Collaboration of a lifetime 

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This article was published 23/11/2017 (3051 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s not often a young indie-folk musician from Brandon, Manitoba, can say he’s got a co-write with Sir Paul McCartney under his belt, but such is the case for Katlin Mathison.

As part of his formal music education, Mathison — who performs under the moniker Okay Mann — found himself in Liverpool, England, attending the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts; a school McCartney co-founded. Majoring in songwriting and record production, Mathison was one of a handful a students chosen to get one-on-one writing time with McCartney himself. 

“I was obviously really nervous… and I introduced myself and he’s like, ‘Oh, hey, I’m Paul,’ like, ‘I know who you are,’” Mathison laughs. 

“And he said, ‘You look just like my nephew,’ and I said, ‘Oh, is he a really good-looking guy?’ because I was trying to make a joke, and he laughed.

“After that it was super normal; he’s a really genuinely super down-to-earth guy.”

Mathison explains he went into the session with a nearly finished song, and McCartney offered advice on lines that weren’t working or verses that needed to be rejigged. He also suggested Mathison insert the word “dear” at the end of the chorus, which, listening to it now, was a small but very impactful addition.

The song, Without You Dear, isn’t on Mathison’s debut EP (he already released the track last year as part of a two-song package), but the influence of Liverpool is still very present in the eight-song collection, titled Little Merseyafter the Mersey River which runs through the northern English city. 

Though Mathison, 25, has since moved back to Manitoba after graduating — he now lives in Winnipeg — he travelled back to Liverpool in January to co-write and record the EP with his best friend, Norwegian producer Nils Martin Frisk Børstrand, whom he met while in school.

“Because we lived there together, we were just reflecting on… I never saw myself as someone who was obsessed with England, and it’s weird to me that I lived there for two years. So I wanted to make the EP reflecting on those years and what it was like and the feelings I had then and the feelings I have now,” Mathison says.

Mathison’s Norwegian connection sprawls much further than Børstrand, however — while in school, he co-wrote and provided vocals for a track that charted in Norway and was eventually awarded gold certification (selling 15,000 copies).

“It was a really weird thing — I’m in university, struggling to get ready for my exams, I’m a nobody, and I’ve got 14 year olds from Norway messaging me on Facebook going, ‘Hey are you the Katlin Mathison from the song?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, but… I’m sitting here in my underwear. I don’t think I am who you think I am,’” he laughs. 

Mathison has kept up with his contacts there and has been back a few times, and will make another trip to Norway in December, just a few days after the official release of Little Mersey on Nov. 26. 

And after spending the last couple of years more firmly rooted in Winnipeg (trying to “figure out how to be an adult,” as he says) Mathison is happy to be building up his musical momentum again and is ready to not only repeat, but exceed, his successes overseas.

“I think for a little while I sort of hit a rut, just creatively and life-wise, it’s hard to be driven, you know? Especially when you’re the only one holding yourself accountable,” Mathison explains.

“I was all guns blazing and ready to take over the world and then I moved to Winnipeg, and that certainly helped many things in many ways, but also life gets in the way, so, I think over the year of me percolating and writing these songs and preparing for this record, it was a lot of steeping of just getting ready to kind of explode again.”

 

erin.lebar@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @NireRabel