Kaitlin Butts is a truly one-of-a-kind artist, who hails from Oklahoma with a deep affinity for country music’s more theatrical side: the extravagant storytelling, dazzling showmanship, songs embedded with both unbridled emotion and quick-fire humour.
The Tulsa native arrived at this years The Long Road Festival to perform in the UK for the first time off the back of opening up a number of dates in the United States for Dierks Bentley on his ‘Gravel & Gold Tour’ in addition to being nominated for “Emerging Act of the Year” at the 2024 Americana Honors & Awards (with fellow debutants at this year’s festival The Red Clay Strays and Wyatt Flores also amongst the nominees) taking place in September.
Her eclectic influences ranging from outlaw country, strong-minded country-pop, timeless rock-and-roll and musical theatre (as highlighted by her latest album ‘Roadrunner!’ being heavily inspired by the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical ‘Oklahoma!’ based on her home state) come out so strongly in her songs and live performances. At the festival, Jamie spent some time with Kaitlin to talk about the record and playing shows over here for the first time.
Thank you for taking some time to hang. “Absolutely.”
That was fun watching you play before. “Thank you so much, it was a lot of fun.”
It much always be quite strange playing early in the day, because you never really know what to expect from the crowd. “You get very nervous and hope people show up early, thank God they did and it was really cool.”
It was really good to see you bringing so much energy to the stage and see your personality shine through as you play. “I’m loud and you can’t shut me up.” We’re going to chat a bit about ‘Roadrunner!’ but the song on the record which I wanted to ask about was one that you didn’t play in your set earlier but it’s your Kesha cover. What was it about ‘Hunt You Down’ that made it something that you thought you could do something with and also would be a perfect fit for this project? “Yeah so, I have always love Kesha and I went to a concert of hers out in Tulsa when I was eighteen years old and I have really fond memories of me and my friends driving around in my little car and just blasting her. She has an album called ‘Rainbow’ that is very country and I don’t think people realise that if they were not a huge fan of her, like she has Dolly Parton on that album and some very country themes throughout her music. I always have a list of covers that I wish I had written because they feel like me so ‘Hunt You Down’ was something that I wanted to release but I didn’t know how. My whole album ‘Roadrunner!” is based off the musical Oklahoma! And there are these two characters who are in love but Will Parker is trying to test the faithfulness of Ado Annie to make sure that she isn’t running around with other boys and taking off her bloomers. I thought that narrative fits so well with ‘Hunt You Down’ so I wanted to mould them together into the narrative so that was why it worked.”
You mentioned how the record is heavily influenced by your home state and of course the musical, so it basically is a concept album but it does really feel like it tells your story and shows your personality in a way which you don’t often find with a project that is set to fit around a specific idea. Was the idea for the project something that you had been kicking around in your head for a while or was it something that just came to you when you had some time and thought this could be a fun thing to do? “I thought of the concept in 2020 when we were sitting around watching movies because we didn’t have anything else to do and my husband had never seen any musicals before so I sat him down to watch Chicago and Oklahoma! That’s where I’m from, I grew up watching it as a kid as there was a local amphitheatre that would put it on and it was such a big part of my life that I wanted to show him that. We started watching it and I realised that I had two songs that went with a couple of the scenes thinking that would be such a cool visual that goes with the song that I already have and from there, my brain just could not stop thinking about it, became obsessed with it, watched it a million more times, then started writing to the movie and wanting to create how it would sound in today’s world and how it would sound in the country music world.”
Like you mentioned, visuals are a big part of the wider scope of the ‘Roadrunner!’ project and what you have been doing with the videos is a big way to express the ideas and your personality even further. Were you very hands on in terms of how you wanted them to look. “Absolutely, I had to do that and make the visual aspect perfect. I made my own music videos with the scenes from Oklahoma! then spliced it up to my music and would send over how I wanted this line to be this, then that line would be this so, I totally manifested like a psychopath how I wanted it to look.” Moving away from Oklahoma and coming to our little island, I know this is the first time playing your own shows here but had you managed to come and visit us before? “In high school I went on like a tour here, my brother got married in Paris and my husband played at The O2 with Luke Combs but this has been my first time playing shows here myself. I’ve been to Dublin for the Red Dirt Pub Crawl but that was just playing to Texans in Irish bars, it wasn’t really playing to Irish people or British people like we are here at The Long Road so it’s my first time and I’m very excited. From earlier you could tell from the audience’s faces, how they are all lit up and it’s so strange because in Texas, a big crowd like that today in a full tent of people, you would have some kind of lull or noise at the back. Here I was telling my story and they are completely silent but you can tell in their eyes that they are responsive. I really enjoy coming to places that you don’t think that people would relate to country music or even like it, because they really have no reason to as in our head country lives in the southern world in America but you come here and see all these cowboy hats so, I feel like I’m in Texas or Oklahoma.”
Then we are here at The Long Road now but you have a few more shows with Flatland Cavalry around the country, where hopefully you get to explore a bit but from that first set earlier it looked to go really well and hopefully you already get it so you will want to keep coming back. “I want to keep coming back, just after todays set, the kind of people that come to this kind of thing are the kind of people that I want to surround myself with. People who love songs, music, stories and connecting with other people so I’ve already enjoyed it.”
Lastly, once you get back home, how’s the rest of the year looking like for you? “It’s looking like f#%king chaos, it never stops. I’m all over the place and I don’t stop until December. I was on for three dates with Dierks Bentley but the rest are headlining shows.”
Dierks is always someone that people speak so highly about being on the road with because of the way that he treats the people around him. We would love him to come back here too because it’s been quite a long time since he last came over. “He really does, he’s great. He had me play Red Rocks with him last year and his crowd, he loves the bluegrass world and he really pays homage to that. I love his crowd too, even playing in an arena, sometimes my music won’t translate but it does because it’s Dierks crowd.” I loved your set today and I think you paced it perfect. You’re never really sure what you’re going to get and I suppose you think I’m on early, everyone in the crowd was partying hard last night and a lot of them probably didn’t know too much about you but luckily they see a girl in a cowboy hat tearing it up and doing her thing which everyone was really loving, then hopefully they will all come back and see your second set later, but thank you Kaitlin, this has been fun.
The latest album ‘Roadrunner!’ from Kaitlin Butts is out now and available HERE. Kaitlin is currently out on tour across the United States, where you can find full dates and ticket information on her WEBSITE whilst you can keep up to date with all that she is up to by following along with her on INSTAGRAMFACEBOOKTWITTER and TIKTOK. The Long Road Festival will return in 2025 to Stanford Hall in Leicestershire over the weekend of August 22nd to 24th where the initial release of weekend early bird tickets are on sale now over on their WEBSITE and you can be the first to know all updates ahead of next year’s event by checking out their socials on INSTAGRAM or FACEBOOK.