know what I wanted to say because I was so used to hiding my stories behind other people and I was very afraid of sounding like everyone else because the stuff that I anchor when I write for others, you anchor the radio, you anchor those big songs, so when I dive into my own sound, I was really afraid of being put into a box. But, I think one thing that made me want to do it more than anything was using my platform for a bigger purpose and not only being a singer but just being a light for people and being a role model. There’s not many people who get this chance to have this platform, to have this voice and I felt like I needed to do something with it, instead of being behind the scenes, there was more that I could do, more that I could bring to people. So that was definitely a part of it. Secondly, I felt like sometimes when I gave away my songs, I would compare them to my demos and I believed my demos more than when an artist cut them and that made me realize that I wanted to tell my story because it felt more believable to me, that definitely pushed me towards it, just knowing there was power in my own voice and stories if I was put in the spotlight.
We chatted with NOTD recently and you were on a smash hit song called “So Close” so we’re interested to get your perspective on working on that song with them.
That one was another one that kind of happened pretty remotely. It started with the three of us being in the same room and then NOTD came, we wrote it from scratch with stripped back chords and then they came in and added their production to it and did their thing and made it what it is today. It was one of those songs that when everything fit into place. I also knew after that it was a song that everyone was excited about, even before it was released. I’m definitely proud of that song and how remotely we were able to work on it together, even before the quarantine. It was cool because we’re all from places, I’m from England, Captain Cuts from the US, Felix is from Germany and NOTD is from Sweden, so I just love the fact that four different people are from all over the world were able to bring this song to life.
If you could set up a fan for them to listen to your music, what setting would that be?
I think probably a car, because I’ve always wanted to make music that people want to wind down the windows and scream at the top of their lungs and scream or vice versa, you could have the windows up and balling crying. I want everyone to feel the rollercoaster of emotions I felt when writing them, so a car journey could do all those things.
What’s one quote you’ve heard in life that you want to ECHO out to the world?
I’m going to say this because this is something that I’m currently working on, it’s the name of the brand but I think it’s a great quote and it’s called “Make Sure Your Friends Are Ok.” That’s actually a brand that I’m partnering with, it’s a mental health non-profit organization and I love this movement because we need to be opening up a conversation more to our friends, to our peers, to our family, to our co-workers, whoever, to talk about how we’re feeling, how we’re doing, because on the outside it might look great but you never know what battles people are facing internally. I just love it, it’s not a quote but it is a movement and I think it makes a great quote because people, especially during these times, should check in and make sure everyone is doing ok and how you can support them, everyone needs that support right now.
Stream Ku’s new album “REAL” now!