King Princess on what new album ‘Girl Violence,’ Nashville tour stop

King Princess released her third studio album, “Girl Violence,” on September 12.
The album explores the chaotic nature of queer love and heartbreak.
The indie pop star will embark on a North American tour, including a stop in Nashville on October 25.
Straus describes her music as unapologetically queer and hopes her shows provide a safe space for her community.

King Princess has experienced “Girl Violence,” but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

The 26-year-old indie pop star, born Mikaela Straus, released her latest record on Sept. 12, a 13-track meditation on the chaotic nature of queer love and feminine ferocity.

“I wanted to put a name to something that I’ve been writing about my entire life, which is this incredible ability that girls of all sorts have to commit emotional violence on each other,” she told The Tennessean during a Zoom interview at her home in Brooklyn.

It’s a kind of viciousness that’s “interesting and subtle and dangerous,” said the lesbian singer-songwriter. “I think I’m both a participant and a victim.”

But making the new album — a record that sonically oscillates between eerie and honeyed landscapes — healed something in her. She hopes it will mend her fans, too.

Ahead of a tour that will bring King Princess to Nashville’s Marathon Music Works on Oct. 25, Straus opened up about her creative process, queer heartbreak, and bringing her music to the communities that need it the most.

King Princess talks the lustful, haunted anthems of ‘Girl Violence’

King Princess has had a remarkable 2025 thus far.

She made her TV debut in season 2 of “Nine Perfect Strangers” playing a piano prodigy, starred in the film “Song Sung Blue” alongside Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson, which releases Dec. 25, and signed with a new indie label, Section1.

Now, she’s celebrating the release of her third studio album and launching into a North American tour in October.

“Girl Violence” is a groove-driven collection of tunes that ranges from eerie, haunting shoegaze to sexy indie rock and rebellious, punchy alt-pop. Straus’ husky voice, which is sometimes warm and mellow, other times tortured, gritty and intentionally strained, captivates.

For those unfamiliar — Straus invokes artists including Patti Smith, Kate Bush and Fiona Apple.

The album’s standouts include the Beatles-style songs named after women — the hazy tune “Jaimie” and empathetic anthem “Serena” — the lustful track “RIP KP” and “Get Your Heart Broken,” a song about taking romantic risks, though heartbreak may be imminent.

“This record feels like walking down the street stoned in New York and thinking about your life from a bird’s eye view where everything is on the up and up,” Straus said. She describes “Girl Violence” as a breakup album, but not a typical one.

It’s a record that marked the end of her time in L.A. and a move to New York, as well as the conclusion of a romance and a step away from the spotlight. Through it all, Straus found a new creative agency, one that allowed her to pick up the pieces of everything that once felt shattered.

The record is the antithesis of her 2022 album “Hold On Baby,” Straus said.

“That album feels to me like it’s fueled in frustration — somebody who’s stuck in place and desperately using the music to try to get out,” she explained. This time around, she was more at peace and accepting.

Inspired by IDLES and the Beatles live sessions, Straus crafted the record with a small group in NYC, working with Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Jacob Portrait (credits include Lil Yachty, Alex G) and Aire Atlantica (SZA’s “Low”).

“The whole thing really came together quickly,” Straus said.

“The process was just so unadulterated; I wasn’t signed to a label. I didn’t have anyone telling me their opinion … I wanted my friends and these two guys to be the voices of reason in the room, instead of people who are thinking about numbers and charts.”

The freedom worked its magic. It’s Straus’ most unfiltered, raw work yet.

‘Unafraid to go to the places that need the music’

On the new record, Straus was inspired by her queer community in New York, but also the LGBTQ+ worlds she’s stepped into as she’s toured the U.S. “I feel like our commonality is girl violence, especially the lesbians,” Straus said.

For that very reason, making the album was only the first half of Straus’ work.

“This time is horrifying,” she said, adding that over the course of the last two administrations, LGBTQ+ rights have been under attack.

“They do it really sneakily, because you look at the news cycle and I don’t feel like the amount of legislation that’s being passed right now to remove our rights is taking the forefront of the news cycle. They’re burying it under hundreds of other things that are equally as f***d up for other people.”

The queer community feels disenfranchised and angry, she said, and music is a unifier.

Straus said the way she can best help her community is by making art that is “unapologetically queer and myself.”

“I think that being unafraid to go to the places that need the music is really the job of an artist,” she said. “Coming to cities like Nashville that are liberal hubs within a state that is honestly not accepting, and come and play a show for the people who need it.”

Straus, who has Nashville ties through her team, is very familiar with Music City. She loves the town, lauding lesbian bar The Lipstick Lounge, the city’s “incredible shopping” and its barbecue.

“But you go 10 minutes outside of Nashville and it’s not a safe place for queer people,” she said. “And so I hope that my show can feel like church for us.”

Now that Straus has three full-length records, she’s ready to rock ‘n’ roll with a long show that includes both her classic hits and her new material, which she said translate exceptionally well live.

After her Oct. 25 concert in town, Straus wants to throw a big afterparty at Lipstick — she’s even tempted to get back on the mic and sing some Shania Twain karaoke.

After all, a raucous party is one of the best ways to heal from girl violence, Straus said.

“It is almost a rite of passage — to have your heart broken and to be trampled on, to lose yourself in a relationship and then find it again after a breakup,” continued Straus.

“You find community and take solace in friendship and going out and partying and figuring out who (you) are. That really is the natural progression of healing.”

At the end of the day, Straus calls all the emotions she’s battled with a gift, even though they’re painful.

Her album-closing lyric on the final track “Serena” sums it all up: “Not everybody loves like this.”

To learn more about King Princess and buy tickets to the Nashville show, visit kingprincessmusic.com.

Audrey Gibbs is a music journalist with The Tennessean. You can reach her at [email protected].