With their first two albums King Princess has built up a loyal legion of fans, but their new album Girl Violence takes them into new territory both emotionally and sonically.
OUTinPerth chatted to Mikaela Straus, the artist behind the moniker, from their home in Brooklyn and found out the journey in making their boldest work to date.
After years of living in Los Angeles as their music career thrived and grew, and new opportunities opened up in acting too, Mikaela decided for their next chapter they needed to be back home where they grew up in New York City.
Ahead of the albums release fans have been loving a series of singles including RIP KP, Cry Cry Cry and the recently released Girls. OUTinPerth got to listen to an advance copy of the while album and adored its mix of short and sharp songs, indie guitar vibes and atmospheric electronica.
As we chat from opposite sides of the globe, a late night in Brooklyn and an early morning in Perth, Straus smiles as the face of their dog Ras obscures the camera. King Princess performed in Perth back in 2023 and they have happy memories of their time on the west coast of Australia.
“I opened for Florence and the Machine we played in Perth. It was lovely. We had a really beautiful time. We had drinks by the water. There was a beautiful music festival going on at a local park right outside of our hotel, so we went there. I’m wanting to come back.” the artist says of their visit to the west.
Straus says their recent move back to Brooklyn had a big influence on the sound of the music they’ve been making.
“When you’re in a city is symphonic as New York, it gets into your head. I think for me, this is my home, this chaos, this organised chaos of New York is really where I found myself. It’s where I was raised, and also where I found myself longing for.
“I was in L.A. for seven years, and I just got to a point with it where I was like, ‘This isn’t home.’ So I decided to come home. I love how loud and hectic and fucking weird it is here. It’s just so weird, you walk around Brooklyn, it’s freaky-deaky town.”
The musician says they found living in Los Angeles didn’t help their creativity because it was so quiet.
“I really find that in that hecticness, and weird strangeness, I’m actually able to focus better. I’m actually able to gather my thoughts better because of the chaos, whereas in L.A. it was so quiet all the time, I felt like I couldn’t think.” Straus shares.
Asked if they had an audience in mind when putting together new album, Straus has a simple answer.
“I had me in mind. I made this record for myself.” they declared. “I wanted to make a record that felt like it was like where I was at right now, with all the changes happening. I really wanted to get back to the way that I made music when I was a kid, which is like making it for myself. Making it for me as a form of therapy, as a form of catharsis.
“That’s that type of music that’s made when you’re like a kid, it’s not for anybody, it’s for you. It’s for feeling better. So that, that was the goal.” they said.
Asked if they then have any trepidation about sharing the results with the wider world, Straus boldly offers a description of vital part of the creative process.
“I always feel like I’m crowning, Like I’m about to give birth to a 10-pounder. And like, is my pussy gonna split to my ass?” Straus said.
Straus says the music of their youth definitely informed the sound of the record, a mix of laid back indie rock and blurry electronica, but notes that the influences of collaborators Jake Portrait and Aire Atlantica are also part of the mix.
“We’re all coming at it from from such different reference points. I grew up with a lot of Massive Attack, a lot of trip hop, a lot of 90s grunge, a lot of Radiohead, Fiona Apple and Damon Albarn. Somewhere along the way we found this palette that feels like an interesting amalgamation of all of those artists.”
Making a record is described by Straus as a puzzle to solve, a challenge to create a unique sound, and discover the structure of the songs.
“You get lost, and you’re like, ‘Does this work?’ And then you find yourself again, and all of a sudden through the building blocks of each song you start to tell a story.”
Short songs are a signature of the King Princess output, but Straus says they’ve never been one to write a long tunes. While some artists lay down longer tracks in the studio and then tighten them up, Straus is the opposite.
“I start short and add.” they say describing the song writing process.
“There’s no cray-cray songs. I’ve never really been a long song type of girl, because I like how music forces you to be concise with your thoughts. At least the type of music that I look up to, it’s all about being concise and saying what you have to say in the span of three minutes.
“That’s interesting to me. Can you get all your thoughts out in three minutes? That’s a challenge. I like that challenge. I think probably the longest song I’ve ever made is five minutes.” they said.
Straus also spent time in Australia with a foray into acting, appearing in the second series of Nine Perfect Strangers alongside Murray Bartlett, Mark Strong, Henry Golding, and Christine Baranski.
Straus shares that they found acting to be very similar to songwriting.
“It’s not a dissimilar process to writing a song. You sit down and you’re kind of like pulling these emotions out of yourself. You’re building a character. It’s not unlike building a song. There’s pieces of you, there’s pieces of other people you know, there’s pieces of stories you’ve heard, there’s pieces of real life experiences.
“It’s both super vague and then non-descript, but also really specific, which is like songwriting.” Straus said.
Recently tabloid newspapers and celebrity gossip sites went wild with speculation that there was a romance between King Princess and Baranski, leading to Baranski’s reps putting out a statement clarifying they were just really good friends.
Straus reflects on the experience of suddenly being tabloid fodder.
“I just think in this world, that is the 24 hour news cycle, where you’re just constantly being inundated with horrible information. When something is fun and gives people joy and is interesting and amusing, it’s clearly the world begging for some sort of respite from how horrible everything is.
“That’s how I viewed it. It’s just people wanting to feel a little bit of fucking joy in an otherwise horrible world.
“I don’t mind it. I just think if people are feeling a sense of joy, then I’m I’m happy.” Straus said.
Girl Violence is out now.
