My name’s Kristy Kurowski and I founded The Real Human.
I run this site but it’s not all about me, it’s about us.
Please join us in creating a community that will openly share real life stories, tips and tools to support each other’s growth.
You’ve had a unique musical journey so far, just a glimpse into your life could make a huge difference to someone else.
Let’s share with authenticity and purpose.
Here’s a bit more about me.
As soon as I could talk, I started to sing. Imagine how happy my parents were when I used to spend hours sitting up the tree in the back garden singing ‘tomorrow’ from Annie at the top of my lungs. I had the hair for it if nothing else! I sang in musicals at school and at Big Little Theatre School on the weekends, but despite being fun, the world of musicals just wasn’t for me.
When I was 17 (in 2000), a couple of friends started producing EDM and I started to write and record vocals for their happy hardcore tracks. This led to multiple releases with big labels such as Next Generation, Blatant Beats and Thin n Crispy. I had some amazing moments at this time… One notable moment was standing in the middle of a crowd of 3500 at The Sanctuary in Milton Keynes. The whole crowd was singing the words to the latest track we’d recorded at the top of their lungs. That feeling was incredible, and I think this time solidified my love for dance music. I continued to write for these labels until 2009. You can check out my dance music Discogs here.
I joined my first band ‘Sonnet’ when I was 19, and that’s where my love for performing really started. From there it snowballed and I joined numerous other local bands such as Otto, and Vida. I’ve performed at many hundreds of shows since then and I now regularly perform with incredible covers bands such as Groovemeister. I also deputise for the lead singers in around 5 other bands, which certainly keeps me on my toes!
In 2008 I went back to my EDM roots and joined a live UK breakbeat band called Freefall Collective. We’ve written and released 2 albums, played hundreds of festivals and have set up a record label ’Supafrequency’. We’ve toured Europe and they helped me to achieve a lifelong dream… To sing at Glastonbury Festival! We played there in 2008, 2009 and 2010.
In 2010, we were brought onboard to perform as part of the Arcadia Spectacular for 10,000 people every night. You can check out that show here. We’ve continued to write, record and perform together since then, with our last album being released in 2015. I love my work as a top line writer and recording artist as well as a live performer.
In 2017 I decided to take some time off the day job and one of the goals for this career break (among other things) was to write an album. As soon as I left work in March, I went straight to India, then booked other trips around the world and happily procrastinated for months and months. I met with a couple of producers and wrote a lot of lyrics, but even though I knew all the people to help me achieve my musical goal, it just sat there, largely untouched and unachieved 7 months later.
So I did some soul searching.
What was it that was stopping me? I know I can sing, and I’ve been writing for the last 20 years so it’s not that I can’t do it… That’s when I realised it wasn’t the technical side of being a musician I struggled with, it was the emotional side. I just wasn’t ready to make the album I dreamed of. I had too many debilitating fears of judgement and failure, I didn’t want to make myself vulnerable, my self-belief was too small, I was too worried about what everyone else would think, I wasn’t ready or willing to step out and show the world what I’m made of. The more I reflected on this, the more examples I uncovered where my emotions had stopped me achieving my musical goals.
This led to an important decision. I needed to work on me, using that baseline of self awareness to really tackle the stuff below the surface that was stopping me achieve my goals.
Important side note: alongside my musical journey, I’ve built up a professional career in learning and development over the last 15 years. I’m a Henley Business School qualified performance coach, a CIPD accredited trainer and facilitator and a leadership development consultant specialising in emotional intelligence and behavioural change. I think this is the reason I could recognise what was stopping me, and what I needed to tackle some of these challenges.
I looked around to find support for this specific side of musicianship, and i just couldn’t find it. There was some more generic emotional / behavioural training but nothing that specifically tackled the challenges we encounter as musicians. So I buried my head obsessively into tons of research. I studied groundbreaking reports such as the “can music make you sick” report commissioned by Help Musicians UK. I also spoke to hundreds of musicians to understand the unique challenges we face. This process led me to a powerful realisation. I’m not alone with these struggles.
I went back to the day job after my career break with a ton of travel memories, and a brand new dream. To support musicians (including me) to learn the emotional and behavioural skills required to be a musician. Whatever your goal is, whether getting a record deal, singing for covers bands, songwriting, busking or writing an album (!) emotions and behaviour will play a huge part. Let’s talk about that and use practical tools and techniques to overcome the challenges we face.
With my knowledge of learning and development, coupled with my knowledge of the music world, I’ve started to create a practical musicians toolkit. Designed by a team of professional, experienced musicians, we’ve used these tools to great effect in our own careers. We hope this toolkit will build, develop and grow as our community builds, develops and grows.
This is an ongoing learning journey for me, and I’m nowhere near the finish line. I’m learning every single day and I’d love The Real Human to become a powerful, collaborative experience… Where we can support each other through the tough times.
Just to clarify… The album still isn’t written… Maybe I’ll get there throughout this process.
I’d love to hear from you, if you’d like to chat then please get in touch.
