Fife songstress Nati is in ebullient mood following a spring jaunt to Skye to play a warm-up show ahead of her latest tour.
She’s talking about her latest recorded offering, which perfectly distils her folk-inflected power pop vibe across five life-affirming new songs.
“Golden is the title track because it’s the simplest and most lovely song on the EP, which is all about healing,” explains Kirkcaldy-raised Nati.
“When you get to a certain age you start to realise there’s maybe things in your life you’ve buried deep down and they start to come to the surface.
“You can’t help it, they just keep bubbling up, and so it’s a process of healing.
“And Golden was the perfect one because it was just about joy and nostalgia and remembering how you used to be invincible as a child.
“How you could just climb trees and fall out of them – and now you try and do a cartwheel and you end up in a stookie for a couple of months.”
What inspired Nati’s track Golden?
A couple of glasses of wine on amid the excitement of playing live for BBC Radio Four, the singer-songwriter is keen to stress the effect the new release has had on her outlook on life as much as her approach to her craft.
“We were singing the word ‘golden’ and I closed my eyes, and I was like, what is golden to me?” the artist formerly known by the slightly longer name of Nati Dreddd adds.
“What I saw was: I was in the water and the waves were coming to the point where I was being swayed, and the last of the Scottish sun was on my face and my friends were laughing in the background.
“I was like, that’s so simple but it’s really happy. And I’ve not really written a happy song before, so it was nice.”
How Nati’s ‘walking shortbread tin’ look attracted fans across the pond
It was during the difficult days of lockdown five years ago that the flame-haired singer and guitarist started to attract a huge following for her renditions of Scottish traditional standards on TikTok. This led to her eventually quitting her job in a phone shop to become a full-time musician.
“I started singing covers, things I liked – traditional music, stuff in Gaelic, and then it picked up,” says Nati, looking back.
“And I think because of the big red curly hair a lot of Americans saw me, and saw that I looked kind of like a walking tin of shortbread, and they really took to that.
“So I then started to experiment and write my original stuff and it kind of took off from there – and we’ve just been seeing where it goes since.”
Working with hero Newton Faulkner
A cover version of guitar maestro Newton Faulkner’s 2007 hit Dream Catch Me led to Nati – full name Natalie Galloway – being taken under the wing of her idol and his music manager sister Lottie Jackson-Faulkner.
She’s continued to work closely with the English duo. A stream of digital singles over the past couple of years have ensured she’s never been too long out of the limelight.
Having moved towards a dynamic folk-pop fusion – the versatile Newton has overseen the production of her recent material and plays on most tracks – Nati’s latest direction is far removed from her acoustic folk roots.
It’s certainly the case that having the right musicians around her has enabled the 32-year-old to develop her own take on a veritable melting pot of influences.
Soul, Scottish trad and… heavy metal?
“Soul music is what I was brought up on, so that’s my favourite genre ever,” says Nati, whose two EPs to date have just been compiled on her first full-length vinyl release, which she’ll be selling at gigs this weekend.
“That and Scottish traditional music and heavy metal music – so if you combined those three all together and made that some kind of music baby that would be my favourite kind of music.”
The Fifer kicks off her UK tour tonight in Dundee, the city she describes as her “second home”.
Much of that’s down to her live three-piece being completed by bassist Ben Buist and drummer Kieran Smith, who were both previously part of all-Dundonian indie rock outfit Model Aeroplanes.
Nati plays Church in Dundee on Friday April 18 and Stirling’s Tolbooth on Saturday April 19 2025.
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