Biografia
Statue of Liberty
Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius once said, “Everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.” For Bobby Bradford and Marywood Kate of Statue of Liberty, the seed that was planted from an unusual bloom grew into a unique musical partnership that neither expected.
Born in Rochester, Minnesota, Bobby grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, and later moved to Dubuque, Iowa. His musical journey began when he got a guitar in the second grade, taught himself to play over the years and really started honing his craft in high school.
Meanwhile, Kate, who was born and raised in Dubuque, started taking piano lessons when she was 8, performed in plays and musicals in elementary and middle schools and joined the choir in high school.
It was in high school where the two met and developed a friendship, but it was also where their musical paths diverged. Bobby played in hard rock and metal bands, while Kate concentrated on singing in the choir.
When it came time to consider colleges, Bobby knew that music was what he wanted to do, but not necessarily what he wanted to study. So he chose to study film at the University of Iowa instead. “I went to study film because I didn’t want to classically study music and I didn’t want to teach music,” Bobby says. “I wanted to play music in a band and I knew I would be frustrated if I went to school for music.”
Growing restless for music, Bobby drifted in and out of school for the next five years. After moving to L.A. in 2006, Bobby packed up and decided to move back home to Dubuque to focus on songwriting. There, he and his hometown friends would get together and jam. They formed a hard rock band named BlackBloom in 2007. It was then that Bobby knew the seed he had planted needed room to grow.
“It was in the semester of my final year of college,” Bobby recalls. “I had seven credit hours left to finish and I dropped out so I could move up to Dubuque to play with the band.”
BlackBloom recorded a locally-produced album and played shows regionally while Bobby continued to write songs on the side.
“When I first joined the band I had written a song called ‘Thick of it All’ and it just didn’t fit the image we were going for and the genre we were in. and I knew I wanted a girl to sing on it.”
Enter Kate, who had studied Vocal Music Education at the University of Northern Iowa and moved to Des Moines in 2008 to teach music.
The two had kept in touch over the years, so Bobby called her up to ask if she would work on the song with him in the studio. They cut “Thick of it All” and sent it out to local radio stations. A DJ on a show called “Midwest Music Makers” picked up the track and spun it several times, mislabeling it as a BlackBloom cut.
“People would come to BlackBloom shows and request the song,” Bobby laughs. “So I asked Kate to come up and sing the song during the bands’ shows.”
Kate had never performed in a band before. “When I started performing with BlackBloom, I realized that I really loved playing in front of a crowd. I was hooked.”
Bobby left BlackBloom in 2010 and he and Kate traveled to Minneapolis that summer, where friend Scott Miller was studying audio recording, to record The Up State, a seven-track EP written by Bobby and produced by Scott. Now all they needed was a name.
“When I was working on songs for BlackBloom and I would import the songs from my software,” Bobby says, “it would default to a generic name and I didn’t like that so I just put something in there off the top of my head as just a way to name the song and it just stuck. Years later, when I had all of these songs compiled and I had approached Kate about doing a record, we were hanging out and looking at photos and we came across a picture from a 2003 high school band trip where a photo was taken of us in front of the Statue of Liberty. And I thought, ‘Oh, this is a sign.’”
Now as Statue of Liberty, Kate and Bobby set out for the Rockies in Colorado, playing shows and staying with friends and family. They fell in love with the area and within three weeks, they had left their jobs in Iowa and moved west.
With influences ranging from the Beatles to Queen, The Decemberists to Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, and Bruce Springsteen to Iron & Wine, Statue of Liberty find that drawing from multiple musical styles to create their own unique sound is what sets them apart.
“I would describe our music as a melting pot,” Bobby describes. “It’s a bunch of different things and it’s exactly where we wanted to go. It’s tied together by some similar aspects, but also differentiated by drawing from several influences, from jazz to R&B, alt country and rock.”
The varied influences are ever present throughout The Up State. The up tempo first track, “Only,“ kicks off the album with a driving acoustic guitar down beat leading into a soulful chorus of electric guitar and rhythmic percussion that dares your foot to stop tapping along. Sandwiched in the middle is “Thick of It All,” starting acoustically with just Bobby and his guitar, building with Kate’s harmony and a thumping bass drum weave together perfectly for the love lost anthem. From the Beatles-esque “Back to You” to the swinging down home beat of “Runaway,” each track building layers upon layers, encouraging the listener to dig into the deeper meaning. Much like the bands’ namesake.
“There is a lot of symbolism in the Statue of Liberty,” says Kate. “It’s a shrine to a lot of different things. It’s deeper than it appears. And I think that’s what we strive to do with the music too.”
“I would love for people to listen to our music 50 years from now,” says Bobby. “It’s been a dream, it’s been a reality, it’s been a pursuit. It’s been all these different things. And I come to find that the more honest you are with yourself and the people around you, and having the ability to be kind is something that goes a long way. That’s what I would like people to remember us for.”
Statue of Liberty is currently writing and recording for a new album and touring the country.