“I never make a good first impression,” Katie Callahan jokes. “You have to meet me twice.”
But if you look and listen closely, you’ll see the groundwork she lays for a quiet but simmering revolution, all the complexity of an internal landscape laid bare. Katie grew up in Hawaii, the third of seven children in a military family who ended up staying in one place for the whole of her school years. The church and Christianity were woven into the fabric of every part of their lives, and she and several of her siblings served on their small community church worship team. As she began to explore her own style, bands like Jars of Clay became especially important as they were spiritual, rooted in tradition, but unafraid to question, doubt, and be honest. She continued as a worship leader through college and beyond.
Releasing her first album, Get It Right was a personal triumph, but its impact emphasized how insular Katie’s world really was. In December of 2019, Katie sent her album to the info@ email of the Jars of Clay website along with a note saying thank you for a lifetime of inspiration and motivation. To her utter shock, she received a reply from Charlie Lowell (Jars of Clay, Hollow Hum), who suggested she contact them if she had another project to record. Two months later, Katie reached out again, armed with demos to pitch for a record, and he put Katie in touch with his Jars of Clay bandmate, Matthew Odmark. The two began collaborating as producer and artist. Through 2020 and the pandemic, Katie met via Zoom with Matt, Dan Haseltine (Jars of Clay), and Louis Johnson (Lone Wave, The Saint Johns, Lonas) to discuss demos, co-write, and plan what would become her second record, The Water Comes Back, which was recorded in a whirlwind two weeks at Gray Matters Studio in Nashville in January of 2021.
The story of The Water Comes Back began with Katie unravelling a lifelong journey with evangelical Christianity. For her, the election of 2016 opened a chasm of internal unrest around the label of evangelical, the warped beliefs about goodness and worth ascribed by purity culture, and her power and role as a woman in the world. “I owed it to my girls and myself to take apart the stories that kept me from being whole,” she says. The complicated mix of grief, anger, relief, gratitude, and nostalgia all come to a head in the track “Baptism,” which underscores both the affection and loss of her first love. Its airy melody floats along a guitar line that sounds as though it’s underwater,with the bass rolling like an undercurrent.
In addition to faith transition and deconstruction, The Water Comes Back echoes themes of feminine strength and identity. “Witches” is a haunting, swirling song that challenges the vilification of women who push against patriarchal, heteronormative rule of law.
What prompted you to write this song? Is there a story behind it? Was there a moment of inspiration that started the writing process?
I was out in the desert in Ojai on a retreat led by Dr. Hillary McBride and Lisa Gungor (Gungor, Isa Ma), in the middle of a movement meditation in a dusty barn late at night, swirling and dancing with thirty other folks chasing this idea of the Sacred Feminine, and that’s when I knew I wanted to write this song. The goal of that retreat was “joining things that were never meant to be apart” and bringing together mind, body, and spirit, and approaching spirituality and the Divine in a more holistic and feminine way changed the trajectory of my life, my art, and my confidence.
There’s a book I read by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés called “The Women Who Run With Wolves,” and it’s about the archetype of the Wild Woman in stories from around the world and how that identity — the wild, untamed woman — is pushed underground by culture, but is available to those willing to do the work of re-wilding. I guess that’s what I wanted to say with this song: that Wild Women have been changing the world and standing against systems of oppression forever, and we get to be part of that legacy if we’re brave enough to step into it.
Your press materials say that “Witches” challenges the vilification of women who push against patriarchal, heteronormative rule of law. What made you want to tackle this topic lyrically? What about this topic is important to you and why?
“Witches” came out of wanting to celebrate the women and folks I spent time with out there in the desert. I felt empowered knowing that people like them existed, and I wanted to give something back to the experience.
Something I have always struggled with is feminine confidence. I’d listen to Beyonce talk about how great she was and bristle, I found Hillary Clinton off-putting, I corrected my daughter when she acknowledged that she was good at things.
It was during these Sacred Feminine retreats that for the first time I challenged that feeling in myself: where did it come from? Why was it there? And the answer for me was a lifetime in the evangelical church striving to be self-effacing, invisible, quiet, and unimposing. And that’s, honestly, a lot of deeply damaging nonsense echoed not only in church spaces, but across western culture.
I never want my kids to embrace false humility or smallness; I want them to know their excellence and pursue it. I want Hillary Clinton to keep raising her voice, I want Beyonce to keep telling us she’s great, I want to trust my body and intuition. And while it hasn’t happened quickly, I needed the permission from those women in Ojai to begin to feel allowed to take up that space and feel proud of the way I exist in the world. I wrote “Witches as a means to celebrate that and also offer that invitation toward wildness to anybody who hears the song.
What can you tell us about the recording sessions and working on this song? How did it all come together in the studio? Was there a particular vibe you were hoping for on this song?
My instinct for this song was more visual, like it would sound like something you’d hear as a backdrop to a bunch of women swirling around a bonfire in big skirts and bangles and things like that. Because I’m a relative studio novice and my instrumentation vocabulary is limited, I trusted Matt (Odmark of Jars of Clay and my producer at Gray Matters Studio in Nashville) and knew he understood the goal of the song. I had hopefully written “Spanish guitar?” in my own notes and when Matt said he knew a guy (Dustin Ransom) for the job, I was thrilled.
With the band playing, it took on a more sensual and sultry quality that I loved, but worried that I wouldn’t be able to match (because to be perfectly frank, being “sexy” isn’t exactly my MO), but in the end, it really bolstered the feeling of movement and embodiment, and that’s what the whole thing is about to begin with. I love the way it came out.
A lot of your songs seem to give a voice to topics important to women, or likewise provide anyone who listens to your music a place, lyrically and musically, where they can feel brave and embrace their own truth because of the messages you impart in your songs. Is this something that you had to learn for yourself as well, and how does your music help you with it?
Learning to step into the honest version of yourself is everybody’s lifelong work, I think. I’ve spent a lot of time apologizing or self-persecuting because I wasn’t all of the things I was told I was supposed to be, and having kids and the hopes I have for my daughters really opened my eyes to how much of what I, and so many others, were fed was garbage. How much time have I wasted feeling shame for no reason, or worrying about my weight, or catering to other people instead of making good art, being committed to the planet, and building community?
The truth is I am wildly insecure, I am anxious and depressed, I am full of self-doubt, and, if anything, stepping out and into what I feel like I’m supposed to be doing – -which is making art that tells stories to make the world more beautiful and tolerable for anybody who stops by what I’ve made — has led me to be even more of those things. But what I’ve also learned through this process is that my good work is to keep going, to dig deeper, to unearth lies in me and try not to teach them to my kids.
When I hear the work that went into making this record, when I remember I wrote most of it at home during a pandemic, when I realize all the steps I took were my steps and all of them were uncomfortable but I did it anyway because perfectionism enables all the oppressive forces in the world, I feel proud. I feel proud because I didn’t disappoint myself, and I am grateful that I started learning how to ask for help and how to trust the space I take up.
How does this song tie into the overarching theme of the album, which is dealing with and unravelling a lifelong journey with evangelical Christianity?
“Witches” is an intentionally inflammatory word in regards to my departure from evangelicalism, I can distinctly recall all this fear around Halloween costumes and television shows that had witches as characters. It was important to me to dig into the history of the word for myself, find out what constituted a “witch” in the first place, and to learn that so many people — healers, midwives (my sister is a midwife, and she’s pretty magic), women with money, women without children — were lumped into the label simply because they pushed against those (men) in power. I am not interested in serving men. Working alongside, having conversations, learning from, building relationships with, sure — but I will never be in service to or placate a man’s ego again.
The album is about faith transition as much as it is about identity and feminine strength, and “Witches” is a celebration of that power. It’s meant to make us stand up a little taller, to move our bodies however we want to, and to make sure we know we’re a part of a legacy. It’s a little subversive, it’s a little cheeky, it’s a little irreverent. She has fire inside.
The Water Comes Back will be released on October 22nd. You can presave “Witches,” out on October 8th, here.