Quotes from K. Flay

Mainly, I hope to inspire honesty. We live in a space where so much can be manipulated, and so much is expected to be manipulated - curated, contrived, edited. I think that's a real detriment to self expression and happiness in a lot of ways. In my mind, honesty and vulnerability is the way forward.

A good sign for me, that I'm a good spot mentally, is when I'm super prolific. And I just wake up every day excited to make or replicate music in some way. That's really nice.

Even successful musicians have had periods where people say they suck and no one likes them, even after they've had periods of great success. So I think it's like you just gotta do you and try to stay motivated. Until, you know, you decide to stay home and make spaghetti all day.

I was thinking about how we're so in touch with our image now. That conception of ourselves, in a very physical sense, can be oppressive. You find people wanting to be in dark places, not really see themselves, see themselves as a filtered image. A curated image.

A college degree is not essential, but if you're already in college, and if it's at all possible, you should definitely try to finish. In college, you have a very supportive community right there, and it can give you opportunities to try out new things.

I've always had a duck personality. Calm above water, feet going crazy below.

'Life as a Dog' is when I really started to feel comfortable, like I had the due north on my compass.

There's something distinct and interesting about a live performance. There's this weird immediacy that's, for me, really invigorating, and it just feels really rewarding.

I was always very academically focused when I was growing up, and music was something for which I really had no preconceptions or expectations for myself or really any rules. It kind of represented, at least for me, a divergent path of creativity and self-discovery.

My default is e-40 because there's no one else in the world who raps like him. I've always loved e-40.

Feeling anxious or depressed sometimes is part of what it means to be a person, and it might even be essential to success.

When I was growing up, I wasn't in bands, and had really no intention of ever doing music. I went out to California for college, and kind of on a whim started making music really as a joke, and over the course of the next five years started playing a lot of shows, and music became this really integral part of my identity.

Pre-show, I warm up my voice, stretch, do a little team huddle, and sometimes throw a shot of whiskey in there, too. After the show, I hang out at merch meeting people and signing things. After that, I usually try to see friends in whatever city we're in, or if I'm super beat, listen to a podcast and pass out.

My dad played guitar, and he taught me enough to play some Beatles' songs. But primarily, I was a bookworm. I loved reading and still do. My whole family does. It was part of the family culture. Accomplished literacy was a value.

There are people who are profoundly mentally ill. But we now have a very weird perspective on mental illness and what it means. I do think that people are overmedicated.

A lot of people don't even listen to albums start to finish, but I do - for sure.

I don't put a ton of time into my on-stage style, largely because I'm dumb about clothes. But I have friends who are very smart about clothes, and they teach me things. For the show, I'm mainly concerned with feeling comfortable, being able to jump around and get wild.

The one thing that I've always kind of had, ever since I was a kid, was that I lack a certain degree of self-consciousness, which is alternately good and bad.

I hope people describe my music as lyrically driven, cross genre. Kind of alternative, kind of indie, kind of rap, kind of everything.

I think, on the rap side of life, I've always been inspired by and respected Missy Elliott for a long time. She's funny and created an image for herself that was non-sexualized but was really interesting and really cool and really kind of avant-garde in a lot of ways.

When I first started making music, I was all about wordplay and how fast I could rap, but over the years, I've really gained an appreciation for melody. What's cool is that when you're singing, you have to be concise, and when you're rapping, you have the opportunity to be really detailed with your lyrics.

My sound is, at its core, a mix of things. Definitely an imperfect mix, but one that incorporates elements of the music I love - a bit of indie rock, super rhythmic rapping, and lots of synths.

I'm a big advocate of revisions, of living with something for a month and then realizing what needs changing, what was lazy, what could be better.

The more time passes in your life, I think the greater you understand perspective. So I'm happy that I've had experiences that have reminded me that most exciting things might not feel so exciting later, and the most disappointing things might not be so disappointing later, either.