Unlimited Inspiration and Creative Imagination: An Interview with Emma Kate
Emma Kate is new to our Christchurch music scene, but she has already paved her way with ease into the scene, and we are so lucky to have her!
Picture this: It is a sunny Saturday where a new friendship is being formed, wholesome cat-sharing content has happened, and the enjoyment of eating “breakfast” foods at 1pm is being accomplished. What a wonderful way to bring back interviews to Welcome to the Gig.
This past weekend, I sat down with the lovely Emma Kate at Moment Cafe in Christchurch Central to catch up with her about her new single, Chemical, how she finds inspiration for her songs (spoiler: she doesn’t struggle for inspiration!) and how moving down from Wellington earlier this year has helped with her music career, as well as her growth.
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Hey Emma!
Emma: Hello, how’s it going?
Good thanks, how are you?
Emma: I’m good thank you.
You’ve had a big morning so far, eating lots of yummy food!
Emma: I have. Lots of exploring in Christchurch and eating lots of yummy food.
That is the best way to spend a Saturday!
You released your new song, Chemical, last week (25th July 2025), such a lovely song, with so much meaning behind it. Do you want to talk about the background behind the song?
Emma: The inspiration? Yeah! So, I wrote this song back in February, it was the last song I wrote in a series of writing a song every single day for a month, which was a challenge in itself, but I ended up coming up with Chemical on the last day and at the time, I didn’t think anything crazy of it. As I was looking back through the song, I was like “oh, I really like that one, I think that’s catchy, I want to try and work on that one.” I wrote it about my boyfriend, who is up in Wellington, we are doing long-distance, don’t recommend, we’ve been together since I was fifteen, so almost ten years now, which is a long time, but I wrote it about the feeling of falling in love for the first time and that experience I had - kind of playing on the young love aspect of it, and all the warm, fuzzy feelings you get.
I bet your boyfriend is stoked you wrote a song about him.
Emma: He’s pretty much the inspiration behind most of my songs, so this is just the usual for him, but I do think he appreciates it. He is always super supportive of my music anyway, so he should be rewarded for that. Long-distance has been a struggle, but it has also helped me come up with some really cool songs. Good song inspiration writing, honestly.
I had no idea you’d written a song every day for a month, how the heck [did you manage that]?
Emma: This year, I set myself the challenge of actually trying to write 100 songs, or more than 100, if I can get there. So far, I’ve written about fifty. It got to February, and I was like, “oh. I haven’t even written five… I need to get onto this.” So, I did that challenge and really pushed myself, especially because I work full-time and I would have to come home from work and write a song. I’d always have things on after work and on the weekends, so it was hard squeezing it in. I went away to Laneway mid-February, and I had to do it while I was away, so I didn’t have my guitar with me, so I was just typing on my phone, but I did it. That was cool. Honestly, some of those songs may never see the light of day again. That’s the thing: maybe the songs weren’t good, but I still was able to push through and create something, which is pretty cool.
That’s amazing. To just be able to get your creative juices going is really inspiring and super cool. Do you have a favourite song that you wrote during that period of time?
Emma: Other than Chemical, I had this one called The Ice Palace, which I wrote off this random book which I got from Busy Bees I think it’s called Busy Bees, which is an op-shop/bookshop in Wellington. I got this book from there which I thought was a murder mystery, but it turns out it was about two young girls who were Swedish or something and they fell in love, and the next day, they were going to meet up at school and one of them on the way to school, she went off track and found this ice palace, got lost in it and then she died, and the whole town was searching for her, but they never found her. It was a pretty heavy book, but a very short book. So, yeah, I wrote a song based on that. (The book is Is-Slottet or The Ice Palace in English). It’s a really sad, pretty song. I’ve never written a song based off a book before, so it was a really cool perspective for me to try. The book kind of stayed with me.
Do you think you’ll ever release it as a single?
Emma: I hope so. Maybe not as a single, but maybe on a project. I don’t think it’s single material because it is quite sad.
I read that you’ve been writing songs since you were eight, that’s so young. How did you manage that?
Emma: Yup, that’s correct! The first song I wrote, I wouldn’t really consider it a song, but it was a song. I wrote it while I was sitting on the toilet, and I thought I was really cool. I sang it to my family, and they were like, “Emma, what are you talking about?” I used to sing in the toilet a lot. Or the bathroom, you could hear me outside. Taylor Swift is a big inspiration for me, so I just wanted to do what she could do. So, I just tried, and I’m still going, so obviously something is going right.
I was listening to more of your songs this morning, and I was listening to Abyss, and I was like, “wow, this is like Paramore-vibes”. I love Paramore!
Emma: Yes! Me too. They were definitely inspiration - I was going through an emo phase last year and the year before, which is when I wrote it. So, I wrote it in 2023-ish, I was in a band called Out of Hand, with a bunch of my friends, my brother was the drummer, and we were doing things like Dig the Gig up in Wellington, and I was in a bit of a heavier state with my music, so Abyss kind of came out of it.
I was thinking “this is so different to what you’ve got out!” but it’s so cool.
Emma: I think that’s the cool thing with music is that you don’t have to stick with one genre, and I kind of just make what I like. I do make things off what I am influenced by, and what I’m listening to, but at the end of the day, I am only going to put out ones that I really like and connect with.
Patiently waiting for Taylor Swift to call and ask for that collaboration with her. Photo credit: Molly Doyle Films
You said that you get inspiration from Taylor Swift. Do you have any other musical inspirations?
Emma: Over the past year, I’ve been inspired by the live performances I’ve gone to. I went to Gracie Abrams, you can probably tell by listening to Chemical that I’m pretty influenced by her, especially with the guitar, and the close singing. I feel like she’s whispering in my ear, and I’m really inspired by that, lyrics are really important to me. So, I think they need to be heard, not just swept away by the music. I got inspired by Olivia Rodrigo when I went to see her, too. Lizzy McAlpine is amazing also. There’s also a bunch of small artists like Alexia; she’s an Australian musician and she’s so amazing. I love her. She’s a huge inspiration for me. Local New Zealand artists, too. I just try to consume as much as I can.
This question kind of leads on, it’s kind of similar if you were able to collaborate with any musician that has ever existed, who would you collaborate with?
Emma: I have a few. We can’t not just say Taylor Swift. I think anyone would be elated to collaborate with her. I would love to collaborate with Foley, who is a New Zealand band, I love their music so much. Very catchy. I would love to feature on one of their songs. There’s another New Zealand musician called Navvy, she hasn’t really released anything in a while, but she’s amazing. I feel like any of the people I listed as inspirations would be cool. Also, randomly, I would love to collaborate with Rage Against the Machine. I love them. Such a wild pick, but they’re cool. Or… Nothing but Thieves. I could keep going. There’s so many.
When you’re writing, do you have a general direction that you want your songs to go in, or does it vary from creation to creation?
Emma: I think it can be different each time. Usually, I start off with a lyric, or a word, or I might just have a song I’m inspired by and want to write a song like that, and I kind of might break the song down into sections and do it like that, but most of the time, if I’m at home, I will just pick up my guitar and grab a notebook and a pen and just write in it and it kind of just comes. I don’t really find songwriting to be a struggle for me. It’s quite nice, actually, because it’s the one thing that will calm you down after a busy day or something like that. I just start writing and it all flows. I find it’s easier if I’m writing about a specific situation, and I’m usually more connected to the song as well. Even if I’ve got no personal inspiration from myself, I will write about things that my friends are going through, or things I’ve seen online, like, people’s relationships and how I perceive them, or how I think people perceive them. Sometimes things come from that, too. It’s really anywhere.
It’s cool that you’ve got that ability! I have noticed that your songs are full of emotion, and they captivate a lot of rawness and realness, is it hard sometimes for you to tap into that? I know you said you’ve got a lot of inspiration, how do you tap into that?
Emma: I try to write from my heart and say exactly what I’m feeling, because it’s important to be honest, and it’s important to say how you feel about things. When I was writing Invisible Broken Hearts, that’s a super personal song of mine, I went through a break-up. I was writing it post break-up. It was with my current boyfriend actually, but we got back together. We’re all fine, but looking back on the relationship, I couldn’t write anything in the moment because I was too devastated, but then I came back from it and I was like, “what was I feeling?" How was I feeling? Where was I?” and I just wrote everything down, even if it’s not in a song form, writing down your feelings is super important.
It sounds like you’re good at putting pen to paper and going “yup, this is how I feel. This is what is going to help me get through this situation.”
Emma: I think I’m pretty in touch with my emotions, I feel all my emotions. Not afraid to cry, not afraid to laugh, I think that is what helps me as a songwriter, being able to carry those emotions out.
If you could liken your music to a flower, which flower would you choose?
Emma: Oh my goodness, what a good question. I love flowers. I’m thinking really hard, because I don’t want to say the wrong one! I feel like a rose, but not a specific colour because they all mean different things. I have this book, and it’s my favourite book in the world, and it’s called The Language of Flowers, and it tells you what every flower means, so when you give it to someone, there’s this hidden meaning. I would just say like, roses, but a multi-coloured bouquet because yes, I write songs about love, and that’s what red roses are, but then I might write songs about jealousy, I think it’s yellow roses that represents jealousy, and I write songs that are sad, and you might give roses when you are sad, and I would probably just say a rose.
I did not expect you to blow that answer right out of the water like that!
Besides music, what other things do you enjoy doing?
Emma: I enjoy baking. At the moment, I am trying to do a session of baking every single Sunday afternoon, which has been pretty much successful for the past month or so. It’s good, because it not only benefits me, but my flatmates love it, too, because they get to have the baking for the week. I also love playing games on my Switch. Watching TV shows, bingeing TV shows, or going to the cinema… Going out with my friends. I also love crafts, too. Last year, and the year before, me and my friend group up in Wellington had a thing called ‘Crafternoon’, so depending on what day of the week it was, we would pick a random craft and we would do that craft. It was cool, it pushed the boundaries! Being creative in a different way. Love a Crafternoon.
I know you also love cats like I do, as we were talking about them before.
Emma: Yes. Love cats.
It’s not Taylor on the line… Yet. However, it is all of us telling Emma that we cannot wait for her EP when it’s completed! Photo credit: Molly Doyle Films
You mentioned you are from Wellington originally. How are you adjusting to Christchurch life?
Emma: Yeah, I’ve been here six months, which has flown by, so I don’t know that I would call myself a local, because people say street names and I still don’t know where they are, but I’m also terrible with geography. I do like Christchurch, it’s a slower-paced kind of life down here. My weeks don’t feel as busy as they do in Wellington, I feel like I actually have time to relax on the weekend, which I feel like is unheard of, almost. I like it. There is a lot to explore, and it’s nice that the rest of the South Island is so close, so I can drive there if I feel like it. I do find it is a struggle, the distance from being away from family, friends and my cats. I miss the cats. A lot. So, that is the biggest struggle, but also, being away has given me that independence to be able to figure things out on my own. Really put my music career at the front of my mind and go for it, you know? Nothing else is stopping me. No one else is in the way. I’m just doing my best to try and make it a sustainable career.
What’s next for you, have you got any shows coming up, or any further releases?
Emma: Yeah, so I have some shows that aren’t just me, so with SOLE Music Academy, we will be playing shows later in the year at the Darkroom, and at Wunderbar, so keep an eye out for those. I don’t have any of my own at the moment, but I am always working on new songs, not just writing, but also recording new songs now. I would love to release an EP, I have an idea in my mind, but I have no date set. So, keep giving me motivation because the more motivation I feel from people, the more motivation I have to finish it. I do have a song that I am recording at the moment that I hope to release within the next couple of months, so that would be awesome.
Thank you so much Emma for your time! It’s been so lovely getting to chat with you.
Emma: Thanks for having me, Ash!
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Follow along with Emma’s journey in her career at the links below -