The genre-hopping artist is in the middle of a creative purple patch, recording live and raw, road-testing a clutch of new songs on tour with Evanescence, and feeling more energised than she has in years…
Words by Tanita Hingerty | Sep 13, 2026
Every artist knows the voice: the internal censor that sits over your shoulder as you create, second-guessing every idea before it’s fully formed. For K.Flay, the whole trick of making music is learning to turn that voice down, and on her latest run of material she has it quieter than ever.
The proof is “Ants”, a single that grew from the least glamorous of beginnings, the seasonal ant infestations at her Los Angeles home, into a sharp meditation on perspective, scale and the strange nature of power. It’s also the first taste of a deliberately old-school approach: recorded live and raw, every part a genuine performance, with none of the modern studio safety nets she’s leaned on before.
We grabbed 15 minutes with her mid-tour, currently out on the road with Evanescence and already slipping a handful of unreleased songs into the set, to talk instinct over planning, the tenderness of revisiting your oldest material, and why the highlights of her career have nothing to do with selling out a room…
You’re on tour right now with Evanescence. How’s it all going?
K.Flay: Going great. We’re a couple of shows in and, yeah, it feels good.
You recently released a new song, “Ants”. Can you talk a bit about the meaning and inspiration behind it?
K.Flay: The inspiration for the song is really this concept of perspective and vantage point. At my house in LA, I have yearly ant infestations, usually in the fall, so every year I’m dealing with these ants. I found myself setting poison up and killing them, and it got me thinking about the size of an ant, and this idea of perspective, and how visible the structure is. That was the initial inspiration. And then it became an exploration of power, really, and what power feels like, and what it does to the person exerting it or wielding it. So that’s what it’s about.
You’re so multi-skilled, you sing, you songwrite, you rap. Can you speak about your creative process, and how you found and evolved your own unique musical style?
K.Flay: My creative process is very in the moment. This is something I’ve realised, that different artists and songwriters have different approaches. I don’t keep a journal, I don’t come up with ideas ahead of time. Everything is very impromptu and spontaneous, and for me that’s a really beautiful way of writing and creating. It probably contributes to the multi nature of how things end up coming out. It’s just, “Actually, right now I feel like I want to rap on this,” or “I want to sing on this.” It’s about being present in the moment of inspiration, not being judgmental as I create, and not having too many limits.
That being said, at times that’s created confusion, where people are like, “What are you doing? What type of music are you making, and why are there all these different things going on?” But that kind of confusion isn’t inherently bad to me. The point of being creative and being an artist is just to be who you are, and for me, that’s a little bit all over the map.
That’s amazing, being creative with no judgment.
K.Flay: It’s hard to do. We all feel this way, where there’s that censor voice in your head monitoring what’s happening. The question is, how much can you silence that? Hopefully the voice is quiet when you’re alone, but there’s such a free flow of thought and ideas, and if you’re able to keep that low in a public setting, there can be some really interesting results. That’s something I really try to do. I don’t always succeed, but with “Ants” and the new music I’ve been working on, I’ve really had that dial turned way down.
Is there a song you feel you resonate with the most, or one you most love to perform live?
K.Flay: That changes, depending on where I’m at in life. Honestly, right now, even though we’ve only played it a couple of times, I’m really resonating with “Ants”. We’re playing a bunch of new music at these shows. Last night we played five new songs, and all of those tracks felt really, really good to perform. My new material always feels very urgent.
What’s interesting is that if you have the opportunity to have a career as a touring artist, you start to play your older songs ten years later, and there’s a different resonance there too. Last night we played “Blood In The Cut”, and so many things in my life have changed since I wrote it. Singing it now, I almost have a feeling of tenderness for my younger self, like, “Wow, you were a moron, you poor little thing.” There’s that sense of looking back with growth and wisdom, and a kind of catharsis in doing that. I enjoy all of it, but the newer stuff is always really fun.
Is there an experiment you made musically that had a massive payoff?
K.Flay: I’d actually say the new stuff I’ve been working on. “Ants” is a great example. I wrote it in my little personal space, then got the band together, rehearsed it and played it in the studio. Every part on that song is a performance. Historically, on previous records, it would be a bit more ad hoc, like, “Oh, I’ll just play the bass because I’m here.” This time I took a more old-school approach: a bass performance, two different guitarists, technically almost three, drums, and then a vocal. And on the vocal, again, just keeping it really naturalistic. Not that there’s anything wrong with pitch correction, I’ve used it before, but there’s none of that. No samples, no quantizing.
My producer and I have been collaborating a long time, and in making this together we asked, “What are our inspirations? What are the records we love?” All of them were made in this other style, so we thought, “Why don’t we just start making things that way?” That experiment really paid off. My vocal performance on the song is a little more emotive and urgent than in past recordings. It was just a treat to treat the studio more like the live space.
If you had to say your music stood for something, what do you think it would be?
K.Flay: Discovery. For me, music has been the conduit for so much discovery about the world and other people. It’s allowed me to connect with and meet all kinds of humans I never would have thought I’d get the opportunity to meet, both as a performer, writer and touring artist, but also just as a listener and a fan. You instantly become part of this global community of people who care about this thing, and there’s a lot of empathy and curiosity that can be cultivated in that.
And on the flip side, especially across the course of my career, my music really stands for personal discovery, an exploration of self and an openness to growth. A curiosity and empathy turned inwards as well. That’s a real theme for me, and there’s an openness that comes through in the music that I certainly feel.
What do you feel the highlights have been for you?
K.Flay: The highlights are often just these really small moments. It feels like the big marquee moments are going to be the highlights, but for me personally it’s the little moments in between. I think of all the shows where the bus broke down, or the van shredded a tire and we had to get people to drive us to the venue in a truck without any of the gear. We played a show in Salt Lake City where the bus was trapped in Denver, so we took a flight, had nothing, and had to borrow gear from our opening band. Those situations where the show must go on and there’s this incredible teamwork, that’s the highlight of touring for me. When we all come together, those are my fondest memories.
Less so the, “We sold out the whatever.” If your highlights are that, it’s so ego-based, so validation and status-based, and that’s a very flimsy basis for life. Similarly in the studio, it’s that feeling of having an emotion or an experience and finding a way, with yourself or your collaborator, to express it. There have been moments of pure elation and joy that feel almost spiritual. I’ve been feeling that lately with Tommy, who I’ve been working on music with. And honestly, having my nephews at the shows, at soundcheck, getting to share it with family, that’s very special to me too.
Is there anything you’d like to talk about or promote for the future?
K.Flay: I’m just really invigorated as a person and in my career right now. I feel incredibly energised by what I’ve been working on, like I’m tapping into new territory, and I’m very excited to share it.
‘Ants’ is out now. K.Flay is currently on tour with Evanescence.
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