Music Q&A:
Kerri Watt

What informs your music and songwriting?
I’m inspired by people I meet, places I visit and by my own experiences.

How have you evolved as a band over the years?
When I decided I wanted to become an artist, I’d only written about three songs and performed at a couple of open mic nights so I had a lot to learn! My songwriting has matured a lot. I began writing songs about characters that I’d made up in my head, but I quickly learned it’s the songs you write from the heart that people really connect to, so I had to get comfortable with opening up about my life to a room full of strangers.

What are you up to at the moment artistically?
I’ve just returned from a trip to Nashville where I wrote and recorded a bunch of new songs with some top writers and producers. It was a week full of creativity and passion and I’ve come back to the UK feeling so excited to hit the road in November and perform the new songs.

What’s on your rider?
Bottled water, pineapple juice and a bar of Dairy Milk chocolate. I always have to put the word “chocolate” on the end now because one time I turned up to a show and the promoter gave me an actual carton of dairy milk – it was so funny but I didn’t want to embarrass him so i just took it home.

Tell us your most embarrassing or surreal experience.
My most surreal experience was probably opening for Coldplay at the Cardiff Millennium Stadium over the summer. Between meeting one of my songwriting heroes Chris Martin to performing to 75,000 people two nights in a row, it was certainly a dream come true.

What song do you wish you’d written?
Into The Mystic by Van Morrison – it’s pure magic and one of my favourite songs of all time. It was described as “a song where the music and the words seem to have been born together, at the same time, to make one perfectly formed, complete artistic element”. I love that.

What’s your worst lyric?
If I thought a lyric was bad, I would never let it get as far as the door of my writing room! But I can certainly share my favourite lyric from one of my new songs that I wrote about Scotland: “The North in my veins, you call my name with your fearless charm, Wild and untamed, still I’m safe in your coat of arms.”