Junior cinema and media arts major Katherine Baguio, or “Katherine Storm,” released her first EP in February 2021, titled “Lovesick.” Since then, she released three more singles and one more EP, titled “Midsummer Fantasy.”
Her new single “Levitating,” coming out in June, focuses on the importance of relating emotionally to avoid isolation. This time, it is accompanied by a new element—a music video. She spoke on the philosophy behind her music and what keeps her going.
Q: When did you begin writing music?
Katherine Baguio: “I always grew up around music. I’ve been singing since I was little, probably [since I was] two or four in my church. I was a musical theater kid for the longest time. I slowly transitioned into film from that. But I started writing music seriously in the latter half of 2020.
Quarantine was going on, and I slowly came back to playing my [ukelele]. I was just playing around and I’ve always been able to make choruses but I could never make a verse. I worked on a song called “I feel stupid” because there was some personal stuff on my mind. And I don’t know how but from that I just started pumping out music and it really hasn’t stopped since.”
Q: When did you first start releasing things? What are you working on now?
Katherine Baguio: “Last year I put out my first EP called lovesick and had three different songs on them in three different kinds of styles. I released quite a bit. I have two EPs out and I believe two singles out. Now, I [have] started to be a lot more picky. I work with my best friend and producer Ryan [Jachetta] and that’s been really great because now I can really have hands-on experience in expressing my vision for what a song is; more in tune [and] in more detail and I take more time with my songs now. I didn’t before [and I wasn’t] satisfied. But I feel like through the practice that he and I have had, I’m better equipped to kind of express exactly what emotion I’m going forward. Because I’m very in the details with things, whether that’s some background ambience or layering, or who sings what on a song or who I should have on a song with me.”
Q: Did you mention any music videos? Or are you working on any of those?
Katherine Baguio: “Yeah, actually there’s two ones that we’re working on right now. There’s a main one that I’m working on for “Levitating” at the moment. So that’s really exciting because I haven’t gotten to work on a music video yet. I very much want to approach it the same way that I approach music—being very intentional about the details. And that’s why it’s taken me so long to put a music video together because I want to put my best foot forward. And when I’m showing you that [piece of work], there are little details in the details that you can’t even [see].”
Q: Who has been your most significant musical mentor?
Katherine Baguio: “That’s a really big question. There’s two people that come to mind—they were the two voice coaches that I had. One was from my high school. His name was Pieter Goedhart. He trained me from 4th grade to 10th grade. And then I had another teacher who’s freelancing right now as a producer. She traded a lot of crazy singers from my second high school, OCSA. Her name is Rachel St. Marseille. She’s a huge inspiration for me. She got me back into piano actually, too.”
