Exorcising the past, it’s KING WOMAN.
Graceful, brutal, triumphant and devastating – King Woman’s Celestial Blues draws on an intense Christian upbringing and a determination to shun mediocrity
NO LIE: KING Woman’s second album is one of the most jaw-dropping releases you’ll hear this year. Graceful, brutal, triumphant and devastating all at once, Celestial Blues raises the game for one of modern metal’s most unique entities. The band is led by the hyper-prolific and hyper-talented Kris Esfandiari, a chameleonic force of nature whose exciting, enigmatic work spans multiple genres and projects. Like previous King Woman releases, Celestial Blues draws on an intense and oppressive upbringing in a Charismatic Christian household, where exorcisms and possessions were par for the course. Kris broke from all this in her mid-20s, after an experience that was both harrowing and epiphanic.
“I did psychedelics for the first time right before I started King Woman”, she says. “I locked myself in a bathroom on Halloween, I was on mushrooms and holly or something like that, and I heard my own inner voice for the first time. It just told me the truth about everything I couldn’t see before. My world kind of crumbled, I was horrified. And I had an identity crisis – a psychotic break, basically. It was like my whole life was just a lie up until that moment. I was like, ‘Oh, this is why nothing ever felt right.’”
Since then, King Woman’s work has seen Kris by turns furious and searching for answers. Celestial Blues, however, finds her in a more thoughtful, meditative place – one where she’s been able to wrest control from the angels and demons that haunted her for so long.
“I’m going through this tunnel and eventually I’ll get out to the other side but I’m not quite there yet”, says Kris, though she is the first to admit she didn’t necessarily have a destination in mind when she started this latest phase of her journey. “I don’t think
I realised what I was doing when I was writing the album. It’s like I became an actor, so much so that I could embody these [biblical] archetypes and make them whatever I wanted them to be – to turn them into these playful characters while having full control.”
While the album is rife with metaphorical devils and Christs that Kris is able to deftly puppeteer, questions of agency and control also loomed over the album’s physical creation. “I had to deal with a lot of fuckery making this record”, she sighs. “I realised how lazy other people can be, and how comfortable some people are being completely mediocre. I’m not. I was like, ‘I don’t care if people call me a bitch, or a diva, or an asshole, I’m gonna make this record how I want it to be. I’m going to take control of the creative direction, even if people think it’s weird.’ I just told pretty much everyone to fuck off, and took complete creative control.”
There’s no bitterness or rancor in this retelling, just the matter-of-fact decisiveness of someone who cares deeply about their art and the direction it takes. While it’s perhaps inevitable that someone who’s worked hard to free themselves from one set of controlling circumstances should also seek to escape another, Kris says carving one’s individual path in the music business presents its own specific challenges.
“I didn’t exactly know how to sing, I didn’t know what I was doing”, she admits of her first forays into the industry. “I was still developing my ability to produce, to be a songwriter and learning how to lead a band. And learning how to say ‘no’, how to be OK with telling people what I wanted when I knew I was right. I’m a lot less naïve than I used to be.”
Asked whether she encountered any pushback when she began to assert herself and speak her mind, Kris’s response is wry but unequivocal: “I’m a queer Iranian woman, raised by immigrants, and I’m in the metal scene”, she says. “People are constantly trying to put me down or get in my way. I’m a totally kind, polite person. I’m pretty reasonable. Even so, I’ve still encountered tons of assholes that try to tell me I’m not good enough.
I don’t listen to them – every time someone says that to me, I prove them wrong.”
This defiant, can-do attitude extends beyond King Woman and includes a multitude of projects that span shoegaze (Miserable), hip hop (Dalmatian) and a plethora of other genres, as well as external writing and production gigs. “I was deprived of cool music growing up”, explains Kris of her overwhelming appetite to hear and create new music. “I wasn’t allowed to listen to anything if it wasn’t Christian music, so when I was introduced to music outside of that it was like, ‘Give me all of it!’”
Given a church that encouraged people to burn their secular music and her wholesale break from Charismatic Christianity, it seems fair to ask whether her chosen path – not to mention its challenging, outré nature – has put Kris at odds with her family. Thankfully, this is not quite the case.
“My parents think I’m possessed, but we’re cool”, she says. “There was a point where I confronted them and I didn’t talk to them for a while. We’ve had many breakdowns, I’ve had to create some serious boundaries and I’ve been undergoing intensive therapy for a while now. I think it’s healed all of us, and taught all of us lessons – that I’m allowed to be who I am, and they’re allowed to be who they are.”
CELESTIAL BLUES IS OUT NOW VIA RELAPSE
“IT WAS LIKE MY WHOLE LIFE WAS A LIE UP UNTIL THAT MOMENT”