Katelyn Tarver is in her sophomore studio album era, and she’s finding herself asking a lot of big questions as she takes the time to process a career that has spanned almost 20 years following when she first appeared on American Juniors and Big Time Rush. Following her 2021 debut “Subject To Change”, 2024’s “Quitter” is a poignant body of work that feels very considered. She finds herself delving even deeper into her inner-monologue and asking “why” and breaking down those walls that have acted as shields for so long. It’s a record that feels like it heals a lot of things for her, and simultaneously will help listeners look inside for themselves.

To celebrate the release of “Quitter” I sat down with Katelyn Tarver to discuss the introspective nature of this record and the existential questions it asks, and explored the creative process behind songs like “Just A Person” and “Revisionist History”. Check out the full chat BELOW;

THOMAS BLEACH: Your sophomore record “Quitter” is a really intimate and introspective body of work. If you were to play this record for the version of yourself who released “Subject To Change” in 2021, how do you think she would’ve reacted to hearing where this next chapter was gonna go?

KATELYN TARVER: I feel like she would have been like… “this tracks” *laughs*. I think “Subject To Change” was me scratching the surface of what was kind of brewing within me. There are some songs on “Subject To Change” that maybe could have lived on “Quitter” because of subject matter, theme, and diving into my internal world of unanswered questions. And I think, “Quitter” was me diving even deeper into that stuff, and questioning “well, where is all this coming from? Why do I feel stuck? Why do I feel a little uncertain?”. And so I think to me it’s a pretty natural evolution from “Subject To Change”. 

TB: Is there a lyric you think she would’ve been shocked by that you wrote?

KT: A few come to mind. There’s the pre-chorus of “Quitter” which says, “Chasing certainty was killing me”. It’s simple, but I think it’s the realization that a lot of these songs are grasping for  something to hold on to. Just certainty, which is control. I need this something to make sense the way I understand. Like, grasping it and trying to hold on to it, and trying to keep it was killing me. And I think asking all these questions and letting myself go down all these roads was really good. And it is really good and necessary for your own growth, but It also hit the point where you just gotta surrender. You just gotta accept what it is. I think that song and that sort of lyric was really powerful for me to get to within myself.

And then going with that sentiment, in the song “One Without The Other” in the second verse it goes “all my favorite nights and things that I learned to hide, they can both exist in me”. Like, I can have the parts of me that are good and shiny that are outgoing, lovable, and make people happy, but I can also have the sides of me that are complex, contradictory, making mistakes, getting things wrong, and not always lining up with who I am or who I want to be. That is all part of me too, and that’s not a bad part of me. You can’t be happy all the time, and you can’t be sad all the time. There are always going to be two polar opposites. I can’t hold myself to some standard that is impossible to maintain.

I think there are themes and lyrics in those songs that represent a lot of growth for me, which I think that older version of me would be like, “okay, cool, look at you go”. I feel like those lyrics for me aren’t just said because I read them somewhere. They’re really earned. I really went through it, and felt it.

TB: Prior to the album’s release you had actually shared the whole record minus two tracks. So why did you decide with this record you wanted the majority of the project to be shared in the drip-feed format, and allow most of these songs to have their own moments?

KT: I think that’s a part of it. I wanted a lot of them to have their own moment because there is so much music coming out at the moment, and our attention spans are so short. I was really proud of these songs, so I wanted each one to kind of have its time to shine. I think it was an interesting way to slowly put this album out because I think sometimes people don’t listen to a full album. There are tracks that get lost and buried under other ones in the process. So I think to me it was cool to slowly drip it out. But also, I’m glad that it’s now fully out because I also want it to be listened to from start to finish.

TB: This also meant you had gotten to play a lot of the record live already over the past year. So from teasing these songs to the fans through the live space, did any of your relationships with the songs change, or did it make you have any last minute production changes?

KT: Not so much because of playing live, but I did make some last minute changes, especially to the title track “Quitter”. I went in at the very last minute before the deadline because I needed it to feel a little grungier. It was too polished as it was. So there were definitely moments like that of going back and forth. I played that one live on the last tour and the whole time I just wished it was released so we could all sing that one together as it’s such a fun one live. 

TB: When we last talked was around the release of “Parallel Universe” last year, leading up to that point all the singles from the album had been in the thematic world that saw you questioning “what if’s”. So looking at the record now as a whole, what would you say is the thematic key theme?

KT: I think it is a lot about asking big questions. We were just discussing Kacey Musgraves “Deeper Well” and she has a lyric in that song where she sings “When I turned twenty-seven everything started to change”. I know we’ve spoken about Saturn Return before, but there are times in life where everything that you thought you knew or depended on, whether it’s a religious belief system, a group of friends, or a relationship etc naturally shift. And it’s scary as it just feels like the ground beneath you is kind of crumbling, and you don’t know what you can stand on. 

My natural response to that was to allow myself to tear down everything that I depended on and be like, “is this really what I want in life? Is this really what I believe in life? Is this really what I need in life? Is this really who I am? Is making music even still something I want to do?” I had never really allowed myself to truly go there before and ask “what do you want outside of what you’ve always done and what you think people expect from you and what you think people want from you?”.

I’ve been in the industry for almost 20 years, and so getting into this line of work at a young age brings its own set of challenges for your own development as a human being. I mean, you’re constantly people-pleasing and searching for approval from people. This album is asking a lot of questions, a lot of searching, a lot of unanswered things, a lot of uncertainty, but I am getting to the point right now where it’s showed me a lot. Making this album really showed me a lot of who I am and who I want to be. I think in my past, I maybe would have been a little afraid to start diving into some of that stuff. 

TB: Let’s chat about “Just A Person”, because the writing on this song is very interesting as you take responsibility for being the heartbreaker in a situation, but also question how you don’t mean to hurt them in the process. From writing this song, did it make you look at any situations where you’ve been on the other end any differently? 

KT: Oh yeah, for sure. As we were sort of touching on, there’s a big part of me that has been a people pleaser and a perfectionist who has gotten a lot of my identity and my meaning from the idea of “I’m never gonna do anything wrong, and I’m never gonna hurt somebody or get hurt”. I will say I had a pretty good run of that period of time, and I’m sure I hurt a friend’s feelings here and there. But for the most part, I was kind of checking all the boxes. And then I went through a period in life where shit started hitting the fan, and I hurt people deeply, and lost relationships. It was really heavy. I think it was extra hard for me because not only did I have the pain of doing that, I also was heaping it on myself. I didn’t know how to forgive myself. It sounds dramatic, but it felt like it stripped so much of who I thought I was away from me. 

I think it was in therapy where I was kind of  talking about this, and my therapist was like, “well, you know you get to be a person”, and it just really hit me. I don’t know if  that song will hit everyone the same way, but I think if you do have any sort of complex that is like, “I have to be perfect and if I’m not, I’m not worthy of anything”, then it might hit you in a big way because for me it was such a big realisation to have, and to just allow myself to forgive myself, even if it’s not fully resolved. 

TB: “If you only knew how much time I spend trying to see your side, trying to do things right” is a beautifully honest lyric. 

KT: In those situations, that is how it is. It’s like, “I don’t know how else to show you, but I am truly caring for you, and I’m hurting your feelings right now, and I don’t mean to, but I’m just trying to be honest”. You feel a bit misunderstood and it’s hard. It’s like, if I could only just get you to see inside my brain, then you wouldn’t be mad at me anymore, and you’d hopefully forgive me. 

TB: And talking about lyrics, “Revisionist History” hears you singing one of my favourite lines on the record; “I hear you lying about me. Are you afraid of the truth coming out?. There’s something wrong with your memory. You’re living a revisionist history”. 

KT: That ties into what I just said about being misunderstood and having to make peace with it. It’s very difficult, but that song’s a little more of a stab right there.

TB: When has been a time where you’ve unashamedly lived a revisionist history? 

KT: Oh my god, probably a lot. But I do think I face the truth as much as possible. I feel pretty capable at this point in my life of holding a lot of complexity and holding a lot of space for people to be good and bad.

But when I was on tour, I was like, “I’m not gonna drink”, and it was like “well, we have a day off tomorrow so I’ll just have one cocktail, I deserve it”. And then when I’m recounting stories of tour, everyone like “how did you stay healthy?” and I’m like “well, I didn’t drink… okay… I didn’t drink a lot” *laughs*. I didn’t drink as much as last tour, so that’s an improvement, right?

TB: “Japanese Cafe” is a song with a really wild story about it from your teen music career. I love that you’ve embraced that story and shared it with the world through this release, as well as using the bts picture as the single artwork. I can imagine that it took a lot of time, space and reflection to allow yourself to tell this story. How uncomfortable was it to share this side of this story with people who may have been around at the time and didn’t see  the other side / didn’t see the negatives? 

KT: It was hard because we’ve established that I don’t ever want to hurt someone’s feelings. I don’t ever want to push anybody’s buttons or ruffle anyone’s feathers. But at the same time, things happen, and there are situations that I’ve been through that were weird and did set me up with a little bit of a difficult thing to overcome later in life. The reason I can tell that story now is because I really do laugh about it. It’s not this deep trauma to me. It really is comical at a certain point because I look back at my teen music career and just know I was doing my best. I just loved to sing, and would have done it anywhere I could. 

And with that story in particular, I think as I got older and sort of unpacked it, it kind of spoke to a broader theme that I’ve had to work through for my teen years, which is sort of my relationship with my looks versus my talent, and lucky breaks versus hard work and perseverance. I think I had this tendency to brush off anything I had done as kind of just like, “I don’t know why that happened to me. I guess I was just lucky.”  And like, “I got to go sing places and I guess I got this opportunity because who knows why” instead of being like, “well, you were a hard worker and you sacrificed a lot of other things to get there”. 

I was trying to track down where that feeling started within me that is so quick to discredit myself and be critical of myself. And that Japanese cafe story was kind of a funny example because I would tell it, and I would be embarrassed about it and just be like, “why did I do that?”. And like, even American Juniors, when I went on that show I was so young every week the judges would focus on my looks rather than what I could do. One of the judges would be like, “if this music thing doesn’t work out, you should get into modeling”.  To be 13 and just have so many comments coming your way about your appearance is weird. Like, no wonder I was like “well, that’s what I have to offer, not my talent, skill, or singing”. 

TB: Okay, I asked you this last year but I have to ask again to get the updated answer. Are we going to see Katelyn Tarver in Australia in 2024?

KT: We need to make it happen!  Does anyone want to sponsor me? That would really expedite things *laughs*. But yes, I really would love to, gonna keep manifesting it and hopefully make my way over soon.

“Quitter” is out now!