By some measures, you might describe The Kates (Eve Clague, Liz Clark, Mary Beth O’Mahony, Míde Houlihan and Paula K) as a side project. Made up of five women who all have their own careers in music, the band, now around for the best part of a decade, are essentially a different outlet for the members. That said, they’re also loaded with meaning.

Slow moving in their releases (despite years of live shows, a new EP is only emerging now), they prefer to do things well than quickly, and with a single track penned by each member on the upcoming release ‘Pictures Here of Dreams’ (out September 20), have created what is a surprisingly coherent piece of work.

“We each wrote a song for this EP and it’s been a really interesting process,” they say. “We all have shared in each other’s life experiences anyway, so one person would bring a song to the table maybe about 80% finished and the rest of us would collaborate from that point. We decided to name the EP ‘Pictures Here Of Dreams’ because that is a line from Mide’s song. We really feel like each of our songs was putting out a little piece of our dreams and our emotions and our vulnerabilities. So we felt that it perfectly summed up collectively our little dream of making music together.”

“I think that we were surprised how coherent the album did sound, knowing there were five different authors, and it was a really delightful surprise,” they say. “As far as if this is something we will continue to do, I’m not sure, we just have to see! I think we’re getting more and more comfortable and more and more efficient with our creations and everybody has something to bring to the table. But I don’t think we can commit to some kind of formula because that’s not really how creating works. I do think that you’ll see a lot more songs written by all of us in the future.”

“We had a lot of years to just really get comfortable playing music, being in a band, spending time with each other. When we were playing women’s cover songs, the stakes weren’t as high, so we really only got together to just let everybody in that room have a good time and celebrate women’s music together. When we did decide that we were going to write our own music, that was way more of a vulnerable place. I think having that foundation helped us be more resilient to these new vulnerabilities”

Ultimately, The Kates are in it both to tackle and represent women in the music industry more broadly. “That’s the main aim really,” they say. “I  heard of a quote that says “you can’t be what you can’t see” and I think that it’s a really powerful message. To have five women up on one stage all collaborating, all supporting and encouraging each other. We want that to be what people see.”

“You can expect a little bit of a family dynamic on stage. We are all clearly having fun with each other, but also we’re all about connection and we definitely want to connect with all of our Kates Mates in the audience. We’re actually quite lighthearted and make lots of stupid jokes on stage and you’ll feel like you’re one of us.”

“I think our hopes are mostly just that we get to continue to play together.”