Like many musicians before her, Katie Pruitt is living and working out of Nashville, Tennessee, but “Atlanta will always feel like home.”
Pruitt will be making her hometown return at Terminal West on Friday, March 29.
Her sound, blending country, soft indie rock and Americana, is something that she credits to her upbringing in the South. NPR’s Jewly Hight calls it “billowing, reverb-bathed, pop-honed folk rock.”
Credit: Alysse Gafkjen
Credit: Alysse Gafkjen
Before she’d even released her first album, Pruitt was named one of 10 new country artists you need to know by Rolling Stone in 2018. Two years later, she was nominated for emerging act of the year by Americana Music Honors and Awards.
It’s been four years since her debut album, “Expectations,” and now Pruitt is primed to release her second album, “Mantras,” on April 5.
“I wanted it to be a blend of all the things I listened to, and all the things that I’m inspired by,” Pruitt told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “The first record was just an Americana record. It was glossy and pretty. And I loved that for what that record was.”
Part of Pruitt’s style in the new album is inspired by her many influences, from Wilco and Jason Isbell to Brandi Carlile. She mentions her affection for Lucy Dacus and Dacus’ work with Boygenius, the Grammy-winning trio whose introspective, confessional songwriting makes the group a clear kindred spirit to Pruitt.
Familial problems, mental health issues and growing up gay in Catholic school are part of the lyrical mix on “Mantras,” so it’s no surprise that, as Pruitt notes, there’s some tension. “I wanted the music to sort of match that. There’s some distorted guitars on the more uptempo songs, it sounds a little more frustrated, which is intentional.”
Pruitt, who turned 30 this month, ran into a problem encountered by many musicians when she began working on her second album. It’s “harder to write because you don’t have your whole life to write it,” she said. “I think a lot of these songs are about just letting go of control and surrendering to your own timeline, accepting that things are going to pan out how they’re supposed to pan out. That’s kind of the common theme of loving yourself through the process of self-criticism, which is hard.”
In a press release, Pruitt revealed the origin of the album’s title. “After hitting a low point that caused me to seek extensive therapy, I realized I had a problem with negative self-talk. So I started writing down phrases of encouragement and repeating mantras in the mirror.”
On stage, Pruitt wants her performance to “be like a rock show, but then I also want to keep that introspective songwriter side of myself very much alive. So I think I am kind of gearing up to put on a rock show.”
Credit: Brynn Osborn
Credit: Brynn Osborn
Her upcoming Atlanta show will mark her first time playing Terminal West. “I went to so many shows at Terminal West. I just have so many memories there. So it’s an exciting feeling to think that I could be creating those memories for, like, a new group of people. It feels full of miracles.”
The show marks both a full-circle moment and a time of change for Pruitt. “My parents are selling my childhood home right now. It’s definitely a different phase in my life. So it feels sort of triumphant in a way to come back and play this album to my friends and people closest to me, in real time.”
CONCERT PREVIEW
Katie Pruitt
8 p.m. March 29. $22-$25. Terminal West, King Plow Arts Center, 887 W. Marietta St. NW, Suite C, Atlanta. terminalwestatl.com.
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