Essential 8: Kim Ware of The Good Graces

Credit: John McNicholas

Atlanta-based indie-folk collective the Good Graces was formed by singer-songwriter Kim Ware in 2006. Since their inception, they have performed up and down the east coast, in California, and at such festivals as 30A, NXNE, and the Athens Pop Festival. Their new single “The First Girl”, from their upcoming The Hummingbird EP, strikes an unflinchingly introspective chord and is both atmospheric and intimate. Take a listen to the song below then read on as front woman Ware answers her Essential 8 and talks embracing imperfections, her favorite podcasts and more.

Do you write about personal experience, the experience of others, observations, made-up stories, something else or a combination?
Yes! All of these. Mostly personal experience – I’d say that’s the case about 70% of the time. But sometimes a lyric will just pop into my head and I’ll play around with that until a story comes out, and it might have aspects of my own experiences, but perhaps also include bits of stories I’ve heard from others or just general observations. It’s almost always based on something real though. There is one song on The Hummingbird, “Waiting,” that was based solely on a story a friend told me. One morning she called me up, told me about something that happened the night before, and that day I wrote a song about it. I think that’s the first time I’ve had a song start out that way.

What’s the best advice you have ever gotten from another musician?
Over the past few years I’ve had more than one person tell me how important it is to be honest and vulnerable when writing songs, as well as with things like vocal delivery. I finally started to believe it while working on Set Your Sights, I think because often times the imperfections that bugged me about my singing was what Jonny (co-producer & guitarist) and Tim (who engineered a good bit of the tracks) liked most about it. Once I finally took that to heart, it was like a weight lifted because I could just embrace those imperfections and even sometimes use them to my advantage.

What’s the best advice to give to a musician just starting out?
I’d say this for just about any sort of art – find what makes you, you and just try to sell that thing, and don’t worry so much about the parts you think you aren’t good at. With me, I think my lyrics are what my strongest asset, so I just really try to focus on that more than anything else. If you can be really good at one thing, then usually you can find other people to help you with the others.

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​How do you kill the long hours in the van?
Podcasts are great – here recently I’ve really enjoyed Beautiful Anonymous, Improv 4 Humans, Terrible Thanks for Asking, and the Hilarious World of Depression. I can put any of those on and suddenly an hour just flies by.

What do you love most about being on the road?
Being able to just immerse myself in playing music for days or weeks in a row is awesome. It’s a great escape for me. I think most of us have to multi-task a lot during our day to day, and I guess I’ve gotten ok at that, but opportunities to NOT do that and just being able to focus on making music is pretty great.

What’s your dream venue and why?
I’d love to play The Ark in Ann Arbor because I love playing in Michigan and so many people have mentioned that I should!

Have you met any of your heroes? If so, how did it go?
Hero is a pretty big word, but I’ve been fortunate to meet some folks I really admire. We got to tour with Indigo Girls a few summers ago. It was amazing; they were super gracious and down to earth. And getting to see them perform multiple nights in a row was so inspiring. But outside of music, about 10 years ago I got to meet Rob Sheffield, who wrote one of my favorite books, “Love is Mix Tape,” at a reading he did in Atlanta. I had just started the Good Graces and while I was talking to him during his book signing, he randomly asked me if I was a singer and said he really liked my speaking voice. That was pretty cool! Oh, and several months ago thanks to my friend, Wyatt, I got in to a sold out show at the Bluebird in Nashville. Pam Tillis and Ashley Cleveland performed and it was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. It was such an amazing experience, being in that room. But Ashley in particular blew me away, and afterwards I bought her book and spoke to her briefly. She was awesome, seemed really genuine and appreciative. Anyway, so lots of stories and those are the better ones. I have just as many about meeting songwriters that I admired and it didn’t go quite so well, but I can be really awkward when meeting someone for the first time! So I don’t sweat that stuff. Sometimes artists are just weird.

Recent release you cannot stop listening to?
Phoebe Bridgers’s “Stranger in the Alps”

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