INTERVIEW: Rising star Karin Lee releases new single 'You Make Me Miserable': "If people find comfort in it, and if people find a community where they don't feel alone, that's all I want to do."
Interview: Jett Tattersall
Image: SaraShots
Slovakia’s Karin Ann is quickly becoming one of her generation’s brightest young musical talents. A champion for the rights of the LGBTQI+ community and other minority groups, she is a beacon of hope and inspiration in her Eastern European home where being gay and queer, or just being yourself, is not accepted.
Musically, she creates a delicious mix of rock, pop, electronica and indie and her lyrics touch on gender equality, mental health, and toxic relationships. First releasing music in 2020, her songs regularly attract streams in excess of 1 million and last year she was voted Discovery of the Year in the Czech Republic Music Awards and also became the first Slovak artist to appear on a giant billboard in Times Square as a part of Spotify’s EQUAL Music Program. This year she has also toured Europe with some of music’s biggest names including Imagine Dragons, YUNGBLUD and My Chemical Romance.
Today she releases her new single ‘You Make Me Miserable’, following on from her second EP side effects of being human which was released in February. The track leans into a pop-rock sound with a steady drum beat and fuzzy guitars, but is also reminiscent in parts of the best indiepop from the 1980s with some mesmerising melodies that quickly become ear worms. The lyrics are both heartbreaking and injected with dry humour - ‘I wanna live forever / You wanna die together’ - and were inspired by a one sided relationship. “There was a guy I really liked, we got along super well and he seemed to be really into me too,” Karin Ann says. “We were talking for a bit and then after a few months I found out he had a girlfriend, so I decided to write a fun song about the whole thing. There isn’t a deep message in the song, but I think it’s a situation that many people can relate to.”
Also out today is the video for ‘You Make Me Miserable’ which is comprised of on stage and behind the scenes footage of Karin Ann’s recent concerts, with some of her fans making an appearance. “I didn’t really want to do a narrative music video with this song,” she says. “It’s very upbeat and fun and I wanted the video to have the same energy. I love the people that support me and this is a little bit of a tribute to them because there are some great moments captured in the video.”
A young artist you should discover now, Karin Ann makes infectious music that incorporates a broad range of genres and you are sure to find your own personal groove in her catalogue. With the potential to become even bigger in the coming years, this is just the beginning for Karin Ann and we recently sat down with her to find out more.
Hi Karin you wonderfully musical human. I want to jump in and talk about ‘You Make Me Miserable’, because this song is just so much fun.
Thank you. It's actually really recent, I wrote it in February. There was a guy I really liked, and I thought he was into me because we're like talking and, you know, had a vibe going. And then a couple of months later, I found out that the whole time he had a girlfriend. So it was like, ‘Okay, let me write a song about it!’
It has this really great kind of 1980 alt-pop teen soundtrack feel to it. I'm just expecting Alicia Silverstone to kind of twirl through through the screen! Obviously it it still hits you emotionally as a song, did you always intend it to have this upbeat, fuck it, soundtrack energy?
That's kind of what I'm moving into, more rock. And I personally really love the 80s, recently, I've been listening to a lot of 80s music, I have phases where I just listen to only 80s every couple of months. When I went into the studio, I didn't really have an intention of what I was going to even write about, it just kind of happened. As we were writing the lyrics, we were kind of like ‘this would be fun’ and it just kind of turned into this. I also didn't really want it to be sad, I wanted it to be more fun. So I think we nailed that!
You totally nailed it. I was reading an interview that you did last year, where you said that when you fell in love one day, you would definitely write a song about it. I loved that, and now we have ‘You Make Me Miserable’, which is more about jilted love and as you said, it's a step away from music you've done before. How do you feel going into singing about love, but singing about the broken facets of it?
I still haven't really been in love, so there's not much I can say about that! There's a couple of heartbroken songs, some of them are not out yet, that I've been working on, but solid love, I haven't experienced yet. Once it comes, I'm definitely gonna write about it. Because when you're in love, it's kind of all that's in your head anyway, so there’s no avoiding writing about it.
You are very revered for speaking up in your music, which is beautiful, because you write from a place of pure integrity, and a lot of the time it plays out like journal entries. Has music always been your avenue to express conversation?
It used to be more about listening to music and finding what I couldn't say through that. I used to do a lot of drawing and visual art, and I also did a bunch of sports, like figure skating and dance. That was my main outlet, but certain things happened and I had to leave that behind. I couldn't really draw at the time because I had an injury, and that's when I kind of leant in to writing music. Everything that I express myself through I had taken away from me, so I had to find something else and that's when I started writing.
When you were writing, did you always see yourself as a performer as well? Or was it for you needing to get these emotions out as a writer?
It was more of ‘I just need to get things out, I need to like have them out of my brain’. I feel like a lot of people can relate to that, but especially artists. You always have everything going on at once, it's very chaotic and you need some way of dealing with that. Especially if you're an introvert like me and you like to be on your own, but it's also very hard to be on your own when your brain is just going and going, you don't have an escape from it really. It was more about just getting it out.
And how did your music get from your catharsis of getting it out of your brain, and into our ears, and now on to many the international stages that we're seeing you on?
I don't know! One thing started, and then everything just kept happening. Then you just realise one day that ‘Oh, this is what I'm doing now’ you know? You kind of know what happened, but also you're like, ‘I have no clue how this happened!’ I recorded a couple of demos, for me, and I put them up on YouTube, just to have them somewhere. I didn't really expect anything from it. A Slovak-Czech producer found me and I started working with him and then a year after we starting working together, we put something out in March of 2020, a week before the pandemic started. We were like we can't stop releasing things now, because once you start, you either continue and see if it goes somewhere or you can stop and you're left with the big ‘what if’. So I just kept releasing stuff, and they got noticed by a management team. I signed with them and then released a bunch of English stuff and released my first EP. It just kind of continued, snowballed.
Your EP, side effects of being human was all in English and you sing so eloquently in English. How has that been as a songwriter? I imagine it's a taxing process, finding the emotion and then translation, and then also performing it with such heart. Or does it just come naturally to you because of the music you lean towards as a listener?
I'm lucky in this way [because] I'm pretty good at English. At one point, me and my older sister we used to watch the same [English] TV shows and then at one point she was too cool to watch it in Slovak or with the subtitles, so I just had to catch on or I couldn’t watch! Since learning it I've discovered so many easier ways to talk in English, most of the time I think in English, it comes quite naturally. Actually, I have trouble writing in Slovak and I don't have trouble at all writing in English, it's kind of ironic.
You have been hella busy touring with some incredible artists, and coming from someone that had things snowball from a YouTube video, how has that experience been for you? And what is it about a live show that just gets you going?
It's been very insane. I don't think there's a way of processing it really, because beforehand you don't want to think about it because you don't want to stress yourself out. Then you're there and you're thinking about just what's going on in the moment. And then after it, you're just kind of like, ‘okay, it happened, but I have another thing to focus on now’. So it's like very difficult to process. Sometimes I don't really realise things happen until I look back at pictures from the stage and stuff and I’m like ‘oh wow!’
In terms of live shows, I rely heavily on the energy of the people. I try to give them energy, but if they're not responding, it's very difficult to do a good show for me. If they're responding, you don't even realise that you're doing it until it's over. That's my main thing with live shows.
You kicking arse in so many fields, and have developed a reputation for being the champion for a lot of human rights as well. In this strange world, our pop icons are also our social icons and all these wonderful things. But I imagine it's also quite a cross to bear some times. How do you manage the weight of navigating your career as an artist, but also as someone that people look to for political change and inspiration?
I talk about what I think isn't right. I didn't really wake up one day and be ‘I'm gonna be this person that everybody should look up to and everybody should listen to’. I could have gone the route of not talking about social issues at all and be more commercial and have a wider audience, but would I really want that if half of the people who would be following me at that point found out my views on certain things, and they would not want to listen to me [anymore] do I really want that community around me? It was more about being authentic because these issues are part of my life, part of what I see people going through, part of what I'm going through, part of what my friends are going through. It just seems right to talk about it. If people find comfort in it, and if people find a community where they don't feel alone, that's all I want to do. I don't really have a goal in mind about what I want to do in terms of social things. It's just what is going on around me and in my life and talking about that.
That's incredible. Before I leave you, you've got tours, you've got music, what else is on the horizon for you? What's coming up?
Mostly just shows right now, I'm working on more music and more songs with new people, and seeing where that goes. We will see. I don't really want to plan anything, or put a deadline on it or anything, because I don't want to let myself down. So I'm just trying to see where everything goes.
‘You Make Me Miserable’ is out now. You can buy and stream here.
To keep up with all things Karin Lee you can follow her on Instagram and Facebook.
