7 FROM THE WOMEN WITH KRISTEN RAE BOWDEN
Kristen Rae Bowden is a singer-songwriter whose music captures the raw emotions of love, freedom, and personal growth.
Growing up in a musical family in North Carolina, Kristen’s journey from a self-taught pianist to a recognized music artist in the Americana and indie scenes is inspirational.
In this exclusive interview, Kristen discusses her latest single, "Skateboard," a song that vividly recalls the thrill of young love and the sense of independence she felt during her college years.
She also opens up about her creative process, sharing how her sound has been influenced by artists like Joni Mitchell and Imogen Heap. Collaborating with her partner, guitarist Joe Lawlor, has been a significant part of her recent work.
What have you been working to promote lately?
I am happy to be here promoting my latest single "Skateboard," my exploration of what it felt like to be young and in love and newly on my own.
I wanted to capture a time early in my college days when I had a skateboarding, long-distance boyfriend. We would visit each other at our respective schools, and after I’d had just enough to drink and smoke I’d get brave enough to try and ride a skateboard myself a little bit. Both the skateboarding, and the time in my life, were pure exhilaration… the wind in my hair, being free of a curfew, falling in love… life felt new and full of potential. That’s the feeling we wanted to capture in this song: the uplifting freedom of hot summer nights through the lavender haze of young love.
I co-wrote this song with my musical and romantic partner, guitarist Joe Lawlor (DMB). I heard him playing the opening guitar pattern one night and immediately wanted to sing over it… “Keep doing that!” I yelled from the next room, and the first line just came out of my mouth: “Feeling so high / when you’re driving all night / to my front door”. When I first sang the line, I thought we were writing a pop country song - it’s that type of soaring vocal. Ultimately it turned into an indie-pop tune with folk and alt country elements. We were so lucky to have our friend Dane Alderson (Yellowjackets) play bass on the track, with mixing by John Alagia (Dave Matthews) and Pedro Laet (Mt. Joy), and mastering by Whynot Jansveld (The Wallflowers).
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Please tell us about your favorite song written, recorded or produced by another woman and why it’s meaningful to you.
My favorites change with my moods, but "Canvas" by Imogen Heap is what just came to mind.
This song truly is like a sonic painting, and when I listen to it I feel immersed in another world. The lyrics are pretty abstract, so what I hear in them changes based on what is meaningful to me at the time. There is both peacefulness and a desperation in the words and the soundscape, and this combination resonates with me. It’s ethereal and haunting, like a soundbath. It always takes me out of where I am and puts me on a different plane with a different outlook. I’ve read that Imogen does a lot of her own engineering and production in addition to writing, singing, and playing: that’s inspiring to me. The production here is stunning. This is a song I come back to again and again.
What does it mean to you to be a woman making music/in the music business today and do you feel a responsibility to other women to create messages and themes in your music?
It’s important for women to have the space, time, and support to express themselves with art. With everything that’s happening in our country and our world, we need that outlet. I’m ridiculously lucky to have the resources and freedom to write and create music. As a woman I feel even luckier in this way because I think women carry so many burdens in their daily lives that having a quiet spare moment alone is a rarity for many.
And no, I don’t feel a responsibility to anyone to put certain messages or themes in my music. It’s hard not to look at what you’re creating through the lens of what other people are going to think and say about it, especially in this age of social media. I think it’s important to create what you want and do your best to forget about all that. I hope the themes in my music lift women up, and that that happens organically. That’s how I feel in my heart, so I hope it spills out when I’m writing.
Who is your favorite female icon (dead or alive) and why?
The Mexican painter Frida Kahlo is a female icon I’ve delighted in learning more about in recent years. I’d previously admired her beautiful, raw, symbolic paintings, but two years ago I decided to read her biography after seeing an X-Ray of my own crooked spine. After I cried about it for a minute I thought, I bet reading Frida’s biography would change my perspective and stop me feeling sorry for myself. She had polio as a child, and then as a young woman she suffered a broken back and many other terrible injuries in a bus/trolley crash, leaving her in horrible pain for the rest of her life. She took up painting while bedridden after her accident, and channeled the pain into her art.
Reading her biography I learned about the origins of her instantly recognizable personal style: she used fashion and her outward appearance to express her Indigenous Mexican heritage, essentially becoming a work of art herself. She challenged traditional norms of gender and sexuality, defying conventional expectations of femininity.
Her paintings address deeply personal women’s issues and pain, such as her sexuality and her inability to carry a pregnancy to term, with shocking openness at a time when nobody was doing that. They also address her political stances and cultural heritage. The way she lived her life and created art is incredibly touching and inspiring to me.
A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to visit her house in Coyoacan, Mexico City, which is now the Frida Kahlo museum. Seeing her paintings up close, along with her her belongings (her wheelchair, her easel, her back braces and incredible folk style clothing), and walking through the rooms where she lived, gave me goosebumps. If you have the chance to go, I highly recommend it.
Who was the first female artist that made you want to create music / be in the business?
I ran cross country in high school. When I was 15, before I could drive, one of my older teammates would drive a couple of us younger girls to practice after school. She played Joni Mitchell’s ‘Blue’ album in her car all the time. I’d never heard it before, and at first, for some reason, I didn’t like it. I kind of hated it. Something about the timbre of her voice was off putting to me. But after a couple weeks of listening to it, I became obsessed. I started listening to it at home on my own time, and really digging into the lyrics and melodies. To this day, that album gives me flashes of memory from that first summer that I heard it, and all that it has meant to me since then. Joni made me want to write my own songs and put my poems to music.
Do you consider yourself a feminist? If so, why or why not?
Hell yes. No one is free without bodily autonomy. Women all over the world are enduring unspeakable horrors simply because they are women. We need feminist belief and activism as much now as ever.
What do you hope to share with other women in the industry with your music?
Catharsis, solidarity, empathy, and empowerment.
Finally, where can we find you online?
Connect with me all over the web here:
Lynx. Kristen Rae Bowden, an americana, folk, indie, pop, rock, songwriter artist from Charlottesville, VA