The folk singer opens up about her new album, Strange Medicine, on The Block.Kaia Kater has played the banjo since she was 11 years old, explaining that the instrument's sound caught her "instantly." Now, almost two decades later, she's still playing on her third album,, her first full-length project since 2018. The record is packed with history, culture and soul and features collaborations with Allison Russell and Aoife O'Donovan.
That's a great question. It was definitely the latter. You know, I was raised as an only child with a single mom, and so I spent a lot of my time around adults, and my mom worked in the music industry. So, a lot of the adults that I spent time around were musicians. I think I was so interested in music as a career and felt maybe a little bit less kinship with kids my own age. And so I think the adults saw little me and , "Oh, you're just a little adult or an old soul.
But, you know, like I said before, my mom was working a lot in folk music and bluegrass music. So I was really familiar with those genres. And I had a mentor named Mitch Podolak he was the founder of the Winnipeg Folk Festival. And he met me when I was like 10 or 11. And he offered me a banjo lesson.Just like that. And I said, "yes." And there's something about the sound, especially of the style that I play, which is clawhammer banjo.