Pearl And The Puppets
Four years ago, Katie Sutherland had next to no knowledge of how to play guitar. Two years ago she was studying teacher training at Strathclyde University.
Now, the twenty-three year old from Kirkintilloch, near Glasgow, has reinvented herself as Pearl, recruited a brilliant band (The Puppets) and shared a stage with some of pop's best loved, including Pixie Lott, Alpha Beat and Sugababes. She’s now steering the strings of her band Pearl and the Puppets into the horizon of world domination, all before her first official release.
Musically passionate from a young age, she learnt the oboe and piano. But it was in her first year of university that an ex-lover and his band, who she played oboe for, inspired her to pick up the guitar. Emerging singer songwriters such as Regina Spector, Imogen Heap and Cat Power, at the time resonated with Pearl and it was a combination of perfect timing and inspiration that empowered her to write her first song.
Pressure from her new found fans on the Glaswegian open mic circuit meant she had no choice but to post her songs on Myspace profile. Within one week Pearl and The Puppets were the talk of the industry, within six weeks she had quit University and within a just a few months she had signed with Warner Chappell Publishing. The wondrously catchy ‘Because I Do’ became the soundtrack to Vodafone adverts blasted out from every TV set in the Southern Hemisphere.
Playmates with Lily Allen and James Blunt at Twenty First Artists Management, Katie Sutherland has a certain maverick quality that is impossible to ignore. It is hardly surprising she finds herself hearing Elton John reel off his favourites of her ever expanding repertoire of songs or sharing a dinner table Mick Jones.
It’s a perfect mixture of kooky rebelliousness and her zest for life that captured the imagination of Universal Republic Records, and the ears of producer Steve Street (Blur/ The Smiths), David Kosten (Bat For Lashes). This in turn led her to the Yorkshire Dales to record with the legendary Steve Christanthou (Corrine Bailey Rae) to record a selection of the vast repertoire of songs she’s been writing over the last two years.
With the backing of ample press and radio coverage already this year, 2010 is set to be Pearl’s year, we stand with baited breath for the release of her EP in March.