Everything You Wanted to Know About ‘High Enough’ Singer-Songwriter K.Flay

Two-time Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and producer K.Flay has been through a lot in the last year and a half, and her true story comes to life on her powerfully evocative new album, MONO.

This fifth studio album, which was released in September, gets its title from the artist's experience of going deaf in her right ear, giving her an entirely new perspective on both life and music and challenging her to approach her art in a brand new way. Across 14 tracks, MONO is a story of pain, loss, rebirth and rediscovery, with an angsty, dark and complexly orchestrated sound and K.Flay's most vulnerable lyricism to date. She also recently wrapped up the European dates on her MONO: Live in Stereo Tour and will return for three Canadian dates with Arkells in November before beginning a North American headline tour in March. If you're curious to discover even more about her story, Continue reading to discover everything the artist shared with us as our latest Woman Crush Wednesday.

(Photo credit: Jennifer Pearl)

Name: Kristine Meredith Flaherty

Hometown: Wilmette, Illinois

Birthday: June 30

Zodiac sign: Cancer

Fun Facts:

1. One thing K.Flay would love to get better at is playing the piano and keyboard.

"I have very rudimentary skills and would love to be able to play better and to play with two hands simultaneously, easily. It's something that I always marvel at other people's ability to do and everything I've learned on piano has been totally just as needed ad hoc, with no type of discipline or structure to it. I would like to apply both of those."

-K.Flay

2. Returning to music after losing her hearing in her right ear was one of the scariest things she's ever done.

"It was very physically jarring but also, initially, an emotionally and psychologically sort of devastating experience. Putting myself back into these musical spaces with a totally different sensory experience of the world really forced me to confront that loss. There was a professional component to it, and an emotional component because I love music and have made it the center of my adult life. Then there's this bigger existential component of being a human being whose reality has changed, and what's that going to feel like."

-K.Flay

3. She doesn't consider herself a big movie nerd, but the most impactful movie in her life might be Being John Malkovich.

"I feel like it was one of the first times that I consciously understood that I was engaging with art that was playing with the notion of reality and audience. That was very exciting to me as a viewer—that you can take the notion of the form itself, the movie and the movie star, and use that as a reference point as you're watching a movie. In a lot of songwriting and musical composition, there are those levels of narration and perspective  that you can be pretty playful with when you're writing music."

-K.Flay

 

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4. She hopes no one ever makes a movie about her life, but if they had to,  she'd like Meryl Streep to play her.

5. She's closer to her mom than anyone else.

"Our relationship was always very close, but when my mom split up from my biological dad, she and I really experienced a forging in the flame in terms of our relationship. When you go through a really stressful and intense experience with a family member, it has that potential to create a certain type of intimacy. It's a type of intimacy we've nurtured and maintained across our lives. I've been really lucky that she modeled a form of honesty and non-judgment that allowed us to have this really close relationship, where I have consistently felt like I can actually tell this person anything. It's a safe place to really authentically be myself and that's been really beautiful. I love you, mom."

-K.Flay

6. Her strangest hobby is that she composes crossword puzzles.

"I don't just do them—I make them."

-K.Flay

 

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7. She loves to clean.

"I love washing dishes. I love organizing. I love straightening things up. I love dusting, sweeping, vacuuming. Anything in that department—love it."

-K.Flay

8. Her dream vacation is going on an adventure.

"I don't love just being on the beach and relaxing, that sort of thing. I  definitely like activity, accomplishment-oriented vacations, which maybe isn't that much of a vacation. I love going to a city and just having adventures, both physical and cultural. For me, the goal in leaving home, especially as a touring musician where I travel a lot, if I'm going on a vacation somewhere, I really want to feel connected to that place and do a lot of different things that allow me to interact with the history of the place, the current energy of the place and the physical topography and layout of the place."

-K.Flay

9. When she gets discouraged, there are a few methods she uses to pick herself back up.

"The first big one is that I call somebody or spend time with somebody who matters to me—one of my close friends or my family member. That social connection and community is truly always what encourages me and helps me to feel connected to myself in the world but also disconnected from my own little insular world of worry or sadness or anxiety or angst or whatever it is and get outside of that world. I think that's so important When you're in a state of down or blue.

Another thing is physical activity—walking, exercising, stretching. Just feeling connected to my body. It never ceases to help with my mental health. Third thing, I play an instrument or  listen to music. It's funny that no matter where I'm at in life, and even when I was recovering and figuring out how I live in this one-ear world, one of the things that healed me emotionally was making and listening to music.

Then the fourth one is cleaning. Making the bed, doing laundry. These little tasks also help me to feel in control and efficacious in a certain way."

-K.Flay

 

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10. She just read The House in the Cerulean Sea and would love to live in that world.

11. The flexibility of K.Flay's mindset and her willingness to see situations from different perspectives is core to her as a human being.

"One of the beautiful things about human beings is that they change. I've gone through a lot of changes as an artist, publicly through my music and in how I express myself and my musical style, my sexuality, my relationship with alcohol, my outlook on myself and who I am and how I want to be in the world. That's been changing, and I think that flexibility and that non-attachment is what I'm always striving for. It can be hard to settle there because it's not a fixed place, but it's allowed me to grow and change. That's been a very exciting part of being alive in the world."

-K.Flay

 

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