Katie of Koven joins us to discuss their story, songwriting process, and a serious case of the butterflies!

Max Rowat and Katie Boyle, otherwise known as Koven, have been fan-favourites ever since they joined the label at the tail end of 2016. Katie’s undeniable passion for singing, songwriting, and performing has made her one of the most popular faces in the Monstercat community, while Max’s talent for piecing together instrumentals for many different genres has resulted in complex and catchy tunes. Originally starting off as solo acts, they found that, together, they were able to amass more music, attention, and success than they ever could alone. Today, the two stars are pushing the boundaries of electronic music and tapping into their full creative potential – and they’re doing it their way!

Things haven’t come easy for Koven. In fact, for many years, the British duo struggled to find a foothold in the industry. Learning how to drown out all the noise that comes with seemingly insurmountable pressure was a test that Max and Katie had to pass in order to evolve as artists. In the process, however, there was one thing that they overlooked. It may come as a surprise, seeing as they’ve released quite a few EPs and compilations, but they never got around to doing an actual album. This month, with the release of Butterfly Effect, we can finally introduce the listening world to Koven’s masterpiece debut album!

Let’s start things off by going back to the beginning!

You jumped headfirst into the industry as Katie’s Ambition back in 2012. Not long after, you and Max came together to create Koven and the rest is history! Let’s hear about where you and Max were in your careers before you became Koven, as well as how you ultimately decided to form a duo!

We were both doing our separate things for quite a few years. I wasn’t really having that much success. Max—as Koven, by himself—he was doing really well and I was actually a really big fan. I didn’t realize at the time that he knew who I was and was interested in the work I was doing. He was looking for a full-time vocalist to work with and we bumped into each other a few times on dance floors and stuff, but purely because I was like “You’re Koven!” And he was like “I think I know who you are, you’re Katie,” and I was like “Yeah, that’s right!”

When he asked me to join him, it was quite mind blowing to me, actually. It was such a compliment! Weirdly, I had to say no the first time he asked me because of some other commitments that I had. I didn’t want to have to say no, but I was obliged to something else. It’s a really long story. But then he asked me again and I was able to say yeah!

You grew up in a very musical environment! Living in the UK, both of your parents were involved in bands! Do you think you’d still have found your way to music as a career if you didn’t grow up around music?

I think so! I really do. I think some people just naturally go that way. Some people are just passionate about it. I think it definitely helps having your parents influence you. I think what it helps more, if your parents are in music, is maybe that they’re more encouraging. But I think a lot of people—with or without that encouragement—if it’s what you want to do, you just do it anyway!

Max is an absolute mastermind when it comes to writing your guys’ instrumentals. Tell us about Max’s musical background and where his passion for producing music comes from!

My personal opinion of Max is that he is just naturally gifted and talented. He’s not trained in any way. I think he did a year of music tech in uni and dropped out. A lot of it is self-taught [...] I think he played the drums when he was younger. He’s never had any piano lessons or guitar lessons but he can create the most beautiful riffs on the piano or guitar. He’s just got such a natural ear for it, so I think a lot of it is just self-taught and natural ability with him.

When you go on tour and play shows, what is one thing you can’t go without?

Sleep! I’ve tried to go without sleep playing shows before because I thought I was a rockstar, and then you get very run-down and very sad. So now I’m very conscious of trying to grab sleep. I never used to be one of those people that would be like, oh, I’ll have a little power-nap here and a power nap there, but now I’m realizing that 40 minutes of sleep is so much better than no sleep. I always kind of think of myself as like a Sim [...] I’ve got a little sleep bar above my head, and I just need to get it to a quarter to get through this next bit of my day, or I just need to get it to a half!

Let’s talk about your songwriting process!

I don’t really have a process! It’s so difficult, because it’s one of those things, again, that is all kind of self-taught. With writing songs, sometimes you just sit down. Everyone always says this. People say “how do you write a song” and I’m like “I don’t know!” Before working with Max, I used to write stuff on the piano, but I’m not really that good at playing the piano. Even now, I’ll write a demo and I’ll do really, really basic chords and I’ll send these demos over to Max and he somehow turns it into something magnificent. Or the other way is he’ll send me an instrumental. But say, for example, if Max is sending me an instrumental, I’ll often start singing to it and see what words and melodies fall out of my mouth. And then I’ll start writing bits down, and if I think “oh that’s a good line,” then I’ll take that one line and I might try and base that as the theme of the song, and then I’ll write more around that line. It’s really random!

When it comes to lyrics, some songs are written in a more general way to be as relatable as possible to many different listeners and others tend to be more personal or autobiographical. Which way do you lean more?

I write a lot about my friends and things I see other people go through, because I haven’t really been through that much. Emotional things. So if you hear a really sad love song from me, it’s not about me. I mean, I’ve been with the same person for eleven years, so I don’t really have heartbreak to talk about. But I see a lot with other people, and I take a lot of influence from that. But then in this new album, there’s a lot of songs that aren’t so much about relationships and heartbreak. There’s a lot of stuff about life, progressing in life, and sort of feeling left behind in life and worrying if you’re getting too old to achieve certain things or kind of giving yourself a hard time because you haven’t got where you’re supposed to be at a certain point in your life – and that’s very much me. I think, in this album, there is a lot more that I’ve written about personal experience. So it comes from both to be honest!

You are one half of the Koven picture, with the other half being Max! What’s your guys’ relationship and what is it like to work with him on all of your different projects!

Max is absolutely fantastic to work with. He’s so easygoing! We’re both quite lucky that we always seem to be on the same page. We used to play shows together up until about two and a half years ago. Max has really, really bad travel anxiety. He used to play shows, but it got to the point where it was just incredibly unhealthy for him to play shows. He was having to take a lot of valium, drink quite a few pints. To get one flight, it wasn’t healthy. We did a five-week Australia/New Zealand tour three years ago, and the amount that he was having to put in his body just to get through all those flights, we kind of realized that it wasn’t healthy and, if I could do it by myself, I’m happy to do it by myself, which is now why I play all the shows by myself. We have such a good working relationship. I miss playing shows with him because it’s so much nicer to travel with somebody else, but it’s better this way I think. And it just means he’s been more productive in the studio. Obviously I’m the songwriter or the singer, although he does write lyrics as well from time to time. So we both write, I sing, he does all the production, and… it just works! The way it is at the moment, it’s just working really, really well!

You’re not only a producer but also one of the most exciting and entertaining performers on Monstercat! Talk about the role of the fans, their involvement in shows, and how their support is comforting when you’re touring!

It’s incredible! It’s mad! Even just last week, being in Australia and New Zealand, and having people there singing the lyrics back to even like the newest stuff. It still blows my mind! I just think how many times have you listened to this song already?! I love you! You’re great! And I kind of wonder how people used to be DJs and tour without social media because it is such a tool for keeping connected. There’s only so many times you can message your friends or your other half or your family, but with social media, when you’re away touring, you can constantly be talking to someone or feeling positive about yourself and you’ll get messages from people the next day after a show. They’ll message you and say “that was a really great show last night” and you’ll say “oh thanks so much” and you’ll get chatting to people like that. And that stops you feeling lonely! Just the fact that you’re talking to somebody in that country that you’re in makes you feel a little bit more at home. Having the fans being so interactive with us is a really, really big thing for me and I really appreciate it!

Your highly anticipated first album, Butterfly Effect, is finally here!

I’ll start off by saying we are so excited for your first album! Talk about when you guys first got the idea for this album and how it progressed from there!

We’ve been talking about doing an album for a long time. We just needed it to be at the right time. The thing with making an album, what I think is quite nerve wracking for a lot of artists, is that you know you have to come off the radar for a little bit while you’re finishing everything up because it’s a long project. So we found that quite daunting, but it actually came together a lot quicker than we expected and we ended up going back to some old demos that we had previously – which I think is the beautiful thing about doing an album. You can revisit songs that never had a home and never had a place and go “actually this will sit perfect.” On the album we have some acoustic-y stuff which we probably wouldn’t really necessarily be able to put on a four-track EP. But when you’ve got a 14-track album, you find a place for it and it works really well. It’s just been so great to be as creatively free as we’ve ever wanted to be and pretty much cross over every genre and every tempo and every feeling, every emotion.

Butterfly Effect may be your first full-fledged album, but not your first when it comes to EPs, or “extended plays.” Talk about the difference and why it was important for Butterfly Effect to be more than an EP!

I think that we just were at that stage where, when we were announcing to people that we were working on our debut album, everyone was like “What? What do you mean? You’ve already done an album!” We’re like “No we haven’t!” They’re like “Yeah, you have!” We’re like “No, we really haven’t!” We’ve done EPs, we’ve done a compilation, like a compilation album which is not the same as an album-album. That’s like remixes, and then you know, put a few collabs in there and stuff like that. We’ve never actually done an official debut album, and it was one of those things that I think we probably should have done a while ago and it just was getting the bravery up to do it. [...] I speak to a lot of artists and they say similar things. They know that they need to get to a point where they’re like “ah, we need to do an album,” but it’s that point of going “This is going to be the time when we do it. We’re going to put aside the time. We’re going to get it done.” We got to the point where - I think maybe it was even our manager that was like come on guys, make an album! We were like “Okay, okay! You’re right! We’ve got it in us now, we can do it!”

You wrote a good amount of the album while touring! Talk about that experience, where the inspiration came from, and how writing music on the go works for you!

Normally, if I’m writing on the go, literally I’m just recording voice memos in my phone, which I think a lot of other people do. That’s the easiest way. Sometimes I just get a melody in my head and I just quickly pop it down, or Max will send me an instrumental while I’m away and I’ll listen to it and then I’ll quickly record a little demo in voice notes. So my voice notes in my phone is just my like really quietly hums. Like that! I listen back to it and I’m like ‘what the hell was that idea?’ But every now and again there’s something in there that’s actually quite good, so that’s pretty much it! I never write anything down, it’s just little voice notes to myself!

Koven - Butterfly Effect [Monstercat LP Release]

Talk about the designs for the Butterfly Effect artwork! Very colourful and lots of swooshes, is it supposed to be representative?

I think we just wanted to go for colour. Previously, me and Max have kind of had this whole darker mood. We wouldn’t really smile in our press shots and we’d always wear black and white. But I think we’ve realized, now, that the music’s changed. We’re not as sombre as we used to be. It’s still got that emotion to it, but it’s not necessarily as sad. And I think we just really wanted to emphasize this burst of energy and burst of colour, and, obviously, like a butterfly is beautiful and colourful. So we didn’t necessarily want to have it to be symmetrical, like the reflection of a butterfly. But we just wanted to capture that beauty and colour of a butterfly. We just threw loads of colour at it!

If you had to choose one, which song in Butterfly Effect means the most to you and why?

Oh, that’s a tough question! Okay, means the most to me would be a track called “Stars,” which is the one I was talking about earlier that’s kind of written real personal. Probably the most personal track I’ve ever written. It’s about feeling a little bit left behind in life and watching everybody else succeed and constantly comparing yourself to what other people are doing and feeling like you’re not in the same lane and then realizing that, actually, it doesn’t matter what other people are doing because everybody’s life pans out so differently. You just need to focus on your own path. Lyrically, that track is the most important to me.

Which track on the album is your favourite?

My favourite? There is a track called “Missing,” which is a real kind of sad but beautiful track, and there’s also… I really love “All For Nothing,” which is one of the singles we’ve already released. I think that’s a real positive track. I also really, really love “Shut My Mouth,” which is the heavy dubstep one. I love performing it live as well. It’s so fun to perform. I could just list all the tracks to be honest because I love them all, so I’ll stop there!

Katie’s not the only one with butterflies in her stomach!

Every artist gets nervous about their work going public at some point or another. When it comes to musical artistry and releasing your first album, it’s natural to feel a bit antsy! All of Koven’s unbelievable talent is on display in Butterfly Effect, with plenty of passion and emotion drizzled on top. It’s a groundbreaking achievement for Katie and Max, and we are so excited for everybody in the community to finally get a chance to enjoy it!

We would like to give a huge shoutout to Katie, Max, and the rest of the Koven team for making this month’s artist feature possible. Make sure to give them a follow on Ie would ,eTe woul,eYe woul,e would like to give a huge sho