by Scott Roos
ZOOM… It doesn't mean going fast anymore. Honestly these days when I hear that word I sort of cringe. It’s a four letter word. That’s being honest and maybe a little cliche but so much of our collective ways of living within the pandemic environment orbited around that four letter word. Of course, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that I’m referencing the online meeting platform that many are still using in light of not being able to do more in person gatherings. It’s been used for interviews, podcasts, concerts, and all sorts of other sometimes nefarious shit. In the case of budding Saskatchewan country artist Katelyn Lehner, it was also used for a songwriting session back in February of 2021 with Aaron Pollock.
The connection with Pollock happened organically when Lehner was living in Calgary. Pollock was a name she had heard about in the scene - most likely for his songwriting work with Brett Kissel. She reached out to him on social media, with Pollock initially acting as a sort of mentor to Lehner who was just breaking into the business with her debut single “Red”. They have been friends ever since which inevitably led to the creation of “Matter of Wine” which led to the song being released April 15th.
“I'm still kind of new to the co-writing game as a whole so zoom on top of that, it's kind of interesting just to see how you can bounce ideas off of one another not being able to actually be in the same room. There's also audio lags and it's kind of like you put things on pause to work on things on your own a little bit and then meet up again in the same session. But honestly Aaron and I got along really well and we both thought that the writing went really great and we both really liked the song at the end of the session,” explained Lehner in a recent conversation with NSMZ.
“Aaron had the title 'Matter of Wine' and he said that he had had it in mind for a little bit and wasn't really sure which direction to take it in. I loved the title. Right off the bat I thought that we could make it a really fun song and be able to have different wine references and things like that. I kind of came up with the hook of getting over a broken heart with wine of mine is just a matter of wine and we kind of just run with things from there,” Lehner continued.
The end result is a playful and hook laden song. It’s starting to be in Lehner’s wheelhouse to write material of this caliber with this being the second time she has also worked with producer Bart McKay. It’s a slick sounding track seemingly tailor made for country radio. Also, for the first time, Lehner decided to make a music video to accompany a track.
The video involved a three person crew between the two of them and myself. Which I'm super proud of. Lots of music videos take teams and tons and tons of people that work on them to see it through so I'm very proud of us for pulling off what we did with a small group. We started planning things months out and had lots of ideas. I kind of just wanted this video to kind of show my personality. I wanted it to be fun and I wanted people to watch the video and feel like they could relate to me a little bit more,” said Lehner.
Authenticity is something that Leher has been steadily improving at since she officially launched her singing career in 2020 with the release of her debut single. She’s spent a lot of time carefully crafting imagery on her social media to allow her fans to get to know the real Katelyn. She’s been able to show off many sides of her personality and, by extension, that shines through in her “Matter of Wine” music video.
“Instagram is such a good way to connect with people and I want it to be real and I want it to be authentic. I really like to have that come across in my photos I post. In my music videos and content that I'm putting out. I hope that people who know me can say 'oh yeah that's Katelyn' and people that are new to follow me can meet me at a show sometime. It's just my personality,” said Lehner.
As we head into the summer months, it’s apparent that Lehner is continuing to position herself for success. So far she’s been taking her time and carefully positioning herself so she can be a mainstay in the Saskatchewan country music scene, and by extension, eventually the Canadian country music scene as a whole. She was recently able to travel to Vermillion Alberta to open for Corb Lund at the “Band in the Sand” event. It was her first show outside the province..
“ I've really been wanting to just branch out and play some different places. I was super excited when we got that show and the crowd was wild. It was sold out. There was over 2200 people. I think just in general it was such an amazing buzz of the crowd. After COVID and the pandemic and doing so many virtual online shows from my bedroom and going to shows that were limited capacity and social distancing and everything it was really special and energetic to be in a room with that many people,” concluded Lehner.
*Katelyn Lehner photos from Band in the Sand courtesy of Forges Photography
Lehner’s “Matter of Wine” single is available on all streaming platforms. You can also watch the video below.
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