Henry Ate is alive and well in South Africa, says female rocker Karma, currently on tour in the country. “I don’t think I have made a big enough break from Henry Ate and I don’t expect I ever will. Henry Ate has its place in people’s hearts and memories, as it does in mine.”
She believes she, as Karma, has a tough act to follow, but that Henry Ate and Karma are quite different. “That’s a good thing, as we are not competing with each other for fans. Henry Ate fans all seem to love the new material, but I think Karma has opened us up to a whole new audience. Who knows, one day we may be the next generation’s Henry Ate.”
Her Leaders of the New School tour gives fans the opportunity not only to experience Karma, but also up-and-coming bands The Hellphones and Love Jones.
“I think the idea is to showcase the new artists that Sheer has signed,” she says. “As far as I know, in South Africa, this is the first time that a record label has gotten involved in their artists’ touring.”
Karma moved to the United States in November 2003. In 2004, she caught the eye of Grammy award-winning producer Scott Canto and, with her new band, recorded Don’t Walk Fly. She says a boost for the band was landing a deal with iTunes. “This really got things going with us. We played sold-out gigs in Los Angeles and New York.”
The band has started working on a new album and fans can expect a harder rock sound. “The focus is still very much on the songs and my melodies have been given their prominent place in the production of the album, but Christiaan has really come into his own as a guitarist and has stepped up to the plate remarkably on this new project.”
Though Karma calls Fort Lauderdale, Florida, home, she says New York has influenced her career.
“We travel to NY often enough for me to feel like it’s a second home, and I must admit I seem to write more when I’m on the road,” she says. “One of my favourite tracks on the new album is Turn the Clock Back, which I wrote in one sitting at my friend’s apartment in NY while I was there for the weekend of Walter Sisulu’s memorial service.”
She cites this experience as her career highlight. Singing the national anthem also gave her the inspiration to write the songs for her upcoming album. She says writing the songs was her way of getting all the stress and sadness she felt off her chest.
Establishing oneself as an artist in the US is much the same as it would be anywhere else, Karma believes. But the market is definitely more crowded and offers more competition. “There is little room for error and you have to work a thousand times harder to get anywhere — but it’s exhilarating and the best experience I have had to date.”
Karma’s gigs on tour include a few rag performances. But she is no stranger to the varsity band scene — she once played four rags in one night. “It was crazy but a lot of fun,” she says. “We were jetting down highways and running on and off stages like mad for an entire evening — I think we got home at about 5am and I pretty much just fell over into my bed, exhausted.”
Karma would love to share the stage with Patty Griffin. “But I’d have to go back to writing folk songs to do that, and that’s still a few years off in my ‘great plan’.”