Katharine McPhee interview

As it turns out, the topic is more relevant to her new album Unbroken than one might expect…

I had been thinking about doing something like this for quite awhile. I don’t know if I had the actual vision for it, but I wanted to know what it would be like to have blonde hair. Not so much what it would be like, but what I would look like with blonde hair. And then working on the record, it was a really long process. I spent almost a year and a half working on it, and I feel like, as cliché as it may sound, the music sort of inspired me, I guess, to do something different and just go, why not make a change, and have no apology for it.

But it’s more than just a reinvention of your looks. You’ve changed labels, your music is in a different direction. Are all these changes tied to together?

Yeah, I think that they are. I mean there’s just been a lot of changes in my life. I’m with Universal now, and it’s definitely a new sound. I think it’s a sound that I feel like I got to spend time and really figure out what sound Katharine McPhee is, and what I feel comfortable doing as an artist. So just like that whole process of taking time to really figure out things musically was important for me, and it just sort of trickled down to everything else like changing my hair. And I didn’t even tell the people at my record company that I was doing it. They were definitely shocked, needless to say. Definitely shocked and worried that I was going off the deep end and turning into a crazy person. But they saw the album cover photos and realized that it was still somewhat dignified and classy, always trying to stay with that. It’s been full circle for a lot of things.

What went wrong with your previous label where you guys parted ways after just one record?

It’s not really like some dramatic story or whatever. I just think that the way that our deals are formulated, and it’s very complicated to say in a few sentences, but the way that our deals are formulated is complicated and there’s a lot of money that is spent and it’s sort of hard for both parties to see an upside in things a lot of times. I think also, too, just with the sound and everything, and the vision, for the label it didn’t really match mine. It just made sense to move on somewhere else, a place like Verve where they develop artists and they’re not concerned about one record, they’re concerned about the next five records and they’re really interested in developing their artists and things like that.

The CEO of Verve said that he thinks you’re one of the most gifted vocalists of your generation. We all tend to say positive things about the people we’re partnered with, but that’s really high praise from your new label boss. That’s got to feel good, right?

It does, yeah, especially with the history that Verve has and being a part of something like Verve Forecast, which is like a little bit of a newer and fresher face of Verve, it’s exciting. There’s just a lot of excitement there at that record company, and yeah, to have people excited about me, who are working for you and you’re working with them, it’s definitely a good feeling to have.

Unbroken is being released on January 5th, which is an unusual release date. Did that surprise you when they said that that’s the date they were going with?

I was definitely part of it, it wasn’t like just decided “this is how it’s going to be.” And that’s what I really appreciate about being with this company, they really involve their artists. It was just sort of a timing thing, that we wanted a little bit more time to set up things properly and things like that. And I had a few things to work out on the record, so it worked out fine. I actually almost in a way was relieved, like oh good, I’ve got some more time before I have to take the big plunge on the whirlwind tour.

Unbroken is the name of a ballad near the end of the album, but why did you also choose that as the title of the album?

I chose it for the title of the record because I just felt like with everything that I’ve been through, coming off of that Idol show, and being in this business for only three years but in Hollywood terms that could be like a lifetime, you know? A lot of stupid things happen to people in this business in such a short amount of time, and I just felt like I still had somewhat of my life together and that I was still whole and not broken down from the hard challenges in this business. But also, I was looking for a meaningful word or phrase for my album. I loved the word “unbroken” and I actually looked it up in the dictionary, and one of the many definitions was “untamed and wild.” I was like wow, that’s a cool way to sort of explain my journey through this. It was really untamed, no one tried to control me or tell me this is how it should be. I was really fortunate, my A&R on this record, when I said “I’m really not into this song,” he was like “okay” which is such an unusual experience for an artist to have. So I felt kind of wild in the sense of just being free, and free to explore.

The first single, Had It All, these are not happy lyrics, it’s not a happy story, and yet you sound almost happy singing them.

When I’m asked, “Tell us what your first single it about,” I’m like well lyrically it’s quite depressing, it’s about a girl who realizes she’s looked for something else that she thought would be better and realizes like “wow, I had it all and I’ve kind of messed up,” but I think the reason why I was drawn to the song is because the overall vibe of the song is kind of of empowering. Like you know what, I’ve messed up, and I’ve lost everything, but I’m still going to be able to carry on. I feel like even in non-relationship things in life you can relate to that, whether it be your job or your record company or your this or your that, you can relate to the idea of like wow, things didn’t go my way, I didn’t make the best decisions, but I’m still going to be able to carry on.

You co-wrote Had It All with a few different co-writers, one of them being Kara DioGuardi. She didn’t become a part of American Idol until a few years after your season. How did you end up getting connected with Kara?

I met Kara working on my first record and I was like a fish out of water. I had no idea what I was doing, I was really nervous being in studio, and she sort of became like my older-sister mentor through that process. I felt really safe when she was around me because we were just really close like sisters, and so we developed this friendship. And she sang at my wedding, and I was at her engagement party. And then in the next few weeks after her engagement party I found out she was going to be a judge on the show, and I just remember calling her going “Are you crazy? I cannot believe this.” Of course I was never a judge on the show, but it’s almost like we reversed roles, you know? She was excited and I thought it was hysterical because I could just see her on the show. Kara’s cool. I’ve been happy for her.

Of all the Idol contestants from California, I think you’ve done just about the best, you almost won the whole thing. But every winner has come from places like Texas, Alabama, North Carolina, Arkansas. Do you have any sense of why the winners usually come from places like that aren’t near Hollywood, despite the show’s seeming connotations with Hollywood?

It’s just kind of like why LA can’t have a football team. That’s the way I think of it. It’s because everyone comes here to California, I can only really relate to LA because that’s where I’m born and raised, but everyone comes here to create something for themselves. So it’s very difficult for let alone a team, the Lakers are an exception, to get a really supportive following. Here in California, especially in Southern California, we have a lot of fairweather fans and people are always shocked when they’re like, “You’re born and raised here? Oh my gosh, I’m meeting an original.” It’s always shocking to people. I feel like some other parts of the country there’s more of a camaraderie, and there’s more of an ownership, of the people that comes from their town. Because Hollywood seems like such a far distant land to them, and when you’re here, everyone’s rooting for their hometown team. So that’s why I think it‘s always a bit harder for someone, especially from LA, to get some traction. But somebody was voting for me because I made it all the way to the end, so I’m not making any complaints by any means.

Do you have any favorite iPhone apps to share?

It’s more of like an obsessive thing. I started doing it with my friends when I was shooting this movie in Hawaii. I forget what the app is called, it’s like the “calorie watching app.” It’s really quite fascinating to me. You enter all the food you’ve eaten and you’re like, what, I ate all that food today? I ate that many calories?