Foto-© Ashley Osborne

Das EP-Format wird von vielen Acts mittlerweile gerne genutzt um sich zwischendurch musikalisch auszutoben und auch abseits von größeren Konzepten frei am eigenen Sound zu feilen. So auch die in Chicago geborene Songwriterin, Künstlerin & Multi-Instrumentalistin Kristine Flaherty, alias K.Flay: “So often we keep everything bottled up,” sagt sie über ihre heute erschienene EP. “Inside Voices was a way for me to exorcise some demons and safely express these uncomfortable but very human emotions I was feeling.” Die fünf Songs nutzt die zweifach GRAMMY-nominierte Künstlerin (Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical für Every Where Is Some Where, und Best Rock Song für Blood in the Cut) als farbenfrohes alternatives Art-Pop-Sammelsurium – stets überraschend, erfrischend und einzigartig. Für uns hat das Energiebündel ein Track by Track mit allen Hintergründen zu den Songs verfasst!

1. Four Letter Words

this song is all about catharsis. so many of us spend our daily lives tiptoeing around things, apologizing, deferring, making ourselves small. but there inevitably comes a moment when the dam breaks and you are compelled to express your frustration or your hurt or your shame or your whatever. i feel like this song pushed me to the brink of my own sanity, largely because it made me uncomfortable. like. is it ok for me to be this angry? is it ok to say fuck you?

2. Good Girl

even though the title is ‘good girl,’ it’s about the norms and roles placed on all of us. i wrote the song with dan reynolds, and i think both of us have struggled with the notion of societal expectations over the years. the world keeps telling me to be good, to be quiet, to be beautiful, but here i am, a human who is going through joy and pain and everything a person goes through and i’m just tired of trying to be nice all the time. why am i so scared to actually do what i want and say what i think?

3. Dating My Dad

this is basically six months of therapy condensed into a single song. when you zoom out, most of us are becoming a version of our parents or falling in love with one. or both. and if you don’t have a sense of humor about that, you’re in trouble. i was laughing when i wrote the chorus lyric: ‘mom and dad we love em, either fuck em or become em.’ as the song was coming together, i asked travis barker if he’d be down to play drums, and he absolutely smashed it.

4. TGIF

i know i’m biased, but i really love this one. the song began as a stream of consciousness riff on the absurdity of “friday.” because friday is a construct. it’s a made-up end to a made-up work week. and it serves the agenda of the ruling class. so here i am, a person who understands the violent and racist and misogynistic foundations of capitalism, but also a person who needs to pay rent. so i rail against the system that i help perpetuate! fuck!!!!!!! my friend tom morello plays guitar on this track, and his solo just totally embodies the manic angst i feel. and i think a lot of other people feel too. tom killed it.

5. My Name Isn’t Katherine

this song began as a joke. i am CONSTANTLY and INCORRECTLY called katherine. my name is kristine, not katherine. so i thought it might be funny to write a song about that. little did i know it would spark a crazy meditation on names and identity and cycles of life. structurally, rhythmically, the song is constantly in motion, changing. that felt really exciting to me.