Following her Weekend One Austin City Limits Festival performance and ahead of her Weekend Two show, Mikaela Straus, known as King Princess, sat down with The Daily Texan to talk about her third studio album, Girl Violence. The festival brings them back to Texas, having kicked off her tour during Weekend One.
The Daily Texan: Can you tell me about the concept of Girl Violence and what that means?
King Princess: It’s what I’ve written about since the beginning of my life. … It’s the ability that women, … lesbians specifically, have to inflict chaos upon each other. It’s the same thing that allows us to love so hard, to hemorrhage and break so intensely. I wanted to put a name to it and write a record about all the different variations of girl violence. I’m sometimes the perpetrator, sometimes the victim.
DT: The Spotify blurb says that Girl Violence is your most personal, unapologetic work to date, written about walking away from a long-term relationship, major label deal and a city that dulled your spark. Can you tell me more about that period of starting over that inspired the album?
KP: I started making decisions based on what wasn’t working. … Living in L.A. was not working for me anymore. I wasn’t feeling inspired. I felt really lonely, and I wanted to go home to New York and experience the chaos of my hometown. The same with the label, there was no bad blood. I was there for six years, and I wanted to see what else was out there. I wanted to see what indie labels had to offer. … Once I was in New York, I was like, ‘Okay, now I feel like there’s some music to be written about all of this.’
DT: As your music focuses on your queer experiences, how important is it for you to be here and share your music with the Texas audience?
KP: Incredibly important. … In states that are so outwardly and aggressively against the freedoms that we deserve as a people, you come to a festival like this and you look out in the crowd and (see) there is a place for queer art. It’s necessary. It’s needed. Especially in places like this. Austin is pretty liberal, but at the same time, you’re surrounded by red. If you look at the crowds, people are here; they want it. They don’t want just straight music. It would be terrible if it were a festival of all straight music.
DT: After beginning your tour here, how are you feeling about the rest of the tour?
KP: There’s songs that feel like … a throughline through the set from the first record, second record, (to) this record. … You get to take the parts that feel cohesive and put them together and see your musical lineage and put on a show for people that spans since I was 17, which is really special. It’s a journal of my life, and a lot of the people in the audience’s lives too.
