Home Indie Music A Reflective Q&A With Okay.Flay on Triumphant New Album, ‘MONO’

A Reflective Q&A With Okay.Flay on Triumphant New Album, ‘MONO’

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A Reflective Q&A With Okay.Flay on Triumphant New Album, ‘MONO’

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Okay.Flay talks about new album ‘MONO,’ her inventive pivot after sudden listening to loss, her upcoming European tour, and rewarding artist collaborations.
Stream: “Irish Goodbye” – Okay.Flay


Songs born out of adversity are sometimes those we maintain near us for the longest period of time.

Heartbreak, loss, defeat, and the like are normally not solely thematic of life’s challenges, but in addition the opportunity of a resurgence.

One of many hardest issues to attain in an album as a complete are complimentary tonal modifications, ebbs and flows that preserve the listener on the album’s path. MONO, nonetheless, accomplishes it with such considerate dexterity, taking the listener by the hand and down the rabbit gap.

MONO - K.Flay
MONO – Okay.Flay

So, when Kristine “Okay.Flay” Flaherty awoke one morning in 2022 with sudden catastrophic listening to loss in her proper ear, she not solely selected to re-emerge with the brand new album MONO, however doubled down on that willpower by finishing “Uncooked Uncooked,” a tune she’d began previous to her situation. The official video even depicts her proper ear being minimize off, which appears like a defiant thumbing of the nostril to what she’s been compelled to beat.

The rebellious anthem “In America” has tongue-in-cheek lyrics and a enjoyable choral cadence and may show to maintain crowds off the ground at each present (we’re predicting this one as a excessive vitality opener).

K.Flay © Danielle Ernst
Okay.Flay © Danielle Ernst

We might argue that maybe not since Underneath The Bridge” has a tune painted as vivid an image of the human journey from lively dependancy to sobriety and the unwelcome solitude that exists on either side of it as “Completely Alone” manages to do.

A private excessive level of the album, the album’s closing single “Irish Goodbye” sees Okay.Flay paired with pal and fellow artist Vic Fuentes of Pierce the Veil. In its genesis, Flaherty says she discovered herself screaming on the demo and that the epiphany of incorporating Fuentes was as natural as could possibly be, particularly with how a lot he cherished the tune straight away.

Atwood Journal caught up with Okay.Flay to study what to anticipate from MONO and her upcoming European tour. MONO is out September 15, 2023 by way of Big Music.

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:: stream/buy MONO right here ::
:: join with Okay.Flay right here ::
Stream: “Irish Goodbye” – Okay.Flay ft. Vic Fuentes

A CONVERSATION WITH Okay.FLAY

MONO - K.Flay

Atwood Journal: Hey Okay.Flay! How was working with Vic Fuentes from Pierce The Veil on the tune “Irish Goodbye”?

Okay.Flay: Working with Vic on “Irish Goodbye” was a very natural course of. We met in 2019 after I was touring Options and he was in Seattle and got here to a present and we shaped a friendship. There’s loads of shared perspective and strategy and style in the case of music. One factor Vic has mirrored again to me is he simply felt loads of freedom to experiment and categorical himself.

With MONO, which songs are you most excited for in a reside setting?

Okay.Flay: We’re in rehearsal proper now and are for the primary time workshopping a bunch of the brand new materials for the reside present and on the point of tour Europe. “Are You Severe” the primary tune on the document. We’re prepping a very cool model of that. “Punisher” has been feeling actually superior, “In America.” It’s all feeling actually good!

K.Flay © Danielle Ernst
Okay.Flay © Danielle Ernst

August 27th was the one-year anniversary of your listening to loss. When it occurred, did you suppose a yr later that you just’d be releasing probably your largest album?

Okay.Flay: Did I feel I’d be releasing probably my largest album? Completely not. I may barely suppose and was simply throwing up and felt like sh*t. “Are You Severe” was the primary tune I wrote after my listening to loss. In my reminiscence it was a pair months after, however I wrote it on Sept 19, not even a month after it occurred. Not that lengthy after, I used to be already eager to be in a inventive headspace. As I dug deeper into that feeling, I began to get the sense that I may make one thing actually nice.

Are you able to inform me concerning the which means behind “Uncooked Uncooked” and its video?

Okay.Flay: That’s a tune about vulnerability. I began writing it earlier than the listening to loss and completed it after, so it took on a brand new life and a brand new which means. I used to be writing about emotional vulnerability after I began, vis a vis romance and once you open your coronary heart to a brand new particular person and the way scary that’s. After I completed, I believed, now I’m a half deaf musician and that feels scary as hell. The resonance of that tune grew to become logarithmically deeper.

Who’re you listening to proper now?

Okay.Flay: I simply listened to a real crime podcast concerning the monetary fraud dedicated on Dennis Rodman. I even have an curiosity within the Chicago Bulls. I’ve been listening to Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam,” in all probability the best tune of 2023. I feel the brand new Comfortable Play tune “Punk’s Useless” is a very genius take.

On the upcoming European tour, are there any exhibits you’re trying ahead to most? We talked about Vienna and its wealthy music historical past…

Okay.Flay: I feel Warsaw stands out as a result of it’s the primary time I’ll be enjoying there. We have now a time off earlier than the Warsaw date, so we’ll get to discover town a bit. Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne… Austria. They’ve been form of day-one supporters of me. I additionally had one in every of my most cathartic and significant exhibits in Manchester.

For those who may collaborate with anybody in any respect, LIVING OR DEAD, who wouldn’t it be?

Okay.Flay: I gotta go Beethoven. I would like one other Beethoven’s Fifth-esque riff after which I’ll simply see the place my thoughts goes! [laughs]

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:: stream/buy MONO right here ::
:: join with Okay.Flay right here ::

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MONO - K.Flay

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? © Danielle Ernst

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