Kati O’Toole is a small-town girl at heart with a free spirit and a craving for a life filled with adventure. Born and raised on the Flathead Salish and Kootenai Reservation in Polson, MT, she has always dreamed of being a singer/songwriter.
At the age of 20, she was determined to pursue an audio engineering degree and learn how to record her own songs. With a suitcase and her guitar in hand, she boarded a train and traveled across the country to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston. There, she learned the ins and outs of the recording studio as an engineer and producer. She also discovered that it’s a big, bold world out there and wanted to see more of it. After her time in Boston, she moved to Los Angeles, where she experienced many different facets of the recording industry—the good and the bad.
Kati started her music career in world-renowned recording studios, which is a fancy way of saying she scrubbed toilets and ran errands for famous recording artists at “The Village” recording studio (Fleetwood Mac, Bob Dylan, Smashing Pumpkins, John Mayer and many more have recorded here). Quickly, she learned that she preferred working with up-and-coming artists rather than big named artists. Watching these artists record behind the scenes reminded her of why she got into music production in the first place: she wanted to record HER songs.
In 2009, she self-produced and recorded her debut album, “On Ashland,” from various apartments in Santa Monica (on Ashland Street) and Venice while living in LA. She was scrappy, utilizing session musicians she met along the way and piecing the album together as time allowed, all on next to no budget. Fun fact: Ben Schneider of “Lord Huron” designed the cover for “On Ashland.” At the time, she had no idea he was a musician—he was a friend and an artist with a good eye. Later in 2009, she gathered some great musicians (Asaf Rodeh on guitar and Paul Hurd on drums) and brought them back to Montana to record the “Snowghost Sessions” EP at the beautiful Snowghost Studios in Whitefish, MT, with producer/engineer Brett Allen.
While in LA, she joined an alt-folk band as the keyboardist and backing vocalist and hit the road with six boys in a crusty van that got 15 miles to the gallon. That experience in itself was quite the adventure! They supported major label acts and played to sold-out venues across the country (The Troubadour, El Rey, The Roxy, Bowery Ballroom in NYC, The Basement in Nashville among others), which were some of the best performance experiences of her life. However, after realizing that life on the road isn’t always what it seems, she started craving a home-cooked meal and her own bed.
She decided to seek a job with a set schedule in LA and became the Head of Production for one of the first online recording studios, StudioPros. In that role, she managed a team of session musicians from around the world and worked on a diverse catalog of music across various styles, clients, songwriters, and commercial projects. She held that job for 14 years—whoa.
After working for too long for someone else, she realized NOW was the time to make things happen for herself. Her husband, Darin, and she bought land in Montana and built a treehouse utopia called The Montana Treehouse Retreat, which they own and operate to this day. They host guests from around the world in their two treehouses, soon to be three. With this beautiful retreat established, she now has time for her music again. Kati currently plays in a Montana-based band, Tin Finley, alongside some amazing musicians (Annette Strean-Cornelius, Kirk Cornelius, and Eric Hogenson). They perform at her favorite quirky Montana ocal venues (Home Ranch Bottoms, Max’s and Abeyance Bay) and record, produce, and release music independently through their own label from their collective home studios.
PC: Lindsey Jane Photography