SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, May 15, 2024 (Gephardt Daily) — When you look at pictures of Colbie Caillat, it somehow always looks as if she’s drenched in sunlight.
Her music, too, is bright and uplifting. Bubbly, some might say. Now, as California-born Caillat makes the transition from folk pop to country, she’s set to bring her signature sunny sound to Layton’s Kenley Amphitheater this summer.
She is part of a lineup of mostly national and a handful of local acts that are part of the 2024 Summer Nights with the Stars season. The Kenley is right in the heart of Layton Park and can hold 1,800 people at capacity. The summer season kicks off Saturday, June 15, with An Evening with Matthew and Gunnar Nelson, and concludes on Thursday, Sept. 12, with Petty Theft: San Francisco Tribute to Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. Also appearing during the summer are boldface names including Martina McBride, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder, Ben Folds, and Phillip Phillips.
Caillat will take the stage on Tuesday, Aug. 6 at 8 p.m. For more information about her show, click here.
To date, Caillat has been honored with two GRAMMY Awards and five nominations and has accumulated more than 15 billion streams. Other nominations and accolades include Billboard Music Awards, American Music Awards, MTV Video Music Awards, BMI Pop Awards and more. She initially rose to fame through the social networking website Myspace. Her debut album “Coco” hit No. 5 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart in 2007 and is certified three-times Platinum, while her Platinum-selling follow-up album “Breakthrough” landed at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart. Starting with her breakthrough hit “Bubbly,” which is certified six-times Platinum, her radio career features eight No. 1 and/or top 10 singles including “Realize,” “Try,” and her GRAMMY-winning duet with Jason Mraz, “Lucky.”
As part of the country quartet Gone West, Caillat made her debut at the Grand Ole Opry, and the group reached the top 30 on the Country Airplay charts with their Gold-certified single “What Could’ve Been” from their album “Canyons.” Caillat’s debut solo country album, “Along The Way,” is out now and features hit singles “I’ll Be Here” featuring Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member Sheryl Crow, as well as “Worth It” and “Still Gonna Miss You.” Caillat, who now lives in Nashville, wrote or co-wrote all of the songs on the album, working alongside some of Tennessee’s most respected songwriters. The critically acclaimed album has already been streamed over 55 million times.
Her father, Ken, also is a GRAMMY winner. He is a music producer who has worked with bands including Fleetwood Mac, as well as with his daughter.
Throughout her career, Caillat has been an avowed spokesperson and supporter for ASPCA, the Surfrider Foundation, Save The Music, Farm Sanctuary, and The Humane Society of the United States.
As snow fell in Utah, Gephardt Daily chatted with Caillat over the phone from Georgia on Monday, May 6, where she was performing a private show. She said she was “staring at a beautiful lake and it’s almost 80 degrees. My mind is blown at this beautiful lake. I’m like, how have I never known that this place existed? It’s beautiful. When I get back to Nashville next week, I’m gonna be back in the studio.”
I mentioned to Caillat that it feels almost like her music has had different seasons, and I asked, if this is the case, what 2024 is feeling like for her so far.
“You know what’s so cool and interesting is like I get to be playing these shows; so I’ve been playing my own shows, I’ve been playing festival shows; I went over to Brazil and I went over to Europe and played some shows, and then I’m playing some private shows just for small groups of people, and I’ve had some writing sessions in Nashville and been in the studio recording my music and on some other artists’ music,” she said. “And I’ve gone and done some guest performances at some friends’ shows when they were playing in Nashville, and I sang the national anthem at the Pred’s game last week [the Nashville Predators NHL team]. I feel like it’s been such a whirlwind of all these different things across the board, and it makes it so different and fun, and all of them are exciting. And so it’s not just the same old, you know, it keeps it really exciting.”
We also asked her, as she’s playing a mixture of solo shows, festivals and some gigs with Brett Young and Gavin DeGraw this summer whether she will get a chance to play songs from her new album.
“Yeah, so the shows I’ve been playing, if I have a longer set, I’ll definitely add like five or six new songs into the set,” Caillat said. “And so my shows with Gavin, I will, I probably will get to do a few of them. And then my show in Utah I’ll definitely, because that’s a longer set, so I’m gonna get to play a bunch of new songs.”
She also talked about if she still has artists on her bucket list she’d like to work with.
“I have a major bucket list,” Caillat said. “I’ve been saying for the last couple of years, I want to do a duet with Post Malone. I want to do a duet with Morgan Wallen, which is so funny that they just did a duet together. I’ve always loved Coldplay, so that’s one as well. Those are I’d say my top list but I there’s a bunch of other artists. I actually do have a project coming up where I get to do a lot of collaborations and so I get to check some off the list but not those ones.”
We also asked her what her other bucket list goals are.
“You know, I would like to… my goal this year is to travel more for fun,” Caillat said. “I feel like when I travel so much for work I… when you’re in each city, you’re not there long enough. And then when I finally get home from traveling, I don’t really want to go travel again. So I find myself not having a lot of travel experiences. So this year, I have a handful of trips planned with friends and family, and I’m just going to be trying to enjoy life more in those ways. And I have a festival in the U.K. and then I have a friend’s wedding in Italy, and I’m going to go travel Europe in between that for a couple of weeks. My plan is Switzerland and Croatia and then Italy early.”
She also spoke about what other than music keeps her balanced.
“Oh gosh, I love being home in Nashville,” she said. “I love doing yoga. I love going on walks. I love that Nashville has such a small town feel. And everyone knows each other. It’s a really tight community, so there’s always something going on whether you’re going to a soccer game or a hockey game or going to a concert or a new restaurant or meeting friends at the park. I just feel like that’s the kind of stuff that fulfills me and gives me that recharge, and it really feels like home over there.” Caillat said she always thought she’d move back to California, where she grew up, “but just as of now I’m just in love with Nashville.”
We also asked Caillat what advice she would give to her younger self, back when “Coco” came out 17 years ago.
“I, you know, at that time, I was so young,” she said. “I was so inexperienced. I had the worst stage fright. I really didn’t want to be a performer. So I just loved singing, I loved writing songs, and then my friend put my songs on Myspace and I got a record deal. And it was like my world changed within months, and I had no preparation for it. I wish I could go back and maybe prepare more earlier on in life. And I also wish in that moment I could have just soaked it up and been present. I don’t remember a lot of it because I was in a whirlwind of, honestly, like fear. I just wish I could just be: ‘it’s totally fine, it’s not as scary as you’re feeling it is,’ and that’s what I would say.”
We asked Caillat finally if she has any particular tools to manage her stage fright, or whether she feels that is resolved now that she’s older.
“It’s not resolved, but it’s definitely so much better,” she said. “It was debilitating before, but now it depends on…if I know it’s my audience, I’m totally good, I’m excited. If it’s someone else’s audience, or if I’m doing a TV performance, I still get really nervous because I feel like the whole point is to hope everyone likes you and for some reason, it makes me feel like you can’t mess up. So those times I just try to remind myself, my stage coach had told me just tell yourself things that you’re great at, that you love and enjoy. So I just try to tell myself to be calm, be still, take deep breaths, have fun. And I’ve learned the more that you’re yourself, and even if you mess up and you make a joke about it, the audience loves it, and they like that humility. And so when I remind myself of that it takes my pressure off a little bit.”
Tickets for this Davis Arts’ Summer Nights with the Stars Kenley Amphitheater shows are on sale now, and some shows are already sold out. For ticket and more information click here. For more about Caillat, click here. Watch for our interview with Matthew Nelson from the band Nelson, coming to Gephardt Daily next week.
