Delivering soulful vocals over warm, atmospheric synth productions, young music prodigy King Princess joins to talk about their career and the double-edged nature of early success in the music business.
Debbie Millman:
You rarely see it coming, but when a star is born, you just know it. In 2018 Mikaela Mullaney Straus, now more popularly known as King Princess, came out with their debut single and the world, including Harry Styles and Kourtney Kardashian, took notice. A chart topping album followed, and now despite a two year pandemic that shut down the live music business, King Princess has cemented their reputation as one of the most original and charismatic musicians working today. They’re here to talk about their music, their career, and everything in between. King Princess, welcome to Design Matters.
King Princess:
Thank you. Hi.
Debbie Millman:
Hi. So I understand you’re a fan of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and the Real Housewives of New York. Do you-
King Princess:
And the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City.
Debbie Millman:
Ah, okay. Do you have a preference?
King Princess:
Well, right now, there’s a lot of rumors speculating, but they’re revamping the cast of New York and Beverly Hills is on hiatus as well. So Salt Lake City is where I’m focusing in on.
Debbie Millman:
And how do you feel about Jenna Lyons joining the crew of the New York cohort?
King Princess:
I think that’s a really interesting choice. It’s always funny to me when people who have blusterous careers join the show because it’s like you’re going to fight with a bunch of women now, which is amazing for me. I would love to see Jenna Lyons fight with women. But I think in the past it’s supposed to be the upper echelon of a society that no one gives a fuck about from my generation’s perspective but because they’re such characters … I love the most flawed housewives. I like the ones that cause chaos.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. I have to be honest, I’ve never ever watched an episode of any of them. I might now that Jenna’s joined and I’m a big fan and she’s been on this show, but my wife is crazy about them. Ridiculous. And is always sneaking off to watch them, but I just can’t bring myself to enjoy it as much as people seem to be able to.
King Princess:
It’s so useless for the brain. It doesn’t encourage brain growth in any way. It’s literally watching middle-aged women have poor discourse. Just terrible communication skills. But the characters, the comedy, there couldn’t be a better scripted show.
Debbie Millman:
That’s what my wife says.
King Princess:
You know what I mean?
Debbie Millman:
Yep.
King Princess:
I’ll never stop watching.
Debbie Millman:
Okay. Well, I think that’s as good a affirmation as we could get.
King Princess:
We’re going to go into a podcast about art and I’m like The Housewives.
Debbie Millman:
Well, they have one called Every Outfit on Sex in the City, so we could talk about every character on The Real Housewives.
King Princess:
I listen to that podcast.
Debbie Millman:
It’s a good one, right?
King Princess:
I love Sex in the City so.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah, me too. So let’s talk about you a bit. You were raised in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I was born in Burrow Park, Brooklyn by the way. Initially, your parents were in a metal band. Your dad played drums and your mother sang. What was the name of the band?
King Princess:
I think they were in several bands, but the one that I remember the name of is Warthog.
Debbie Millman:
Interesting. Where did that come from? What was that about?
King Princess:
I don’t know. That’s just I guess the genius of my parents’ brains.
Debbie Millman:
Though they ended up divorcing, your dad stayed in the music business and founded the studio, Mission Sound, and worked as an engineer from everyone from Arctic Monkeys to Jack Antifnoff to Animal Collective. Originally, the studio was in the basement of your childhood home, correct?
King Princess:
The house I still live in.
Debbie Millman:
And you’d go down there and just tinker?
King Princess:
No. At that point I was too young. This was from when I was born to when I was three. But I do distinctly remember … My dad has a lot of ’60s microphones and microphone cases were just so beautiful, and they had latches and I remember in my room in that house playing with microphones. Not on, just thinking they were interesting, thinking they were cool looking. But yeah, no, I didn’t really get into actually fucking around in the studio until he moved into his second studio space, and that’s when I started to really … Because we slept in there initially when my parents got divorced. We didn’t really have an apartment, so it was like we were in the studio.
Debbie Millman:
Is it true you wrote your first song called Jackie the Dog when you were five?
King Princess:
Yeah. That is my first song.
Debbie Millman:
Any chance you remember any of the lyrics?
King Princess:
I don’t. It was a blues number. A bit of a classic, 1-4-5. And my dad would just … He thought it was so entertaining to just put me on a microphone and just play a little diddy and just have me sing. He thought it was so funny. He thought I had really good timing.
Debbie Millman:
Well, didn’t he also have you redo backup vocals for musicians who provided backups that he didn’t like?
King Princess:
Yeah. I would do that sometimes. I was like a fun party trick. She can really sing. Yeah, I did that. I sang some background vocals for people. Just wanted to participate wherever I was welcome. I’d bring my homework in there and not do it and just sit and watch everybody, because it was so interesting to me.
Debbie Millman:
Oh my God. I can’t imagine. It seems like just paradise. As you were growing up I read that you liked Madonna and Cher, Lauren Hill and femme rock and roll boys like Prince and David Bowie and Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin and Roger Daltrey from The Who, who you once referred to as femme motherfuckers which I loved.
King Princess:
They are.
Debbie Millman:
What did you like most about them?
King Princess:
I think I related to them gender wise. I felt like maybe I didn’t fit in any traditional idea of femininity and that these men were the closest thing I had to what I felt like I was, which was just a gender amorphous femme but not femme person. There wasn’t a wealth of queer representation like there is now. Or at least queer representation that I related to.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It’s so interesting that masculinity is allowed to be feminine, but not the other way around without a lot of controversy.
King Princess:
Well, back in the day, I feel like it was the hot guys dressed in ladies’ clothes.
Debbie Millman:
Oh, yeah. Look at the lead singer from Aerosmith, who I think looks like an old lesbian at this point.
King Princess:
Oh my god. Legend.
Debbie Millman:
Steven Tyler, right?
King Princess:
I saw Steven Tyler one time. I was walking home really drunk in high school from my friend’s house. I was walking to the train. And I passed by him and he’s got his scarves and he’s with his entourage. And I walked by him and I was like, oh my God. And I turned around and him and I at the same time threw up a peace sign.
Debbie Millman:
Wow.
King Princess:
It was pretty cool.
Debbie Millman:
Do you think he recognized you?
King Princess:
He couldn’t have, because it was when I was 15.
Debbie Millman:
Oh, okay.
King Princess:
There was no chance. It was literally, we both just had the same thought. We saw each other and we’re like, “Oh, you see me.” It’s like, “Oh, I see you.” And then it was like peace.
Debbie Millman:
I read that your ultimate idol is Jack White. And when your mother first brought you a poster of Jack and Meg wearing suits entirely made of buttons, you looked at it and decided that that’s what you wanted. Was it the music, the aesthetic, or being the centerpiece of a poster?
King Princess:
I think it was all three. I think it was the music first, because I loved the White Stripes growing up. When I was in middle school, when I was becoming a teenager, the music that was pop music just wasn’t singing to me. And Jack White and the White Stripes were just the centerpiece of my childhood where I could just be like, these people are making rock and roll. But yeah, no, that poster came home and I saw the buttons and I was like, I need to be this. I need a suit of buttons and a poster.
Debbie Millman:
Your mother worked in clothing throughout your childhood and you’d go to trade shows and enjoy the performative nature of it and experimenting with who you could be. And I read that you said that you realized that clothing and makeup were armor. And I was wondering if you felt like that was a good thing or a bad thing?
King Princess:
I think it’s a really powerful thing that can be wielded to make incredible art and to promote self-expression, especially with young people. For a really long time, I feel like clothes were used to promote conformity and makeup was used to mask your face, to be traditionally feminine, and again, conform to society. And now it’s like, I just think that there’s so much fun to be had with those things. When you look at drag culture, when you look at ballroom culture, when you look at just ’80s and ’90s in New York, it’s like, look at the way people were using clothes and makeup, especially people who didn’t have the money for “designer”. It was about making things, making creations, whether it was makeup or clothing, and using them as costume. Whereas I think sometimes people think costume is to become someone else. I think that costume can be used to figure out parts of yourself you didn’t know.
For me, the thought of going into a Sephora as a kid was horrifying. I just had no idea where start. That was not my zhuzh. I didn’t understand makeup. And now it’s like I do my makeup every night before a show, and it’s become this thing that is … It’s a ritual and it makes me feel powerful. And I experiment and I try new things. And I’ve had people like my makeup artist, Sarah, who’s lovely enough to teach me. There’s a great power in clothing and in makeup, and I think that the more that we see people play with it, the more the needle turns away from these informative, outdated uses.
Debbie Millman:
I read about … Or no, actually, I heard about it on your origin story that you did with Audible, where somebody gave you a Barbie head and it made you cry.
King Princess:
It was so funny. I was at Thanksgiving at my girlfriend’s family’s house, and they pulled out this massive tub of Barbies that Quinn and her mother collected, and they had really rare ones. Now I’m obsessed. When I have kids, I want Barbies because it’s so sick. But when I was a kid, it just felt like somebody was telling me, you should play with this. It just felt hurtful because I don’t know if I had the language. I didn’t have the language to be like, that doesn’t feel right. That’s not really my zhuzh. That’s not my thing. But I’m so comfortable with myself now that it’s like, I would love a tub of Barbies. You know what I mean?
Debbie Millman:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. When I was growing up, we didn’t have a lot of money and I wanted Barbies more than anything. And when I got older, I started to recreate the few that I had. I re-got them because I wanted to feel what it felt like to have them and to own them. And then when my brother had a daughter, she was into Barbies, and so I went crazy and bought her a million Barbies. We have a tub of Barbies sitting in his basement I can send you.
King Princess:
Thank you. Isn’t it funny, all the shit that you begged your parents for as a kid for Christmas, I felt this too, when you become an adult, it’s so easy to buy those things. I have a fucking basketball hoop now.
Debbie Millman:
Right. Yeah.
King Princess:
I just thought about what I wanted as a kid. And it’s funny calling my business manager and being like, “Hey, Dawn, is it okay if I get a basketball hoop or an Xbox?” And she’s like, “Yeah.”
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. I totally get it. It’s something about filling up a hole that was deeply cratered at a very early age for some desire. You were offered a record deal when you were 11 years old. Virgin Records wanted you to be the voice of-
King Princess:
This-
Debbie Millman:
Tell me.
King Princess:
It wasn’t a record deal. I was asked to be the voice of something. I was-
Debbie Millman:
Emily The Strange, right?
King Princess:
Right. They were contracting me to play a character, and I was totally down for it because I was like, oh, this sounds fun and it’s something to do after school and something I care about. And it never really came into fruition, but it was a really important experience for me because it was the first time I had met with someone and had to express myself and be like, this is me. And it happened to be when I was 11, and that was really helpful. Luckily, I had practice. I was used to talking to older people because of the studio. But yeah, so there’s always two things that come up. Somehow my dad, the idea of him being a studio owner has turned into him being some mega powerful music industry CEO which is not fucking true. You need to Google what a studio owner is. It is a begrudged job.
You’re basically … And this is no shade to my dad. I love my dad, but he would admit, there’s very little power and control that comes from the actual recording of the music. You have no affiliation or connection to the people, to the big business owners who are making executive decisions on people’s music. You are engineering music. So when people say on the internet or whatever that I had some shoe in, it’s like, no, I had privilege because I learned a lot about the studio and about being a recording artist because I had the luxury of living in a studio. I didn’t have the luxury of having a father who ran fucking Columbia. You know what I mean? Or ran Capital. My dad is a small business owner.
Debbie Millman:
Well, it’s interesting because I had seen so many different stories about it and was wondering how you being offered the opportunity to vocalize Emily The Strange turned into a record deal, so I’m glad that we can clarify that.
King Princess:
No. There was a lady who had come into the studio who A&Red and she probably worked at Virgin at one point. And so Ax would come in and occasionally their A&Rs would come in or somebody from their label would come in to check on how the record’s doing or whatever. And me being the ballsy kid I was would be like, “Hi,” to these people. But the occurrence that somebody would come in who had any pull in the industry was not often.
Debbie Millman:
Well, you went to high school at Avenues, the World School in Manhattan. It’s around the block from where I live. Pass it all the time. And I understand you were cast in a production of Oklahoma, but were asked to leave for being too rowdy.
King Princess:
So that was before high school. I did a, I wouldn’t say it was Christian, but there was undertones, camp. I went upstate every summer. I didn’t really know anybody or have any friends. My aunt, my uncle and my mother put me in this camp, and I got a little aggressive with a girl who happened to be the daughter of the owner of this camp. So that was not a slam dunk for me.
Debbie Millman:
That’s a strange play. I just recently saw one of the remakes of it in Manhattan. It was off Broadway. No, it was Broadway because one of the women won the Tony for her role. Very strange play. It’s hard to believe that it’s still being made.
King Princess:
So that was before high school. I did a lot of theater in high school. My favorite teachers and my best teachers were English teachers that doubled as drama teachers. I was really lucky to have a couple of teachers in high school who I’m still in touch with, who really saw something in me and really supported me emotionally and through art in school. Although I wouldn’t say that that was an art school. They just had these two guys, Jordan Mahome and Drew Cortese, who were just the best. So yeah, I happened to do theater with them too.
Debbie Millman:
Didn’t you put on your own production of Cabret as your senior thesis project?
King Princess:
That was my senior project. Me and my best friend Sicily were manning the theater program. So Sicily and I were like, you know what, let’s try to do something, try to build a program that then can be carried on by future students. And this makes me sound like I cared about school and was very involved in school. I wasn’t. This was the one thing that I was like, everyone needs theater. It’s really helpful. It brings people together. It definitely provides a space for the gay kids and the queer kids. So I was like, we should do this. So we ended up putting on this production and we did everything ourselves. I originally was the co-director and the musical director, but then I just got moved to musical director because again, I was a little bit too intense to be the director.
Debbie Millman:
See, I was envisioning you being the MC. The Joel Gray, Alan Cummings part.
King Princess:
So ironic. I casted myself as Sally Bowles.
Debbie Millman:
You could have done either, but I think it would’ve been really interesting for you to do the MC role.
King Princess:
I don’t think I was in my gender enough at that point to play the MC. Now I feel like I could, but at the time I was like, oh, I’m the director. I’m literally casting myself as the lead. And Sicily played the prostitute who lives in the same building. She was amazing. She was like, “More sailors.”
Debbie Millman:
Well, after writing Jackie the Dog, you continued writing and recording, but you said that it wasn’t until you were in high school and started being fully gay and eating pussy that you wrote your first proper song and had something to say. Were they love songs, sex songs?
King Princess:
I baffle myself with my poetry in interviews.
Debbie Millman:
Well, it’s very likely the first time I’ve actually said the word pussy on Design Matters in 18 years of doing the show. But it’s not like I say it off air. I mean, it’s not like I don’t say it off air.
King Princess:
Well, it’s just so funny. My mom always jokes, she’ll listen … I don’t usually listen to stuff that I talk in and she does. And I’ll be like, “Oh, how’d I do?” And she’s like, “You said a couple insightful things.” Okay, thanks.
Debbie Millman:
At least she’s honest.
King Princess:
Yeah. I don’t know. Everybody has those big feelings when you get to that age, whether you’re straight or gay, you start to explore yourself and relationships and stuff and I feel like that’s when the big feelings come about. When you’re sitting in your room crying and listening to Oasis. Or at least that’s what I was doing. But I was falling in love with everyone and was needing a place to put feelings, and I always wrote music, but now it felt like it wasn’t about just writing. It felt like it was about therapy. It felt like it was about doing something with all this angst and emotion that I didn’t know where to put. And that’s when I started to really write and care about what I was writing.
Debbie Millman:
You talked about how your parents wanted you to make the most of your bougie private school education by applying and attending college for at least a year. What made you decide to move to LA and attend USC Thornton School of Music?
King Princess:
Because Avenues was brand new, they weren’t receiving test scores, which was really great because I don’t take tests well. So I remember I brought in a CD and I was like, “Here’s my music.” And then they gave me a scholarship. So I knew at that point getting into a school would have to be through music. I just didn’t have the scores or the grades because I was smoking cigarettes in the bathroom. I just wanted to smoke weed and make music. There were things I loved about school, but there was things I realized when you pursue an academic education, it has to be rounded, and I just didn’t have the attention span for the shit I didn’t want to do. So applying to college, I was like, I really want to have this experience, I want to go to college, but I just can’t sustain four years at a liberal arts school. I’m just going to be in so much debt.
I was just like, I got to be crafty about this. I got to be in LA. I got to get into music school. I got to do my one year, and then I got to get the fuck out of there. That in my head made perfect sense. And somehow by the fucking skin of my pussy I got into USC and I went to Thornton for a year and knowing that I was there to work in LA but I got a lot of great things out of it. I really honed my performance craft and I met my band. I partied a lot.
Debbie Millman:
Wrote a lot of great songs.
King Princess:
I wrote a lot of great songs during that year, and then I dipped out and handled what I loaned out with my … And I started my career. I don’t mean to shit on them, but what I didn’t love and what I hope that some kid is listening to on this podcast and can get from this is there are schools that are encouraging of kids leaving college to pursue careers, and there are schools that aren’t. And USC in my mind, and for me in my specific experience, was not supportive of me leaving.
Debbie Millman:
Really? What did they do? What did they say?
King Princess:
They just were like, “Why can’t you do both?” And I was like, “Because A, I can’t afford both, and B, because I have to go do this. This is what I’m meant to do, and I’m a worker. I can’t talk about working for four years and then go and work after the four years. I need to work now. I’m being summoned by something to go and go on tour. And if that’s going to conflict with this school schedule, I will not sacrifice that for essentially a program that says after four years, you’re equipped to join the music industry. I feel like I’m equipped now.”
Debbie Millman:
Well, other folks thought that too. February of 2017, you signed with Mark Ronson, Zelig Recordings, which is an imprint of Columbia, and you were his very first artist. How did you meet Mark and what gave you the sense that you were ready to sign a recording contract at that point?
King Princess:
My music was on a SoundCloud link that my managers were just sending around. A private SoundCloud link. There really wasn’t a grand master plan. Me and my managers were like, let’s get these songs together. Let’s send it and see what the response is. Knowing in the back of our minds that they’re good. That was a big part of it was that we believed in that EP. So started to send it around. I guess it got sent to, sent to sent to, sent to sent. So finally it gets sent to Harley, who is part of Zelig, and Harley was building this label with Mark and Harley played it for Mark. I got a call that he wanted to … I was at my girlfriend at the time’s house, and I got a call from Adam and Andrew and they said, “Are you ready for this? You better sit down.” And I was like, “What?” I thought something bad was going to … And they were like, “You got a meeting with Mark Ronson.” And so I was like, “Oh.” I was like, “For what?” They were like, “He wants to sign you.” And I was like, “Oh.” So I went and had dinner with him. That was it.
Debbie Millman:
Is it true you call him daddy?
King Princess:
I do call him daddy.
Debbie Millman:
I love that.
King Princess:
He’s papa.
Debbie Millman:
I came across this quote. Something that he said about you and wanted to read it. This is what he said. “When I met Alicia Keys for the first time, she was 18, coming from school to my tiny studio on 54th Street. She sat down and had this confidence without being cocky. Same thing with Lady Gaga. I think it’s a New York energy. Streetwise, self-aware, no need to be too showy, but you know you’re the real deal. I got that from Mikaela. I could tell from that conversation, this person is going to do something really great.” I thought that was wonderful.
In February of 2018, you released your first single, I fell madly in love with you when I saw it. The video. Titled 1950, which was one of those songs that seemed to capture the imagination of the whole world at once. The first week after it’s released, 1950 reached a million streams. After that, the pace increased by almost a million streams a day. Harry Styles tweeted the lyrics. Kourtney Kardashian loved it on Instagram. Taylor Swift professor loved on Entertainment Weekly. Did the response surprise you?
King Princess:
Part of me was like, I know this song is really special, and part of me just couldn’t believe what was happening. It was the thing I always wanted. And then I got it on the first song, which is a blessing and a curse. Because I feel like then it was a race of catch up where you’re like, what now? What am I supposed to make an album? I’ve never made an album. But at the same time, it feels so good to be validated by people in the industry, especially people who are titans. I just got to do a bunch of really cool shit. I just got to go and play … Then I was playing shows, and then I was doing magazine covers, and then I was … Or first, it wasn’t covers, first it was just I was in magazines. I was like, “Oh my God, I love my photo taken. This is fucking great.” And then I was going to fucking different countries I had never been to, and then I was being treated differently. And as a kid who didn’t really connect with people my own age especially, and was very lonely, it was sensory overload. Not only are people talking to me, they’re saying nice things.
Debbie Millman:
The song is a nod to Patricia Highsmith’s groundbreaking novel, 1952, lesbian love story, The Price of Salt, which was also the basis of the movie Carol. And I read that the melody came to you in your dorm room shower and took just 20 minutes to write.
King Princess:
I was showering in my dorm, and I ran out of the shower ass naked. I was humming it. My roommate was sitting on my bed and I was like, give me your phone. And I sang it into the phone.
Debbie Millman:
Wow. A few months later, you released your first EP, Make My Bed, and I understand another song on the EP, Talia, you also wrote in your dorm’s practice room 20 minutes before class.
King Princess:
Yeah.
Debbie Millman:
But you’ve said that Pussy Is God, your next single after the EP was a nightmare to write. What makes something easy to write versus arduous?
King Princess:
Well, Talia was written in an entire moment of just sobbing. It almost poured out. Whereas Pussy Is God, lyrically is not a sad song. And when you’re not writing from a place of absolute overtaking emotion you actually have to think. I think there’s something that happens creatively when your brain shuts off from the world and you’re just writing for you, versus when you’re writing something in a studio. I came in with a verse of Pussy Is God. I was like, what if the song started with … I was also embarrassed. I was like, “What do you think about this? What if this song starts with your pussy is God and I love it?” And my friend Nick Long was like, “That’s amazing.” And I was like, “Really?” And then we wrote it and we couldn’t get the chorus right and it didn’t feel like it was clicking. I was in London, and Mark was like, “What if you sampled Oochie Wally?” He was like, “It would be great. It’s a song about taking dick. It’d be so amazing to flip it.”
Debbie Millman:
And that’s Nas and the Bravehearts’ 2001 hit.
King Princess:
Yes. So I decided to do that. And I chopped it up on Ableton in front of him, just on my laptop speakers.
Debbie Millman:
I read that longing is key to your creative process. In what way?
King Princess:
I think that at least for my first two projects, the EP and Cheep Queen, that idea of this unrequited love, that’s all I knew in my life. And you as a queer person probably understand when you’re young and who you are, or if you’re not young or figuring out who you are, it can be devastating to put yourself out there in a different way from straight people, because you’re dealing with that second level of like, well, is that person gay? Are they willing to be gay with me? Is this feeling that I’m having, is it too big? Is it too crazy? Is it too weird? Is it going to offput someone? And then of course, there’s the dreaded being in love with someone who isn’t interested in you. And that I think it’s even more devastating when they’re not interested in you because they’re not gay. But they’re still toying with you because that’s how these bitches roll.
So yeah, no, I definitely was very much … I say something to my girlfriend a lot. I was talking to her. She’s always like, “Why do you watch these fucking lesbian period pieces where everyone dies at the end or gets converted or goes back with their man? It’s fucking torture porn. Why are you watching this?” She’s like, “I just don’t understand.” And I said, “Well, it’s what we’re seasoned to be horny for.” I think as queer people because of the media and because that’s how our stories back in the day were sanctioned by the government to be. And now, because it’s a generational trauma and it’s inherited, we still continue to perpetuate that cycle of unhappiness and devastation and sadness. And I think it’s instilled in us as queer people to expect something bad to happen. I think I toil with that, and I also laugh about it.
Debbie Millman:
Why do you laugh?
King Princess:
Because it’s fucking hilarious that I just can’t stop.
Debbie Millman:
Oh, well, maybe it’s also knowing that this outcome is different now at this point for you at least.
King Princess:
It is, but it isn’t in the media still. It’s like, you can have 100 shitty gay romcoms, but if you want … All the Oscar gay movies are sad.
Debbie Millman:
That’s true. Yep.
King Princess:
Look at the last fucking year. It’s like Portrait of a Lady On Fire, that sad one with the Hasidic Jewish woman.
Debbie Millman:
Disobedience? Is that what it’s called?
King Princess:
Disobedience.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah.
King Princess:
It’s called Disobedience.
Debbie Millman:
Right. Exactly.
King Princess:
The one with Kate Winslet where Sorcha Ronan sits on Kate Winslet’s face and she’s a geologist.
Debbie Millman:
I don’t remember the name of that, but that was terrifying.
King Princess:
I don’t remember the name either, but I remember the face sitting and I loved it. It hasn’t changed. We haven’t figured out how to really break this cycle of inherited trauma.
Debbie Millman:
No. Even Jenny Schecter died on The L Word, so that wasn’t that long ago.
King Princess:
It’s a very interesting queer theory that should be explored more. Why we love sadness.
Debbie Millman:
Maybe it’s just the heartbreak that we relate to.
King Princess:
We relate it, for sure. But I think it has to also somehow stem from A, reality, and B, what the government allowed to happen to queer people in media.
Debbie Millman:
And what we feel like we deserve. What we feel like we deserve.
King Princess:
It’s specific to media, but I also think that … I have so many conversations with my friends about how we take those teachings from the media and we then put them into our life. We go after people who don’t like us. We go for unattainable situations. It is changing, but I think that I’m still wounded from the art.
Debbie Millman:
Yeah. Yeah. Well Make My Bed was met with universal acclaim but you’ve said that after your early success, you got lost in the sauce for a couple of years. What does that mean? It doesn’t sound like you mean lost in the alcohol as sauce, just sauce of-
King Princess:
Well, drugs for sure.
Debbie Millman:
Oh, okay.
King Princess:
But also if you take somebody who’s cripplingly insecure and narcissistic, but also deeply empathetic and you give them a claim and you give them social power and you give them funds, that is a recipe for fucking disaster. It’s an age old fucking tale of what happens when young people get that. It’s really hard to come back from it.
It’s addictive. And then other things become addictive. And then you’re in this cycle of … I don’t know. That sounds so dark, but I think it’s true. It’s like you look at all these incredible artists who shit happens and they lose it. I think that that is a direct response to celebrity. I definitely felt that way. I’m not Beyoncé. I’m a very minor member of this artistic community in the grand scheme of things, and yet I felt completely crippled by success for a while and confused. But it was a lot of therapy and a lot of really assessing relationships in my life and being like, who is going to keep me grounded? Who is going to call me out? What are my values? What do I look for in people? Is it people who just validate me all the time or is it people who challenge me? It’s harder to have people who challenge you, but it also makes you a better person. I had to get back to what was important, which was making music, chilling with my friends, and having fun.
Debbie Millman:
What did you learn about yourself in that experience?
King Princess:
That I have an extremely addictive personality, and that it works really well for making music, but it’s also really easy to be addicted to everything, be addicted to drugs, be addicted to the high highs of the industry. I was talking to a girl who opened for me on tour named M and I was like, “It’s like you get on stage. And being on stage is like fucking doing a line of blow. You feel like you’re on top of the world, and then you get offstage and you’re back into the mundane. And so it’s peaks and valleys. And I think that the key of this career, from what I’ve experienced, is there’ll always be the peaks and there’ll always be the valleys, but it’s trying to make the valleys less deep.” And I think that how to do that, at least what I’ve learned is that you have to find beauty in the mundane. You have to find things that make you happy that are small. That have nothing to do with your career. Like skincare. Like going and playing a sport. Going to dinner with your friends. Watching movies. Playing video games. Whatever that thing is for you that you can be excited for after that high, that may not be as much of a high, it’s still going to make that valley less deep.
Debbie Millman:
You’ve said this about your current state of mind. “The only antagonist around me right now is me. It’s really hard to consider that not liking yourself is a form of heartbreak, and that’s what I’ve been dealing with. You can be heartbroken for yourself. Not liking yourself.” Are you still feeling heartbroken for yourself?
King Princess:
I think the album and touring the album really helped. Hold On Baby, I think is the best body of work I’ve ever made, just artistically. And it’s the most thought out and it’s the most finished thought. It’s one thing to write it. I think you deal with a lot of shit by putting it down on paper. But it’s a whole other thing to play it every night and to say those words and to watch people empathize and feel those things back. And then there’s this osmosis where you’re on stage and people are feeling things and you’re having deep feelings and you’re healing with each other.
Debbie Millman:
Do you go into different states of mind when performing songs from your EP or Cheap Queen and now Hold On Baby? What’s it like to go back and forth from those timeframes?
King Princess:
It’s almost like the thing in Harry Potter where Dumbledore goes like this with the wand and pulls out the memory and puts it in the gorgeous sink. That’s how I feel. I feel like I’m taking a snapshot of what I felt in the past, and I’m reliving it. And it’s not as painful, but it is interesting and it’s important to access those emotions. What I was feeling when I wrote Talia, what I was feeling when I wrote 1950, what I was feeling when I wrote Cheap Queen, when I wrote Prophet, when I wrote … So I find new ways to fall in love with those songs when I perform them.
And then what’s really amazing is that there’s these songs I’ve never played live that people request. So learning some of those songs for a live setting and playing them has been really fun and validating because some of those songs weren’t even going to make it on the record. The label was like … And then some kid’s like, “Back Of A Cab, I got to hear that song,” in Vancouver. And I’m like, okay. But playing the new stuff is so awesome. It’s just so helpful.
Debbie Millman:
It’s a completely new level of maturity for you as a musician from my perspective. Discovering your music when you first came out, loving Cheap Queen and now really, really admiring Hold On Baby for a whole other way of thinking about what you’re capable of doing, which is wonderful to watch a musician grow and change and develop. Especially when they’re so young. You said that one of your goals for the album was that you could play every song acoustically and it would still be impactful. And I saw your Tiny Desk Concert for NPR and I think you absolutely accomplished that, especially with the song Cursed, which is actually my favorite tune on the album. Have you thought about doing an acoustic tour?
King Princess:
I would love to. The more and more my band play together … Because I have a band. King Princess is me, but King Princess is also a band, and King Princess doesn’t function unless there’s a band. You know what I mean? So those people are-
Debbie Millman:
Like St. Vincent.
King Princess:
Yeah. Those people are my artistic partners. Those people challenge me and make the music better every time we play anything. And what’s great about having a band and a band that you love and the band that you trust and a band that for the most part remains the same … My core members have remained the same. Logan and Antoine. We’ve gotten better and better at like, oh, let’s just do this without tracks tonight, or let’s do this without this, or let’s add this. There’s percussion. Let’s get DJ to come play … We are mutating as we tour. And I think that that’s what makes a show exciting and keeps it vamped, is that you as a band are growing while you’re on tour. You’re responding to what people respond to. So I would do any form of performance at this point. I just want to be excited and I want to sound good, and I want my band and I to think of new ways to make this music special.
Debbie Millman:
I have two last questions for you today. The first is about Fiona Apple, who I know you’ve become good friends with. Is it true she refers to you as her son?
King Princess:
Yeah, she calls me mijo.
Debbie Millman:
Love that. You’ve said that her lyrics, so be it, I’m your crowbar from her song I Know is your favorite line ever written in music. You recorded a version of I Know with Fiona. You got a tattoo of a crowbar and also titled one of your most beautiful love songs on Hold On Baby, Crowbar. What is it about that word that moves you the way it does?
King Princess:
Well, first of all, I think animating inanimate objects in song, personifying them is so interesting. I think lyrically that’s more powerful to me than just a straight up metaphor or a simile. To say that you are somebody’s crowbar means that you are actively prying at them. And a crowbar is a helpful tool. It’s meant to open. So to say, so be it, I’m your crowbar, it’s relinquishing control to this understanding that you are meant to service someone in an emotional way. I think that that song is the most powerful song I’ve ever … I cannot name a song that affects me as much as that song to the point where I can only listen to it on certain days. That’s all I can say. It’s just lyrical excellence.
Debbie Millman:
My last question for you is this. You follow one person on Spotify. Miley Cyrus.
King Princess:
I don’t even know who runs that account.
Debbie Millman:
Oh, okay. I was thinking that there was something really profound about-
King Princess:
You know what? That is so funny. I have Spotify for artists, but it’s just so that my team can see analytics and stuff, but I just have no idea how that happened.
Debbie Millman:
Okay then.
King Princess:
But I love Miley.
Debbie Millman:
Well, maybe she followed you. Your people saw that, you followed her back.
King Princess:
You know what? I’m going to ask. I’m going to be like, “Guys, what’s up with this? I love it, but what’s up?”
Debbie Millman:
Well, King Princess, thank you so much for making so much work that matters, and thank you for joining me today on Design Matters.
King Princess:
Thank you so much for having me.
Debbie Millman:
You can find out more about King Princess at kingprincessmusic.com. This is our 18th year we’ve been podcasting Design Matters, and I’d like to thank you for listening. And remember, we can talk about making a difference, we could make a difference, or we can do both. I’m Debbie Millman and I look forward to talking with you again soon.