Gak encompasses so many things, like, 'Tonight is going to be a gak and a half.' If it's going to be a 'big gak,' it's going to be major.
How I can be an active voice for gay people but also the music industry? This is the art we need right now. This is what we need right now. We're in a renaissance, and we need people to rebel, come forth, and bring messages into art.
I spent a lot of time preparing for releasing music and then not a lot of time releasing music.
I definitely spent a lot of high school isolating myself because I didn't feel like I fit in. I learned how to be funny.
I think the name perfectly encapsulates my soul, and so I get to be myself with the safety of a different name.
I write chronologically in my life, so whatever's going on, I write about it. Usually, that's when I feel the most cohesive body of work is formed. I got to live this crazy life, I got to write about it, and now I've got this record that I'm really proud of, too. It's not done, but when I put it out, it's gonna be good.
There's just a certain amount of grandeur and total squalor we exist in as songwriters because it's a crazy job for crazy people.
King Princess is like an attitude. I take comfort in it as kind of a shield to exist in, where I can make cohesive art. And it's androgynous, which is intentional. It's important to me that my art exist in a kind of neutral space, genderless to some degree. And give the listener some imagery to hold on to.
My dad was really a protector and mentor.
You need to kind of have a rubric, how you want to be, how you want to interact in this industry.
I think it's so funny because straight people just don't think about gender in their songs, or making a statement by talking about love.
I feel super-proud of my team and myself; like, I have an all-star MVP team. They're so sweet, and they love me, and I love them. It's a very respectful, lovely relationship.
Historically a publicly unaccepted but incredibly rich culture, queer love was only able to exist privately for a long time, expressed in society through coded art forms.
What I didn't tell her was that I distinctly remember walking out of my junior year English class reading, 'Amandla Stenberg comes out as queer.' She unknowingly set a precedent in my life, a gold standard of how to be proud and exist in the intersectionality of multiple identities that were one thought of as being conflicting.
It's time for gay people to be in the industry and talking about their stories.
I'm just playing songs for my friends and for people, and they're just like, 'Wow, this is powerful.' I'm excited. It's also important that, in the record, I move the focus a little bit away from me to more about the things that I think about, communities like drag, gender expression, and friendship-concepts that go beyond me.
I think that's the place ideally we'd like to get to as well, as queer people, where you can just judge the music for what it is and not just because it's gay. I think it's important that until we get to that place, statements have to be made, and we have to be loud and outward, so that's where I'm coming from.
I think that there are all these amazing figures in our history - the Bowies, the Tina Turners, the Chers, the people who are, in many ways, genderless or represent 'the other' - and I want pop music, and other queer artists - Kehlani, Perfume Genius - these people are bringing queer narratives into people's minds.
Growing up with a dad who was a classic-rock guy, I felt out of place with what was happening in pop culture. The Beatles, Zeppelin, T. Rex - that, for me, was the music that could never leave our vocabulary.
I'm a big Cate Blanchett fan. I'm ready. I'm coming! I mean, come on, I am a gay girl; I want what I want. I want to come to Australia and marry Cate Blanchett. Just let everybody know for me.
