EXPLORING DARKNESS
K.Flay says music is her way of venturing to another side of her psyche
In K.Flay’s song Champagne, there is a line that suggests the singer’s talent for deeply personal, and often deeply dark, lyrics may occasionally alarm those closest to her.
Amid the hip-hop beats and dizzying wordplay, K.Flay references her brother “who says that he worries about me from my songs.” Even a cursory glance at the lyrics on her sophomore record, Every Where is Some Where, suggests loved ones may have good cause to worry about the emotional wellbeing of the Illinois native, who was born Kristine Flaherty.
On the single Blood in the Cut, a wonderfully catchy and slinky alt-rock throwback that recently picked up a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Song, Flaherty breathily sings: “All I do is pretend to be OK so my friends can’t see my heart in a blender.”
On the throbbing and metaphorical The President Has a Sex Tape — written before it came to light the president may have a sex tape — K.Flay offers a paranoid, dystopian view of her country: “The President has a sex tape, the immigrant died at sea. First they come for you and then they come for me.”
Flaherty admits the line from Champagne did spring from a conversation she had with her concerned brother, who took her aside and asked “Hey, are you OK?” But that was a long time ago, she says with a laugh. Nowadays, her closeknit family knows her lyrics are not meant to be a cry for help, no matter how candid and occasionally harrowing they occasionally are.
“We all have another side to our psyche,” Flaherty says. “When you are involved in making creative, artistic things you have the privilege of having an outlet for it. Many other people have to swallow that and never really talk about.” Then again ...
“You know what?” she quickly adds. “Maybe it’s like opening a Pandora’s Box and it’s better not to. I’m not really positive which one is the more productive thing to do as a human being. But I think we all have these dark parts to who we are and music is just a way I’m able to sort it out in my mind and grapple with it.
“It’s all real stuff and when I’m writing, it’s typically a very immediate, urgent feeling. It may just be that I’m a little bit more emotionally volatile than the rest of my family, where I’m just kind of swinging a little bit more.”
It has served her well. In the midst of a whirlwind world tour that will bring her to Edmonton’s Union Hall on Jan. 23 and Calgary’s Palace Theatre on Jan .24, Flaherty recently sold out the Fillmore in San Francisco. It was close to her old stomping grounds, having began her music career while studying psychology and sociology at Stanford University.
She spent nearly a decade sharpening her rhyming and writing skills — the San Francisco Chronicle referred to her as one of “Bay Area’s best-kept musical secrets” —
and had to launch a crowdfunding campaign to produce her 2014 debut, Life as a Dog. Three years later, she has safely secured rising-star status. She signed with Night Street Records, a subsidiary of Interscope, for her sophomore release. Blood in the Cut scaled the rock charts and the album is up for two Grammys (it also received a nod for the best engineered album.)
It’s all been a bit surreal for Flaherty, who says she never expected the mainstream to come calling, much less the Grammys.
“I didn’t even know that the nominations were ( being announced,)” she says. “It’s so far off my radar, it’s hard to explain. Prior to this record, I’ve really existed largely in an independent space. Not that independent music is entirely absent from the Grammys but it’s certainly not as wellrepresented as more mainstream stuff. So I was not expecting it all.
“Actually, it was one of the few moments in my life when I was truly surprised. But a very nice surprise. What was really nice about it that it was a moment and a way for me to acknowledge the people who have been a part of this.”
While the success may have surprised its creator, it’s not hard to see the appeal of Every Where is Some Where. The term “genredefying” has become so ubiquitous these days it’s almost a genre itself. But Every Where’s wide-ranging 12 songs, whether wrapped in industrial grunge, dream-pop, hip-hop or punky garage rock, somehow present a cohesive whole while showcasing Flaherty’s knack for catchy hooks and witheringly personal lyrics.
The addition of a rock band to capture these sounds live is a somewhat recent development, adding another dimension to K.Flay’s live act. For an artist who began writing hip-hop rhymes in her bedroom and performing by herself, it’s been a significant evolution.
“I’ve always, throughout my recording career, been all over the map genre-wise,” she says. “Essentially, that’s a result of not coming up in a scene. I wasn’t doing garage rock with eight other bands where we were all into something similar. I never had that experience. For a long time, I felt really sad that that wasn’t my experience. I felt like I would have had a little bit more direction if that was my case. But because it wasn’t, there was really no parameters for how the music should sound or where it should fit in.
“I think the guiding for me was always the lyrics and the existence of authenticity. For me, that’s always been the guiding light, regardless of whether there’s gnarly guitars or a super hip-hop bass line and drum pattern. It’s really about what I’m saying and am I being true to my own experience.”