Five Minutes with Country Musician and Evergreen Park Native Katie Quick

Up-and-coming country artist Katie Quick has many ties to the south suburbs. She grew up in Evergreen Park from the age of three until her college graduation. Now 31, the former Morrill School teacher is set to release her third album on August 10, and will be holding a release party at Beverly Arts Center at 8 p.m. the same day. 

Katie took a few minutes out of her busy schedule to chat with Patch about how she got to where she is and how she’s encouraging children across the country to follow their dreams as well.

Patch: When did you start singing and playing guitar?

Katie Quick: It was about 2006, I joined a country band in Chicago called Yard Fulla Cars. Right around the time I was with them, I kind of got the itch to start writing songs and started playing guitar basically simultaneously when I started writing. I would learn like three chords and then I’d write really crappy songs to those really bad three chords, and that’s kind of how I started. The more I wrote, the more I learned the guitar and it kind of progressed together.

What made you want to pursue music?

I’ve always loved music. It was something that was just a part of me. I’ve never been actually trained or anything like that. I just always loved it, I always had an ear for it, and as a little kid, I always could picture myself singing in front of a big crowd. I just never thought it was possible.

By the time I was an adult, I finally had this serious desire to actually pursue it when I left teaching. I would talk to my students all the time about setting goals and dreaming big, and I was saying, ‘You guys can do anything you put your mind to. Nothing’s impossible,’ this and that. And I realized, in that moment when I was telling them all these things, that the one thing that I had always wanted to do, I was too afraid to do it.

So they kind of inspired me to start, and then when I left teaching, I basically made a promise to them and to myself that I was going to show them and myself as well, just show them that anything is possible. It was really my first group of students that I had that kind of gave me another reason to find myself and actually go for it and take that really big risk.

What is your favorite song?

‘In My Life’ by The Beatles.

What’s your favorite song that you’ve written?

It’s hard like picking between your children, which I don’t have but I’d guess it’s really hard. I’d have to say my song called ‘Something about the Rain.’

Who do you consider to be your greatest inspiration?

My dad really was the person that taught me… It wasn’t a musical inspiration so to speak, it was just a life inspiration. He just instilled in me that life is short and he taught me that from a very young age. ‘One day you’re going to wake up and be 50, and if you don’t take advantage of what life has to offer, you don’t go after what you want to do, you don’t seek happiness in your life, you will look back and regret it.’ He taught me to take risks and just go for things and not be afraid. He was someone that if I had this inkling that I wanted to do something, whether it was music or backpacking through Europe, anything that was kind of out of my norm or out of the box for me, I would ask my dad, ‘Should I do this?’ and he’d always says, ‘Yes, go for it.’ I think the fact that that happened in my life, him saying all those things, I don’t think I’d be where I am today (without him).

Could you tell me a bit more about your school program?

It’s called the Fingertips Program, and it’s going into its third year. It’s a school assembly program that combines live music with motivational speaking, and I talk about finding your passion and following your dreams. So basically I ask the kids, ‘What are you good at? What makes you happy? What makes you tick?’ Even when you’re 9, 10, 11, 12 years old, what is that thing in your spare time that you love to do? Have them start thinking about that thing that makes them happy and thinking about how they can make that a career for themselves in the future.

I talk about my journey from teaching to music and how I’ve never had a million dollars, never had a record label, never had any of those things, but I’ve been able to do what I love and be really happy and make a career for myself out of it. I’ve never been happier since I’ve been doing music so that’s the thing that I try to instill in them.

It’s an inspirational assembly and it’s something that’s extremely important to me. I hope to keep doing it for the rest of my life. I love it that much.

What advice would you give to aspiring musicians?

I would tell them that it’s hard, that it’s not easy. That’s the first thing I would say. But if you want it bad enough, it is completely possible. You just have to never give up. That to me has been the key. I have heard so many times, and I tell the students this when I meet with them: if I had a dollar for every time someone in the industry told me that I wasn’t good enough, that I wasn’t country enough, all these negative things when I could have potentially quit, I would be rich. It happens constantly in the music industry and it’s so incredibly competitive that the best thing anybody could know is that if you never give up, you will be able to get to the place that you want to go. It’s going to take a long time and a lot of persistence and hard work, for sure.