Still Surprising

Maxim:
Is this your first time in Berlin?

K.Flay:
No, this is my second time here. We played here in January. But never before then, so I’m still getting to know the city.

Maxim:
You had more tour dates in Germany, didn’t you?

K.Flay:
We did. They were cancelled, which, in a twist of fate, turned out to be a good thing. I’m bummed to miss those shows but we’ve gotten to stay in Berlin, do press for the album, and get to know the city. I feel like I’m starting to figure it out.

Maxim:
Where do you call home right now?

K.Flay:
Kind of L.A. at the moment, I guess. My last apartment was in New York but that was two years ago. Since then most of my stuff has been in storage, and I’ve been sub-letting a place here, a place there, for a month or two at a time.
Honestly, I’m kind of getting sick of it. I feel too untethered. In Los Angeles, I’ve mostly stayed at friends’s places while I’m on the road. It feels like most of my music friends moved to L.A. because it’s too expensive in New York right now. I have a lot of people there.

Maxim:
You were signed to a major label when you lived in New York, right?

K.Flay:
Yeah, I was with RCA. Those were the dark days.

Maxim:
The dark days?

K.Flay:
They weren’t really so dark but it took me about a year to get off the label. All that shit takes a while. After that I left my apartment, and just went floating in the wind. It was a frustrating experience because I wanted to put out a full-length record while I was on the label, and never got to. It was a formative experience in many other ways. It taught me how I wanted to do it when I finally got the opportunity. We’re all still friends so there aren’t any hard feelings.

Maxim:
It all turns out in the end, I guess?

K.Flay:
Eh, they don’t really care over there. They make so much money, and I was never really profitable for them.

Maxim:
This isn’t your first turn in California though, is it? I read somewhere that you had gone to Stanford.

K.Flay:
I grew up outside of Chicago, and then I moved to the Bay for school. I ended up staying there for a while, and now my mom and stepdad live in Oakland. I have a bunch of extended family over there. It’s always been a home-type of place.

Maxim:
If you were forced to categorize yourself, and say, ‘’I am a rapper, or a musician, from XYZ,’’ which city would you choose? Is there a scene you would lay claim to?

K.Flay:
I wouldn’t say I was part of a scene, just because I don’t think that I am. I would definitely say I was based out of San Francisco because that’s the city that I started making music. It’s where people supported me, and it’s where I came up, playing music.
Sometimes I’ll feel sad because I never belonged to a scene. My drummer was super into pop punk back in the day. It was a cohesive scene, and there was a real sense of community. And I’ll say to myself, ‘’Man, you should have been making that music fifteen years ago’’. It seems so fun. There is a community of musicians from the Bay that I know. We’ve been criss- crossing paths in the last four years or so.

Maxim:
You mentioned before that you were born outside of Chicago. Are we talking sub- urbia here?

K.Flay:
One hundred percent. I was born in Evan- ston, and I grew up a ten minute’s drive from there. It was very leafy, not a lot of crime.

Maxim:
Were you in Chicago proper often?

K.Flay:
Fairly often. As I got older definitely more so, especially when I started going to shows, and ventured outside of the little bubble. Everything in Evanston closed around 21.00, and that eventually got old. My brother and sister, my parents – almost everyone – left Chicago. I’m not there for the holidays which is weird because it is where I grew up. Maybe it isn’t that weird anymore. Who knows.

Maxim:
I grew up all over the place, so I can relate. You said you started going to shows in Chicago – were those rap shows, punk gigs, or something else entirely?

K.Flay:
No, to be honest I was a late bloomer, musically. Back then I would mostly just go to indie rock shows. That was the stuff my friends listened to. I never really spear- headed the effort. I didn’t get into music as a lifestyle until college which is odd. I lis- tened to music but I was never immersed in it. Now I love going to shows. I’ve been here a week, and I’ve already seen two.

Maxim:
Being a musician isn’t second nature to you then?

K.Flay:
Funnily enough it is though. Imagine you’ve been walking the same way home your entire life, and suddenly you realize that there’s another path that is shorter and way cooler.

Once you find it, you ask yourself why you ever did things differently. When I did discover music for myself it was a really easy fit. To the point that – and I was completely sober at the time – I never felt nervous, never wanted a drink before a show. It just felt very natural and easy.
It’s kind of like dating someone you love. When you meet them it falls into place but before that it’s just terrible.

Maxim:
Speaking of sobriety, in one of your songs you talk about sucking on a bottle of Jim Beam.

K.Flay:
Oh, my mom loves that one!

Maxim:
That’s my personal favorite on the album! So you do drink now, right?

K.Flay:
I do drink. Jim Beam is good. Nobody has paid me to say that!

Maxim:
I’m from Kentucky so hearing that warms my heart!

K.Flay:
Whiskey is a great thing to drink when you have no reliable access to ice or soda. It became my backstage go-to. You never know what misfortune lurks back there, so I adopted it because it’s nice to drink neat. Warm gin just doesn’t really taste that good.

Maxim:
I spent many a warm night in college on the way to, or from, a show or house party, passing a bottle of bourbon back and forth. Just something that comes naturally, I guess.
You said that you started making music professionally in college.

K.Flay:
Yeah, not professionally. Very horribly in fact. Everything was delayed for me. That was my time for figuring things out, experimenting, and playing really weird shows. My philosophy was to say yes to every- thing. Not to people neccessarily, but to anything music-related.
For example, somebody could be throwing a house party really far away, and it might not be clear whether anyone would show up, and I would still have said yes if asked to play. You never know where opportunity is going to strike. That’s why it’s cool to say yes like that.
My first serious release was in 2010 – “the Green EP”. That was my tippy-toes release.

Maxim:
And then later you had a couple of mix- tapes?

K.Flay:
Yes, “I Stopped Caring in ‘96” and “West Coast”, and then the full-length record.

Maxim:
How do you come by your titles? “Life as a Dog” is just such a cool title. It reminds me of the Bulgakov novel “Heart of a Dog”. I was wondering where you get the inspiration.

K.Flay:
The inspiration literally comes from things I’ve said. For “Life as a Dog” I was fresh off the label, I was super bummed out, and I was staying in New York. Anyway, I got out of the shower one day, and my hair was really fucked up looking, and I was really fucked up looking for some reason, and I took a picture of myself. I think it’s still on instagram. I captioned it, totally off the cuff, with “Life as a Dog”. Later that day I started a Soundcloud stream of demos with the same title, and it just naturally became the album title.
With “I Stopped Caring in ‘96” I was talking to a friend, and just said exactly that. That was the year I stopped caring what anyone thought. Obviously I still wanted to be a kind person but I just didn’t care what other people thought about my clothes, or whatever. These are just things I’ve said.

Maxim:
Wow, so in ‘96 you must have been ten. That seems like a pretty early age to quit giving a fuck.

K.Flay:
Yeah, I was in Mr Spangenburger’s class. He was a terrible teacher by the way. I don’t really want to tarnish his image but he really wasn’t very good. The one really cool thing about him was that he was missing half of his index finger. He would make up stories about how it happened but they were all lies. Probably he just didn’t use a saw correctly.

Maxim:
He wasn’t your shop teacher, was he?

K.Flay:
No, he was my fifth grade teacher. He was in charge of everything, except for math and Spanish. I literally did not learn any- thing that year, except for the lyrics to “Shantily Lace” and “Lemon Tree” because he would do sing-alongs.

Maxim:
Was that the Peter, Paul and Mary “Lemon Tree”?

K.Flay:
I honestly have no idea but I know the words! I remember that I came to school wearing shorts over sweatpants, and I have no idea what compelled me to do this but one of my friends asked me what I was doing. Everybody thought it was weird but nobody really cared, and I remember thinking that I could do whatever I want. That’s really liberating for a kid. It’s difficult being that age but I just kind of acquiesced to my status as a weirdo. It was nice.

Maxim:
Have you ever read Sylvia Plath?

K.Flay: I have!

Maxim:
Okay, so there’s this scene in “The Bell Jar” where the protagonist is eating at this fine dining restaurant but she’s doing it with her hands instead of utensils.
And she claims that if you do something with enough self-assurance, you can get away with anything.
That’s what your shorts and sweatpants made me think of.

K.Flay:
It’s true. Especially when you’re young – nobody knows what they’re doing. Everyone is so lost that if you move for- ward with confidence, you can get away with it.
I hope I have a weird kid who studies a lot. I really hope that my kid is not cool!

Maxim:
I feel like there are phases of coolness. If you’re cool in middle school, you’re probably never going to be cool again.

K.Flay:
I think it’s good to be kind of niche cool in high school. Friends with some of the cool kids but not getting super fucked up when you’re fourteen, sleeping around. I’m not about to become a parent though. Just putting that out there.

Maxim:
Damn, I’m not breaking the story, am I?

K.Flay:
That would be bad news for me right now.

Maxim:
Speaking of parents, your dad died when you were fairly young, right?

K.Flay:
Yeah, he died when I was fourteen. That was the big reason why I was sober for so long. Him not being sober was the cause of his demise.
Often, when you have a parent who’s an addict, you gravitate towards these extremes. Either you start very young, or you swear to never do any of it, which is more where I fell on the spectrum. It was cool because I did eventually find the grey area of moderation. It’s nice to go out, and be able to enjoy wine with friends. As a kid my view was much more polarized. Growing up, all of my friends experimented.
In a way it was nice to never have a hang- over though. When I was in college I would get up every Saturday to go to the library, so that I could get my work done for the weekend. People were always tired, and didn’t want to go anywhere, which I just couldn’t relate to.
Then I had my first hangover, and realized what was going on. I was like an alien for a while.
It’s bizarre because I had no concept of what it was like to be altered. At parties I would act crazy just because that was the atmosphere there. I didn’t know what it was like to actually be –

Maxim: Twisted?

K.Flay: Yeah, twisted.

Maxim:
I’m the guy who’s been having hangovers since he was fourteen, so I have a lot of trouble relating to this. It’s fascinating but way out there for me.

K.Flay:
It’s so weird doing it all in reverse. I know a lot of people who were really crazy when they were kids, and now they’re calming down. They don’t go out much.
I was going out all that time but I didn’t have my first drink until I was 23. I missed out on all the shitty alcohol.

Maxim:
I think that’s one of the problems when you start young: You drink really cheap booze that makes you sick to the point where you get flashbacks just from smelling it. I couldn’t drink vodka at all for a long time because of that.

K.Flay:
It’s true. You just drink swill when you’re young because you have no money.
When I started drinking I was having these nice craft beers. I entered at a much more civilized place than my friends did at seventeen.

Maxim:
You were never curious, watching your friends?

K.Flay:
Oh, I was unshakeable. Not at all. I believed that I had this moral imperative not to do it. This is gonna sound extreme but it would never occur to me to steal from someone. I’m not tempted. I’m not curious. That’s how I felt about alcohol.

Maxim:
That’s cool in its own way though.

K.Flay:
It didn’t affect my social life at all. My friends just always had a designated driver, which was tight.

Maxim:
What did you study at Stanford?

K.Flay:
I was a psychology-sociology major. Mostly I was interested in power structures, and how they affect the way people act, and think, and vote, and do a million other things.

Maxim:
Could you see yourself as a sociologist if you weren’t making music?

K.Flay:
I don’t know what the hell I’d be doing. I really loved school, and learning. I like being in an academic environment because there are a lot of ideas floating about.
The same goes for music – there are so many different ideas. I really have no clue what I’d be doing. It’s kind of terrifying when I think about it.

Maxim:
On the other hand it’s great because it’s working for you the way you’re doing it. For me there are always fifty other things I could see myself myself doing, and I often wonder, ‘’What the hell am I doing now?’’

K.Flay:
Most people think about the what-ifs, or wonder about opportunities that they missed out on. To a certain extent I engage in that line of thinking. Once I’ve made a decision to do something though, I don’t spend time thinking about what I could have done instead. It’s liberating on the one hand but weird on the other. I never even day-dream about doing other stuff. It’s strange that I even started doing music. One day I just decided to start doing it.

Maxim:
So you’ve remixed one of Danny Brown’s songs, or have you actually recorded with him in the studio?

K.Flay:
Both. A friend played XXX for me real early. I had never even heard of him up until then. That album had just come out, and obviously I was struck by its difference. It’s a very interesting record. I love the song “Party All the Time”, so I just remixed it on my own. It premiered on some magazine, and he saw that and reached out. Then we played a couple of festivals together, so we got to hang out. Around that time I was working on an EP, and it had this really weird and nutty song on it. I thought it would be cool to have him on it so I asked, and he said yes.

Maxim:
How does that work? Do you ask, and he sends in a verse, or does he physically come into the studio.

K.Flay:
It totally depends. I was on tour at the time, so I couldn’t be in the studio. He recorded it wherever he was, and sent it to me. I’ve done it both ways though. With rap stuff it’s more common to just record it wherever, and email it in. For the more electronic collaborations it’s really cool to get together in a room because it can change everything about a track. Sometimes it’s great to be on different sides of the planet, and have the elements converge unexpectedly.

Maxim:
In a way you sound like a prime example of the universal musician: Collaborate with anyone, feature on anything. I remember hearing one of your tracks on “Girls”, and I love that show. It must be awesome to have exposure across so many different mediums and platforms.

K.Flay:
I started out in more of a hip-hop/rap capacity but I don’t think you could call the latest record a rap album. I would call it more of an alternative album. Obviously it does have some rhythmic speaking and singing but I feel like I’ve embraced the chaos of having no genre.
It’s great because there are no rules. Nobody expects a specific thing from me, which is liberating. I can be creative without constraint. At first it was troubling because people thought it was all over the place but I came to terms with it.

Maxim:
Is there a sense of disconnect to hear one of your songs play during an episode of television?

K.Flay:
No, it doesn’t seem weird. It is really exciting. There are layers of performance with every song: If I sang right now, that would be the closest I get to my art. When I hear myself on a record there’s a layer of separation. Then a music or concert video is another layer. Finally, when your music is part of something that has nothing to do with you, that’s another layer of abstraction. It almost feels like it isn’t you. In that way it can be weird.

Maxim:
Have you gotten used to hearing your own voice?

K.Flay:
Yeah, I’ve gotten used to it. Almost everyone I know hates hearing their own voice. I actually had to record my mom’s voicemail message because she doesn’t want to be on it. Sometimes it still surprises me, even though I’ve heard it a mil- lion times.

Maxim:
Are you touring until the end of this year?

K.Flay:
In terms of confirmed things, I’m booked until mid-August. Hopefully we’ll be back in Europe in the fall. Maybe around October/ November. I still need to figure out what the next thing is gonna be. I have a couple of ideas but I need a month or two to sit down, and write somewhere. I definitely don’t want to be on tour the whole time.

K.Flay:
It’s a good mix of the two. We’re doing a couple of indie festivals. Then some radio stuff because two of my songs are getting air time. Then just some regular headline club shows.
I’m opening for AWOLNATION for part of the summer, and then for a week with Third Eye Blind. That’ll be cool because they will be really big shows. Way more people than show up for my shit. It’s really interesting to open for someone because it isn’t really your party. You’re like the appetizer but you still have to be good. You’re not the steak. Afterwards, ideally, people would still say, ‘’That bruscetta was good!’’

Maxim:
When you are on tour you must spend a lot of time with other musicians. Just as an example, I saw that you got a shout-out from Carly Rae Jepsen recently.

K.Flay:
Yeah, I actually met her through a writer friend of mine who was helping her out with a track. He’s an awesome dude, and a really big support. He played her my record, so she decided to come to a show, and we ended up hanging out afterwards.
Now we hang out when both of us are in L.A. She’s super awesome. You meet all kinds of people: Metal, pop, hip-hop. Make friends everywhere you go. That’s the seamlessness of the whole experience. We did the Warped tour last year, and that’s very much in line with what I do.
It’s very DIY. Everyone’s really humble because you’re all out there together in 120 degree sun, sweating like a goddamn animal.
We made friends with people who play in all of these heavy-ass bands. Music I hadn’t listened to my entire life, and these were the nicest people. Have you read the new Kim Gordon book?

Maxim:
I haven’t but it’s on my list.

K.Flay:
Okay, well there’s this part in it where she talks about Courtney Love, and a couple of other heavier singers. Many of them would finish a show, and then go back to the bus to watch Coneheads – do something really subdued.
Some of them were insane but their main outlet was playing. The point being that you have to get that energy out somehow, and if the music is crazy enough, you don’t necessarily have to be crazy the rest of the time with partying and drugs.