As Katherine Priddy prepares to release her third album, These Frightening Machines, and with a gig coming soon at The Pleasance, Edinburgh on 30th April, SNACK caught up with her to discuss question marks, kicking doors down, and why Scotland keeps calling her back.
All being well, you’ll have played Scotland seven times by the end of April 2026. What keeps drawing you back?
I always enjoy gigging up in your neck of the woods. I always feel like it’s really lovely crowds, so it’s always nice to be able to play up there. Celtic Connections was my first gig of the year and the show sold out this time around. I was playing new songs as well, so it felt a little nerve-racking, but as always everyone was really kind and receptive. It was great fun.
For your Edinburgh show at The Pleasance on 30th April, how are you approaching the setlist?
I’m going to be singing a lot from the new album but I’ll definitely be squeezing some oldies in there as well. I think this time around I might actually just mix it up a bit each night in terms of older songs to include. I haven’t ever had to pick from three albums before, so it’s going to be tricky, but the focus will be on the new songs with a sprinkling of older ones.
‘Matches’ was the lead single – a visceral song about the witch trials. Your angriest song to date?
I was feeling quite annoyed when I wrote it because I’d read all these articles and essays about what happened during the witch trials and it’s just horrendous. I wanted to try and give a voice to those women that were killed during that time. I wanted it to feel angry and igniting, hence ‘matches’. I wanted it to kind of drum up that anger in the room. It felt like it needed to be the lead single because it feels like a real wallop in terms of introducing an album. It felt like a real kick-the-door-down sort of song.
The title track, ‘These Frightening Machines’, is deeply personal. How do you balance that vulnerability?
In the past, I’ve hidden behind Greek mythology and lots of metaphors. This album probably is more personal than the others. But I know from sitting in an audience that when you hear a song you’re not thinking about the singer; you’re thinking about yourself and applying those words to your own life. As soon as the song’s out, it’s not yours anymore – it belongs to everyone else. That helps me with that feeling of vulnerability.
‘Madeleine’ feels like a love song to other women in music. Is it about anyone in particular, or women in general?
When I started I was often the only woman on a bill and you’d be introduced as ‘that female guitarist’, which isn’t a genre. Women have been pitted against each other and made to feel like we’re competing for a small number of positions on bills. We end up feeling quite competitive amongst ourselves, which is rubbish and doesn’t serve us. I wanted to write a song that was a love song to other women and a reminder that there’s room for all of us, and we need to show solidarity with each other.
You’ve said you wanted to end this album on a question mark. What’s the thinking behind that?
It’s the question I ask myself at the end of any project: Is this enough? Is this going to get me where I want to be? And then you have to think, well, what does that even look like? It’s so hard to know what success is in music these days.
There’s themes in the album of me going into my 30s and wondering if I’m at the right place in life; am I doing everything right. But I didn’t want an album to feel like a complete solid perfect thing. It’s only ever a snapshot of where you’re at.
