In this episode, Alexis dives deep into the world of artistry with the exceptional Kirsty Hulka. Also known as soul-pop artist Sgt. Hulka, Kirsty is a Perth musician, singer-songwriter, mother and lover of all things with sparkles!
This episode is a treasure trove full of honest reflections on the challenges and triumphs of the songwriting journey. From the solitude that fuels creation to the evolving musicianship shaped by technology, Kirsty opens up about her own songwriting process, her battle with ongoing revisions and perfectionism, and the beauty of finding confidence in her own unique sound.
Although making music a priority can sometimes feel like pushing a rock up a hill, Kirsty illustrates the rewards of forging relationships with fellow artists to the final product of a song, is unparalleled by any challenge.
If you’d like to see more of, you can follow Kirsty on Instagram @sgthulka_
This episode was recorded on 12 November 2023 on the lands of the Wajuk Peoples. We hope that this episode inspires you as a creative person and as a human being.
Thanks for listening, catch you on the next episode.
Psst! We are always on the lookout for creative people to share their story and inspire others. Have you got someone in mind who would love to have a chat? Get in contact with us via Instagram @throughthecreativedoor
Creative references from Kirsty:
Software: Logic, GarageBand
Tools: Rhymezone
Podcasts: Switched On Pop, Song Exploder
Let’s get social:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/throughthecreativedoor/
TikToK: https://www.tiktok.com/@ttcdpodcast
CREDITS
Created and Hosted by Alexis Naylor
Music by Alexis Naylor & Ruby Miguel
Edited and Produced by Ruby Miguel
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00:08 - Alexis (Host)
Hi, my name is Alexis Naylor and I am your host here at Through the Creative Door. On behalf of myself and my guests, I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians on which this podcast is recorded and produced. We pay our respects to all First Nations people and acknowledge Elders, past and present. On this podcast, I will be chatting to an array of creative guests, getting a glimpse into their worlds and having some honest and inspiring conversations along the way. Welcome to Through the Creative Door.
00:48 - Alexis (Host)
Hi Kirsty
00:49 - Kirsty (Guest)
Hi Alexis
00:50 - Alexis (Host)
How are you going?
00:52 - Kirsty (Guest)
Good, how are you?
00:54 - Alexis (Host)
Thank you for coming on Through The Creative Door.
00:56 - Kirsty (Guest)
Thank you for having me.
00:58 - Alexis (Host)
I spent some time thinking about like how I met you and just like just being in awe and fangirling before even we were friends but you are. I don't know. I have so much respect for you as a creative because not only are you a phenomenal writer, singer-songwriter, performer, but you also are so creative in like your endeavours, Like I've seen you be uber creative, like with merch and like getting your hands all in there and and making things sparkly.
01:32 - Kirsty (Guest)
Yeah yeah, it's, I do I do make a lot of things sparkly
01:39 - Alexis (Host)
And also like, yeah, making merch, and like your last show that I saw you, you had a piano that you oh,
01:47 - Kirsty (Guest)
Oh, a piano shell.
01:51 - Kirsty (Guest)
Yeah, so it looks like a grand piano. I'm going to take that with me today actually.
01:54 - Alexis (Host)
Oh really,oOh my goodness, I feel like that needs to be a staple
01:59 - Kirsty (Guest)
For stages that will fit it. It's quite big.
02:02 - Alexis (Host)
is it quite heavy?
02:03 - Kirsty (Guest)
Yeah, yeah. So yeah for shows that um the stage is big enough, then I'll bring it, but yeah when it's um a smaller stage it won't fit.
02:12 - Alexis (Host)
So thank you for having me in your home. I also have seen some of your little creative space that you have at the front, yes, but I'm curious what does a creative space mean to you?
02:24 - Kirsty (Guest)
To be honest, a creative space to me is solitude. I really struggle to create musically when there's other people around. So one of the things that I have noticed just about myself is that, even if someone else is home and, um, I'm, you know, wanting to create some music, I can't do it. I feel like there's people listening, or, you know, when I'm trying out different ideas and going, oh, like this is a cool little idea to play, or this is a cool little song, I end up, if there's someone else home, I feel self-conscious and I feel that I can't create.
03:05
And so one of the things that I've worked out is that, for me, creating musically needs to be a solo thing. I need to be alone in the right headspace to be able to really get into it. One of the hardest things is time, obviously, um, finding the time to allow myself to be creative is often hard. When I've got limited time during the day to be alone, um, and there's always washing to be folded, there's always dishes to be done, there's always an email to be sent, there's always another thing to do, and so being able to actually allow myself to be creative is also one of the biggest challenges, and so I guess having the creative space is one thing, but then, yeah, having the mental space to be able to, to be able to create, is also hard um
04:02 - Alexis (Host)
Do you find that you schedule time in and can delegate it, or is it just more when you've..
04:10 - Kirsty (Guest)
Sometimes I can. One thing that I've worked out that works well for me now is that everything is a progression, so like I will start a song and I'll come up with an idea, and then I've got to sit on it, yeah, and then I'll do a little bit more on it and a little bit more on it. I've got to kind of keep coming back to that same idea, the same thing of, like you know, a painter will have their blank canvas and they'll start painting and it's like a work in progress. For me, songwriting is a work in progress. I'm not the kind of person that can sit down and write a song in one go. I have to kind of keep coming back to it and keep readjusting and, yeah, rehashing it and going does that work? How does that work there, if I put this bit there, is that better or is that worse? And I kind of keep going back and forth for a while until I come up with the final product, the final product. So yeah, the creative space is definitely more of a mental space for me rather than an actual physical space. I can create anywhere.
05:14
One of the interesting things I did a while ago, before I had a daughter, I went down to Pemberton, booked a little chalet, stayed down there for three nights or four nights, I think and just set up all my equipment and went I'm just going to get creative. And I got down there and I sat down at the piano, blank nothing. And you know, I'm surrounded by beautiful forests and I've got all this time alone and nothing. And so I sat and I sat and I sat and I went far out come on, Kirsty, we can do this and I ended up, um, so yeah, first day was a write-off got nothing done, nothing at all. Second day went all right, I need tp, I need to do something about this now.
06:06
So I woke up in the morning and I went for a run and I thought I'm going to listen to the songs that I love and the songs that I want to kind of aspire to be. So I listened to a bunch of songs and then I got back to the accommodation and went I'm going to learn those songs and I'm going to learn how to play the songs that I really like and pull those songs apart as to what they have done to make them songs that I like and that I want to listen to and why other people like as well. So I pulled those songs apart and I learned how to play them. And then, since doing that, suddenly it just went ping and I started to get some ideas flowing and going oh, if I just do this, I can be inspired by what they've done there.
06:48
And you know I can use that six, eight time signature. Yeah, I can use that, you know I can go to this chord there that they've done in that song or something. And so then I found that I'd come up with an idea and then I'd let it sit and I'd go for a run and as I'd be running I would get another idea pop into my head yeah and then I'd come back and I'd put that down and then I'd go, all right, cool, that's that bit, and then I'd have to go and do something else.
07:15
So I find my creative space is in little blocks. Yeah now. So to put the pressure on myself of I'm going to sit down and write doesn't work for me. I need to do it in little chunks. I find first thing in the morning I'm very creative. By the time it gets to eight o'clock at night I'm useless.
07:37 - Alexis (Host)
I know. Obviously, at the moment you have a project, Sgt. Hulka, which is amazing. Kicking goals. But, you've also had a lot of projects and a lot of ensembles and things that you've worked on over the years. I'm curious if there's a body of work that you're most proud of and how it came about.
07:57 - Kirsty (Guest)
I'd probably say Sgt. Hulka is the one that I'm most proud of. It's, in terms of how it's developed and how it's progressed, is something that I've put a lot of effort into and I've and I've kind of set myself the goal of good is not good enough. It's like if it's good, that's not good enough. I want it to be better than good, and so whenever, like the last EP, when we recorded the EP, I took all the tracks to my producer and I said these are the tracks I want to record. And he listened to me and he said, oh yeah, they're good. And I went cool, so how do we make them great? And he went well, what do you mean? And I said, well, if they're good, we need to make them better. And so it was trying to pull the songs apart so that then I could go you know, listen to it. From a different perspective of just because that's how I've written, it doesn't mean that's how it has to be. And so I worked really a lot with my producer and working out how the songs could go from good to like really good something that I was able to go.
09:14
I'm really proud, proud of that song. So I think, in terms of, like songs that I'm really proud of. Forget What I Told You, is one that I still surprise myself like I wrote that that was. You know, that's pretty cool that I wrote that. In terms of songs that I'm really proud of and ones that I yeah, something that I can go, I'm really proud of that, Forget What I Told You is one that I am really proud of and I think
09:341 - Alexis (Host)
Well, it's a banging song.
09:42
Yeah, it shows, because of, yeah, the amount of what I put into it. I guess, yeah, even when we were mixing it and my, and you know, Patrick said you know how's it sound, Kirsty? I'm like, yeah, it can be better. And I think by the end, Patrick was a bit like come on, Kirsty, I think it’s good. Yeah but no, it can be better. Yeah, um, and you know it's getting that fine detail of going back to something enough times to be able to go cool, that's it. But there's also that trap of going kind of continuously, going back to it over and over again and then never being happy with it, kind of like the painter that never finishes the painting yeah because they're always making final tweaks. So there has to come a point when you go all right, it's done
10:29 - Alexis (Host)
And what's that point for you do you think?
10:31 - Kirsty (Guest)
I think part of it would be when I feel like I've done enough and I feel like there's nothing more I can do, but also timing. It also gets to the point where I go all right, I've got to actually get this out now.
10:48 - Alexis (Host)
I find for me, for myself, having certain particular deadlines and allowing, yes, there's a little bit of time to pick it up and put it down within that space, but there's definitely a deadline.
10:59 - Kirsty (Guest)
Yeah. So there has to be a deadline there. I've found that as I've gotten older, my creative ability has just massively improved. It's like if I look back to the songs I wrote when I was 20, I'm like, ooh, can't let people listen to that.
11:20 - Alexis (Host)
But how great is it though, because I know for myself. It's the same as the look back and you go oh look, how far I've come.
11:24 - Kirsty (Guest)
Yeah, that's and that's great. I think that's also like when I, you know, being proud of that product that I can put out is that if 20 year old Kirsty was to like, look at what I'd done with the whole EP and the, you know how much I'd put into writing and arranging and recording and everything like 20-year-old Kirsty would have been like wow, that's awesome, whereas like if back then, I would never have been able to do it.
11:55 - Alexis (Host)
Yeah.
11:56 - Kirsty (Guest)
It's like I wouldn't have been able to do it. Yeah, it's like I wouldn't have been able to have to have the mental space, the ability um the knowledge of songs that I've got now.
12:08 - Alexis (Host)
You need to flex that muscle.
12:11 - Kirsty (Guest)
Yeah. The more that I do it, the more I learn, so yeah.
12:14 - Alexis (Host)
So, on the flip side of things that you're proud of, has there ever been something that has challenged your creativity and, if so, what was the major lesson, do you think?
12:27 - Kirsty (Guest)
I think, like everyone, we get the mental block. That's something that's challenged my creativity, especially as a songwriter. You like I, for so many years I would write songs about, like personal songs. This is what this means to me. This is how you know, songwriting is a way that you get out emotions. It's a way that you process what you're feeling. One of the biggest challenges is when I'm feeling really happy and I'm like, well, well, everything's pretty good in my life, so I don't know what I'd write a song about.
13:01 - Alexis (Host)
It's so tough. You're not the first person I've spoken to. That's just like life's really good, and so I don't really have.
13:09 - Kirsty (Guest)
Like, how am I going to write a heartache song, and so it's trying to find a song, trying to find inspiration to write when everything's all good. So you know, generally you go into writing songs when you're feeling sad or heartbroken or whatever. But to be able to go right, I'm going to write a song about periods, yes, or one of the things for me is that I have to know what the song is about. I can't write a song when it's got no meaning. I need to have a theme there, even if I don't have lyrics. This is what this song is about. Even if I've got one line in the song and that's the only lyrics I've got for the song, I have to know what the song's about. I have to know what direction it's going in and what message I want to get across. So sometimes finding that inspiration of what do I want to write a song about is the biggest challenge, because songwriting is storytelling. That's the way that I look at it. It's got to be telling a story. You've got to engage with your listeners in your lyrics, otherwise it could just be an instrumental song.
14:21
One of the biggest challenges is finding ways to write songs and what it's going to be about. The other one is the blockage of going. I don't know where to take this, and one of the biggest lessons I've learned is to sit on it, don't rush it, don't push it, just wait. So usually for me it's a six-month process of writing a song, like from beginning til end. I couldn't even tell you the last time I wrote a song. Oh no, I'm sorry. There was one song that I wrote last year that I think I wrote in a weekend, but to me that's my simple song. It's like it's a simple structure. It's simple lyrics. Well, not simple lyrics, but there's nothing complex about it. It's a nice song, but it's not a song that I'd go um. You know, it's not a complex one, if that makes sense.
15:13 - Alexis (Host)
So I do think I mean maybe you feel the same. There are the occasions where suddenly a song just sort of pours out of you yeah, and it just all sort of works yeah um and others where you're just like, yeah, there's a great idea here, but I, yeah, definitely need to sit it down and yeah, mull over it for a bit, yeah, yeah, so like, for example, I was one of the things that I kind of used to get over that challenge, which I've never done before, is, um, the inspiration of other people's songs. So it's not to say that I'm going to listen to a song and be like, oh, I'm just going to copy exactly what they did there. Um, it's trying to use the subconscious of songs that I'm inspired by to create the sounds that I want. Like, one of the songs that I've the next single that I'm going to be releasing had the chorus and I was just struggling with the verse. I'd kind of written it and gone, oh yeah, you know, that'll do, that'll do for now. But in my head I was always like, but I'll get it better at some stage. But I had to get something down.
16:15
And the other day I was driving and one of my favorite songs came on, um, Perfect World by Alan Stone, and as I was listening to it I was like, oh, that's what my verse needs. It needs something soulful and at a higher pitch, because I was trying to sing the verse like too low and it just wasn't working, and so I kind of used that inspiration of what that song was and then tried to put it to the song that I'd done and suddenly it just yeah, it just all went and fit and I was like there it is. And so I think it's about not letting yourself, or not letting myself, being stuck in that moment of frustration of like I can't get it, I don't know what to do with this song, and instead consciously letting it sit, if that makes sense. Now I've learned just to go. I'll take a back step and I'll just leave it and it'll come when it comes.
17:09
But also making a conscious effort to allow it to do it. So, listening to songs that inspire me, pulling apart songs that I really like, like well, what chords did they use there? Why do those chords work? Oh, they do some like really cool stabs in that bit that sounds really cool. Oh, they've got like a violin doing some weird thing at the top there and actually pulling other people's songs apart, I consciously find inspiration from the music that I love.
17:33
I think one of the things that I've discovered as well now is that I used to always, you know, write songs in all kinds of different styles. So, you know, I'd get a melody idea and I'd start writing like oh, you know, this one's a bit more of a folk song, or this one's a slower one, or this is a this kind of song. But now I'm a lot more focused on my product. Is I'm going, this is the product that I want to achieve? How do I achieve that? So what do I need to add into a song to make it the product that I want? Rather than, oh, this is how I'm inspired and this is what the song is, I'm taking a much more conscious effort to say I want to be a soul pop artist. I'm fitting it into the style of music that I want, rather than that's just the product that it is. Yeah.
18:24 - Alexis (Host)
I'm curious. I know that we sort of spoke about how you know you don't necessarily need a particular space to be creative, but is it an object or a thing?
18:42 - Kirsty (Guest)
No. Interestingly, the time that I get most of my ideas is on my motorbike. Motorbike and driving. That's when I get ideas pop into my head, not so much car, but yeah motorbike and driving. It's weird and, I don't know why, interesting, but there's been many, many times I've been riding my motorbike and suddenly I'll just get this idea in my head and I've literally had to pull over and get my phone out and record it into my phone and then keep going again. Perhaps it's the know there's nothing else to listen to. Yes, there's. There's no, no one to talk to. There's not a radio to turn on, there's not a podcast to listen to. It's just me and myself focusing on staying safe on the road.
19:27 - Alexis (Host)
It's interesting that you say that, because for me, when I do long-haul drives in my camper van on tour or travel, I find that, yeah, it's like because you're concentrating on something else it's like your subconscious has a chance to then start to like make ideas.
19:44 - Kirsty (Guest)
Yeah, like there's nothing else I can do. I can't check my texts, I can't quickly send an email, I can't hang the washing out. I've just got to drive and be safe.
19:55 - Alexis (Host)
If you could give another creative nugget of advice, a piece of advice, what would that be?
20:02 - Kirsty (Guest)
Don't stop. So my advice would be don't stop trying. And I think one of the things with writing music is the moment that you, like I said to you before, the moment that you stop, no one's going to come knocking on your door asking you why, they're, you know you'll just stop.
20:22
Um, when I stopped writing music, when I was in I think I was 26 or 27 um, it was like I I needed a break from it, but I missed it and I wanted to keep doing it, but I lost a. You know, I'd, every weekend, I'd be out playing gigs and suddenly I wasn't, and I wasn't going out and playing gigs. And then I felt bad because I didn't want to go and watch any shows, because I wasn't making any music and the. It took me a couple, quite a few years to actually realize, you know, what was wrong, why I wasn't feeling good about myself, why what was missing in my life. And then I made a decision to start playing music again and it was almost like oh, there it is, that's what I needed, um, and especially playing original music. It's like I needed to be creating again.
21:20 - Alexis (Host)
We spoke off mic about that community and like having your cup filled and how people don't necessarily check in with you, but they're just doing their thing.
21:30 - Kirsty (Guest)
Yeah it’s, I don't regret having a break. I think I needed it. I needed to have that break to pull back and kind of reassess what I wanted. But I'm glad that I've pursued and that I haven't given up. Creativity is, It's hard to allow yourself to do it because you think you know what. I've got to work, I've got to do all these other things and this isn't earning me any money. It's like what's the point of doing it? But the point of doing it is the friends that you meet, the community that you find the cup that you can fill up. It's like I create music because I have to. Yeah, I don't do it because you know I want to be Adele or I want to be Beyonce. That's never been my goal. My goal is I do it because I have to and I know what it's like when I don't do it. I think you know I just I would end up drinking so much because I wasn't playing anywhere and, you know, because I didn't have anything to do.
22:36 - Alexis (Host)
Is there any resources that you would suggest or recommend for someone who's wanting to develop their creativity?
22:46 - Kirsty (Guest)
Logic. Honestly it's game changer or GarageBand. What it's like now as a creative and writing songs, like I started writing songs when I was you know 14 or something, and it was just the piano and that would be all there was. But nowadays the technology that we've got to create like to kind of get the ball rolling, like get some Logic loops and just loop some different riffs going and like sing some words over it and see if it works. Like, there's so much out there in terms of you don't have to know how to play an instrument. You can get creative and write songs.
23:30 - Alexis (Host)
Yeah love it. One extra question, one extra last question. If you could have anyone else come onto this podcast and answer these questions, who would it be and why?
23:42 - Kirsty (Guest)
I mean I would love to hear the creative process of Bon Iver, the whole thing of like how he kind of found his sound in that creative way. So, yeah, definitely Bon Iver.
23:55 - Alexis (Host)
Kirsty, thank you so much for coming on Through The Creative Door. It's so lovely to have you be part of it. Thank you and yeah, excited to see what else is coming down the pipeline for you.
24:07 - Kirsty (Guest)
Yeah, exciting things coming up.
