L.A.-based Multi-platinum two-time GRAMMY®-Award nominated artist Kristine Flaherty – AKA K.Flay – has released her new single Raw Raw. The song is her first new music of 2023 and first since confirming that she has gone completely deaf in her right ear. The new song is accompanied by an official music video which offers a psychologically chilling visual that taps into the disorienting effects of her real-life physical disability.
Regarding the single Flaherty says, “Raw Raw is the start of my next chapter. After losing half my hearing last fall, I was faced with a sudden and intense episode of fear and vulnerability. Like, could I even make music again? Once I got into my recovery and started writing and recording, I knew that I could. And what I wanted to create was music that felt properly rock but also properly future oriented. Uninhibited and different. “With Raw Raw I wanted to capture what vulnerability really feels like. Outwardly it might seem tender, but on the inside it’s messy and bloody and somewhat terrifying. It’s a chainsaw buzzing at your throat.”
K.Flay (Jennifer Pearl)
The new single is her second for new label GIANT Music and the first from a new full-length studio album coming autumn 2023. The video was directed by Griffin Olis (Nicki Minaj, The Aces, Ozuna) and the song was produced by K.Flay, Jason Suwito (Imagine Dragons, COIN, Sir Sly) and Brad Hale (Now Now). The new single comes with news of a UK and European autumn headline tour where K.Flay will perform in London, Manchester, Berlin, Paris, Vienna and beyond. It follows a massive US Spring/Summer co-headline tour with grandson kicking off in May.
News of the live shows is welcome for fans who learned via Instagram on 8th September 2022 that K.Flay was losing her hearing due to a rare condition called SSNHL (Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss) and Labyrinthitis and had to cancel her fall tour plans to deal with the medical emergency.
Check out the video for Raw Raw below:
Always vocal about her personal struggles, K.Flay has shared her journey trying to restore and ultimately learning how to accept and live with her disability. She spoke at length in December with NME about her sudden and unexpected hearing loss, her own mental health, her sobriety, her 2021 breakup with her partner, the death of her father at 14 and more. As part of the interview she talks about the need for inner strength to help get you through the tough times, “For me, there are those moments when you are reconnected with your own power and confidence and you really have to celebrate them because we don’t always feel that way…”
Originally from Illinois, K.Flay, born Kristine Flaherty, started rapping and writing songs on a lark while attending Stanford University, and soon began releasing her self-produced mixtapes. Not long after the arrival of Every Where Is Some Where (her major-label debut), she took her kinetic live set to arenas around the world as support for Imagine Dragons, in addition to earning her GRAMMY® nominations in the categories of Best Rock Song for Blood In The Cut and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.
Through the years, she’s also brought her genre-bending sensibilities to an eclectic mix of collaborations, working with everyone from Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda to Louis the Child to skate-punk bands like FIDLAR and Dune Rats. But despite that deliberate shapeshifting. Her output remains rooted in her undeniable lyrical skills, an element she attributes to her innate love of language and its infinite possibilities.
UK / EU Tour Dates:
SEPTEMBER:
20th – Hybrydy, Warsaw
22nd – Reeperbahn Festival, Hamburg
23rd – Melkweg MAX, Amsterdam
25th – Meetfactory, Prague
26th – Luxor, Cologne
28th – Flex, Vienna
29th – Heimathafen, Berlin
OCTOBER:
2nd – Gorilla, Manchester
3rd – Electric Brixton, London
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