Katie Herzig, not Katie Herzog
Katie Herzig, not Katie Herzog

Nashville musician Katie Herzig first came to my notice about a decade ago, when people started asking me, Katie Herzog, if I'm a musician. I am not, but since then, Herzig has put out four albums, toured extensively, including with Brandi Carlile, burned out, took a live music hiatus, and, in March, came back with Moment of Bliss, the poppy, folky, sometimes sweet and sometimes sad album that she's on tour promoting right now. I caught up with Herzig the day before her show in Seattle to talk about the new album and getting mistaken for each other on Twitter. What follows is a completely unabridged transcript of that conversation.

Herzog:Hey! How are you? It's an honor to speak with you.

Herzig: I'm good. And likewise.

Herzog:I've been mistaken for you for many, many years.

Herzig: For many years? That's so crazy.

Herzog: Yeah, it even happened today. A colleague saw your flier up on a telephone pole around here and came and came and asked me if I'm in a band. We look nothing alike and there's a huge difference in our names but people still think I have a secret side gig as a touring musician.

Herzig: That's so funny. My name has been mispronounced over my lifetime many times as "Herzog." I feel like that one's a little more common.

Herzog: I think it is. I know of four Katie Herzogs, oddly. The really crazy thing is that all of them are homosexuals.

Herzig: Oh, interesting.

Herzog: Yes, it's very strange. I think the name actually made me gay. But I've never heard of another Katie Herzig besides you. Or any Herzig.

Herzig: I have had several find me, by nature of the internet.

Herzog: Do you respond to that? I'll get Facebook messages from people like, "Oh, are you related to my mom Glenda Herzog" or whatever. Do you get that?

Herzog: Yeah, I've probably responded to a few. Most of them I don't know the connection at all. But it's kinda crazy—I now have some fans because their name is Katie Herzig and they found me.

Herzog: That doesn't seem like the best way to sell albums, but whatever it takes I guess.

Herzig: Yeah I need a more common name if I'm going to find fans that way.

Herzog: Maybe you should change it Herzig-Smith or something like that. So, anyway, where are you right now?

Herzig: We are in Boise, headed up to Seattle. I think we'll make it as far as Ellensburg tonight.

Herzog: How is tour going?

Herzig: It's good. This is a bit of a comeback tour for me after taking four years off. In some ways it was about rebuilding and figuring a lot of stuff out and in some ways it's like I've done this for years.

Herzog: What did you do during your hiatus?

Herzig: The last tour I did, I got really burned out so I was intentionally not rushing back into it. I spent a lot of time working on the new album. I spent a lot of time remodeling a house and then moving and then building a studio in my new house. So just life and house and family and recording and stuff, basically. This year has been a lot releasing and touring and promoting. My favorite season of life is creating and just being in that headspace rather than promoting. Unfortunately you kind of have to do that when you release stuff.

Herzog: If you could just put your music out and not tour, would you rather do that?

Herzig: That's a really good question. I feel like I would have said yes to that four years ago. And then, playing this tour, I'm reminded what I love about playing live music. This world is so digital and isolating. Playing music feels really analog. And then, being in a room with real people who care about what you create. I've been very happy to fall in love with it again. There's the stress of feeling like you're throwing a party in 19 towns and hoping its as fun as the last time. But it's been fun. And I'm glad about that.

Herzog: Do you have support on this tour?

Herzig: Yes. William Wild is opening most of the shows. He'll be there in Seattle. He's really good and he's from Knoxville. He's awesome.

Herzog: Oh I used to live in Knoxville. I hear that it's become a good city, which is sort of funny. And then you have places like Seattle, which is kind of a hell hole.

Herzig: Really?

Herzog: Oh yeah, Seattle is terrible. It's so expensive. It's like paying San Francisco prices but none of the benefits of living in San Francisco, just all the downsides. Actually, our longtime music critic Sean Nelson who was in a band that was huge in 1998 just quit us to move to Nashville. It's so bad here that people are moving to Nashville, which I assume is very muggy.

Herzig: It's so muggy but so many people are moving there. It's growing crazy amounts. I heard it's like 100 people a day.

Herzog: What's bringing people there? Is it the music scene?

Herzig: That's definitely part of it but there's a lot of other businesses there. Like the medical industry is really big there. As a town, it's historically been cheaper so you can get more bang for your buck, but prices are going up. There's a lot of new restaraunts and nice new areas but affordable housing is an issue. They are super behind the curve in terms of traffic and transportation. Biking, walking, busing and all that stuff.

Herzog: Oh good, I can tell Sean Nelson he'll spend a lot of time stuck in traffic. So on this tour, have you found any towns where you've thought, "I'd live here."

Herzig: Colorado. I'm from there and I still want to live there. I've felt that a lot in the West. Nowhere really in the East, unless maybe Vermont or something. You just talked me out of Seattle but I've been afraid of the cloudy nature anyway. I've always loved Portland. And I could live in LA too. I was born in LA and I have a lot of friends there. But Colorado seems to be where I would most like to live someday. All my family is there and I miss the recreation and the vibe.

Herzog: My sister lives there and she refers to the recreation as "ing sports." As in, like, hiking, biking, skiing. All they do there is ing sports.

Herzig: Oh yeah, totally.

Herzog: Ok, tell me about the new album. Is there a theme? Does albums have themes? Is it a story? I don't know how these things work.

Herzig: It feels like the end of a trilogy for me. It feels like there is a progression in terms of where I've gone musically and where I've gone in my life and in the things I care about. Moment of Bliss feels like the culmination of these things. I've never really felt like I fit into any genre and I think this follows that, for better or worse. I'm an independent artist so this is all just what I want to create. There are no people trying to convince me to do anything. I wrote the song "Moment of Bliss" about trying to live in the moment as I found myself addicted to my cell phone. There was a little tapping into that, thematically. Then I have environmental themes, relationship themes.

Herzog: What's your poison on your cell phone? Solitaire? Twitter?

Herzig: I feel like the raging river of Twitter is probably my biggest drug. Instagram feels a little more low-key to me. And everything got so amped up with the election. There's always something there.

Herzog: I find Twitter to be the most toxic of the platforms but also the one that's easiest to engage with people I'm actually interested in. And there's a huge benefit to having the blue checkmark by your name, as stupid as it is, because verified users can filter out all the hoi polloi. That's what I like about it, that I have a blue check mark and so I look more important than I actually am.

Herzig: It gets you into the party.

Herzog: Exactly. The parties is terrible but at least you get in.

Herzig: Can I ask you, what is your main thing? Did you used to write for Grist? Are you that Katie Herzog? I recongized your name from that. What is your thing now?

Herzog: That's funny that you read Grist. I've never met anyone who reads Grist before. My thing now is that I write about things that annoy me. So, one day I might write about astrology and French bulldogs and then next I might write about Donald Trump. It's kind of all over the place but I would say the overarching theme is that it's universally loathed. That's the uniting factor in my body of work: Almost everyone hates it.

Herzig: It seems like you get a lot of strong reactions.

Herzog: Do you ever get tagged in tweets that are like, "Fuck you Katie Herzig. You're trash," when what they really mean is "Fuck you Katie Herzog. You're trash."?

Herzig: It's usually people re-posting your articles and usually those people tend to agree with you. Do you mostly get the opposite?

Herzog: Privately, I get a lot of praise, but publicly I get a lot of shit. I'm kidding when I say my work is "universally loathed." There's a small group of people who like it and they are all related to me. And one of the things I love about you coming to Seattle is that your picture and your name has been on every telephone in this town for like a month and I hope that people who don't like me see that and it triggers them and raises their blood pressure a little bit. I want them to be like, "Oh man, she's a musician and she's pretty?" I hope that it bothers them a little bit so I'm really glad you're coming here.

Herzig: Any benefit you can get off that, take it.

Herzog: Oh, I will.

One of us will be playing Tuesday night at the Crocodile. Doors at 7, tickets here.