Up and Away

Kate’s Day

Singer-actress Kate Voegele has a lot going on. But right now, she’s
happiest about her cheeseburger. This month, the 22-year-old is
barnstorming two countries in preparation for the imminent release of
her major-label debut, A Fine Mess. Its first single just
premiered on One Tree Hill, the TV show that’s featuring her for
a second season. Today, the rising star is spending a busy working day
in her hometown — where, to her delight, the Cleveland suburb of
Westlake has added a Five Guys Burgers and Fries. And that is
worth talking about.

“Cleveland is just awesome,” says Voegele, holding an
inappropriately named Little Cheeseburger that’s far bigger than her
mouth. “I always will be a Cleveland girl. When I meet fans, I think it
helps people relate to me. I’m a kid from a Midwest city on a wild
ride.”

Voegele, who describes herself as “five-foot-three on a good day,”
doesn’t look like she eats many cheeseburgers. Whispy black hair drapes
over her form-fitting leather jacket. Rail-thin but healthy, she’s
poured into form-fitting ebony jeans. Eight silver rings — one on each
finger — make circles in the air as she speaks, waving her hands. She
exudes the buoyant charm and relaxed presence that have made her
popular with collaborators and fans.

She arrived at the nearby Starbucks already holding a coffee from
another Starbucks. It’s that kind of morning. It’s that kind of week.
It’s that kind of year. Today, she’s been up since 5 a.m., doing local
press like the Q-104 FM morning show, leading up to a sold-out show.
It’s hectic, but easier than yesterday. Before a concert, she
criss-crossed Toronto, shooting a video for the new single “99 Times”
and posing for the cover of LouLou, a Canuck fashion
magazine.

Four years and a quarter-million records ago, Voegele was another
teen hanging around this suburban strip mall. Her rise from a
guitar-toting underclassman to pop singer with a record deal and TV
show is the kind of steady-and-rapid success story you don’t see much
of these days.

Graduation Night

Tonight, Voegele’s show is at House of Blues, in the Cambridge Room,
a snug little sub-club beside the bigger music hall. She’s been playing
there since she was in high school. This sold-out gig might mark her
graduation to the big room.

Voegele grew up in a house where her father loaded the stereo with
singer-songwriters like Bonnie Raitt and Eric Clapton. As her tastes
developed, she discovered alt-country artists like Wilco, Ryan Adams
and — her favorite — Patty Griffin. Her dad taught her to
play guitar, sing and write songs. She took to it.

Throughout her teens, Voegele’s parents shepherded her to clubs,
drove her to interviews and produced her demos. By the time she was 16,
she not only had a publicist and a professional manager (whose clients
included John Mellencamp), but needed them to help promote an EP and
appearances through the Midwest. She graduated in 2005 from Bay High
School in Bay Village with a 4.0 GPA, a modest local following and fans
across the country.

“She was an artist that everyone was instantly drawn to,” says Mike
Farley, her publicist at the time. “Anybody that saw her live was
amazed that voice was coming out of that little girl.”

A lot of people saw her. In 2004, she won over crowds at South by
Southwest, the country’s premier music festival. That summer, she
played the Farm Aid stadium festival, and was invited back the next
year.

“I was thrilled,” recalls Voegele. “It was the first time I felt I
was on the other side of the audience-stage line. [My name was] on the
T-shirt with Dave Matthews. I was backstage, talking to Dave Matthews
about random stuff. [Wilco’s] Jeff Tweedy told me I did a great job. It
was a landmark in my career where I was like, ‘OK, I have to make this
happen somehow. This is what I want to do, no matter how long it takes
me.'”

It wouldn’t take long.

Kate’s Deal

If Voegele had been planning the career trajectory she’s had, she
might have moved to New York or L.A. after finishing high school.
Instead, she relocated to Oxford, Ohio, where she enrolled at Miami
University

“I wanted a semblance of normal life,” says Voegele between bites of
french fries. “[Education] is important to me. I know it sounds
cliché, but I’m fascinated by learning new things.”

She studied visual art, traveled to gigs on weekends and kept her
grades up. She wrote much of her first album, Don’t Look Away,
in her dorm room.

By then, labels were sniffing around like so many frat guys. The
fledgling MySpace Records seemed the best. It was an outgrowth of the
music-oriented social-networking site, one of the most popular places
on the Internet.

MySpace offered a multi-album deal with an additional upside: The
label partnered with Interscope, one of the few remaining major labels.
According to the deal, if she sold more than 75,000 copies, she would
be “upstreamed” and moved to the big label. It was a real challenge: In
this decade, the best-selling locally based band is the Black Keys.
Entering this year, their latest album had sold 139,000 copies.
Chimaira and Mushroomhead’s sales hover around 100,000 after
decade-long careers on the road internationally.

“There was something different from MySpace than every other label,”
says Voegele. “They just got it. Other labels, they said I was
too nice. I knew I could upstream to Interscope, but I had no idea
[whether it would happen]. I just thought, Let’s work as hard as we
can, so they have to upstream us.”

Kate TV

Another media giant helped push Voegele onto the music-business
A-team. As she prepped her first album, the CW Network was looking for
a singer to appear in a multi-episode arc of the drama One Tree
Hill. Voegele’s new manager helped make her one of 15 lucky
prospects who received an invitation to the casting call for the role
of Mia Catalano, a young performer.

“In many ways, television is the new radio, so we were inundated
with excellent candidates,” says One Tree Hill creator/executive
producer Mark Schwahn. “Grammy winners. Critical favorites.”

She nailed a scene, and she was in.

“I knew she was the perfect fit before we hired her,” says Schwahn.
“But once she started working, she simply validated those instincts
with her effort and the progress she was making day by day as an actor.
She’s so much better than anyone has a right to be.”

Voegele sang her songs on the show, and the fans agreed with
Schwahn. The songs are all Kate, but Mia isn’t.

“Mia is 18,” explains Voegele. “So she’s younger-spirited, probably
younger than I was at [that age]. She’s spunky, she’s sassy, she’s a
wiseguy, she’s in everybody’s business. She’s got a journey ahead of
her. So I think it’s the perfect balance between someone totally not
like myself and me.”

Schwahn not only invited Voegle back for more appearances on this
year’s season, but wove her music into the fabric of the show. When he
needed a song for the next season, he commissioned Voegele’s “Manhattan
From the Sky.” And suddenly, her new album was underway.

Kate, for the Record(s)

After the song “Only Fooling Myself” appeared on One Tree
Hill, it soared to No. 4 on the iTunes singles chart in January
2008, and the album landed at No. 5. Don’t Look Away cracked the
75,000 target, kept going and ultimately moved 240,000 copies, making
her by far the best-selling locally spawned artist of the decade. (More on sales by local artists here.)

In March 2008, Entertainment Weekly selected her as one of
its Top 10 female artists to watch, part of what the magazine dubbed “a
new golden age of the female singer-songwriter.” EW declared that the
record “offers a little something for everyone.”

Its follow-up, A Fine Mess, has even more. For “Manhattan,”
the record company connected her with producer Mike Elizondo, who has
worked with Maroon 5 and female artists from the arty vanguard to pop
stars, including Fiona Apple, Regina Spektor and Pink. It didn’t take
Voegele long to impress him. She worked hard and wrote well. He signed
on for the whole album.

Elizondo says she’s a top-tier talent who’s “extremely intelligent.
She really gets it. She isn’t caught up in her own ego, in terms of
acting and the success she’s had there. She’s really down-to-earth, and
that’s where you’ll see the longevity factor with her career.”

A Fine Mess backs up that argument. It’s a substantial pop
record that could cross over in at least three different directions.
The piano-driven leadoff single “99 Times” is a can’t-miss rock
earworm. (Dancing With the Stars’ Derek Hough appears in the
video, which should help her reach anyone who missed it on the TV show
or radio.)

“Manhattan” sounds like the guitar-oriented songs from the first
record, but bigger. The album branches out from there. The piano romp
“Angel” could find a home with fans who like Tori Amos or Carrie
Underwood. From steel guitar to foot-stomp choruses, songs like
“Playing With My Heart” and “Talkin’ Smooth” wouldn’t sound out of
place on country radio. A Fine Mess closes with delicate piano
and string ballads. Voegele sings about seeing America, making new
friends and collapsing under the spell of a crush.

“I just wanted to tell the story of myself over the last two years,”
says Voegele. “It’s all so inspiring. The record kind of wrote itself.
That’s what it’s about. Everyone’s life is a mess, but it’s a fine
mess. There are ups and downs, stuff comes out of nowhere. Crazy stuff
happens whether you’re a single mom or a musician. You have to roll
with it.”

Voegele left Cleveland for college as a bare-armed
singer-songwriter. She’s returned as a TV fashionista with glamour
shots in short skirts. Kate concedes she’s being marketed, but says the
company is selling something real.

“There’s a song [on A Fine Mess], ‘Angel,’ that’s about
that,” says Voegele. “People are like, ‘Are you trying to sell records
[by dressing like that]?’ Like, no, I’m 22. I’m a fashion addict. I’m
not about to wear anything you’ll see in Playboy. It’s just
showing people who I am.”

Kate’s Ready to Go

That night, soundcheck is pushed back an hour, then chopped down to
two songs. A platinum-selling control freak might have gone
nucular, but Voegele took her own advice and rolled with it. She
spent the extra time eating dinner with her dad and talking to Fox 8
reporters.

Voegele’s tour bus has been her home for the past year. She shuttles
between L.A. (for music) and North Carolina (for TV tapings). Her
touring band is the guys she’s been playing with for years, most of
them Clevelanders. (Elizondo recruited ace session players to record
the album.) Dad let go of the reins long ago, but she’s still in good
hands. “I always wanted big brothers growing up — now I have four
of them,” she says, referring to her bandmates.

Eventually, the band does get to sound check, shortly before doors
open. The top-dollar sound system gives Voegele’s voice some extra
echo, but the most impressive sounds are pure Kate, a giant voice
straight from the diaphragm.

Fans are already forming a line out front. The TV show sparks sales,
no doubt. But in her experience, the all-ages crowds don’t come
expecting Mia from One Tree Hill.

“I think they come to hear Kate Voegele songs,” says Voegele. “Which
is awesome, because it’s about that. But, of course, fans love that
— that I can be their window into that world [and tell them] what
it’s like to work on a TV set, [about] the rest of the cast. I’m just a
kid from the suburbs, like most of my fans.”

dferris@clevescene.com

This article appears in May 27 – Jun 2, 2009.