Superfanning Over Superfan

February 24, 2024

Prior to using the alias Superfan, Kali Flanagan was known simply as “Kali,” releasing several songs and an EP under the eponymous name. During this time, Kali was marked as a prodigy of sorts, learning to produce at age 12 and getting signed to a record label by age 15. The experiences that were unlocked and encountered in his youth through prodigious talent forced an early maturation upon the musician, one with enough implicit pressure to potentially sabotage him as well.

But in rare cases, this pressure can transform a prodigy into a protégé — one who consults past, present, and anticipatory knowledge to cultivate a sensibility that explores the nooks and crannies of age and identity only to transcend such. This rare case is Superfan, who needs no designation — whether it be one of prodigy or precocity — to legitimize or characterize his music. Instead, he now lets the music speak for itself, and in effect lets himself speak unrestrained — not as a prodigy, not as a wonder-child, but as an artist, and most importantly, as Superfan.

Interview by Izzy Einstein
Photography by Zoe Carlaftes

I first met Kali Flanagan, or Superfan, on a Friday night in East Village. He wore a suit jacket and shirt which read "Handsome Little Devil." Little, sure, but by the end of our conversation, Kali seemed to tower over me — expressing his thoughts with enough introspection and fluency to leave my jaw dropped in a pile of discarded gum and cigarettes on the New York City street.

And then you hear the music. Or more specifically, you hear “Sewn Up and Handsome.” Before listening, it’s imperative to find something nearby to hold onto, or else you’ll surely fall to your knees as I did. This single, which was released yesterday, marks the first part of a new sonic and lyrical exploration which releases in full, as an album, on June 28th.

The project prioritizes its depth over breadth, one which chronicles the process of stripping back to build up. Instead of the lush layers and heavy production found in his previous music under "Kali," his new trajectory manifests itself through a comparatively scarcer sonic palette, a decision which aims to make room for and amplify the newfound density of his lyrics. Read below for the full interview.

When did you start making music?

I started making music when I was 11. So I'd say roughly seven and a half, eight-ish years of writing stuff, and I started producing when I was twelve.

That’s pretty absurd. How could you even conceive of producing at that age?

I did all of the school of rock and orchestra at public school and jazz band from when I was five until I started being able to make my own stuff — before I got bored of just playing other people's songs. So it started with writing and then I was like, I want to listen to this. So I tried using GarageBand and then eventually worked my way up to Logic, which I still make demos in. I was making stuff, but I wasn't really caring about it until I was 14, and then I made the first project that I put out under my old project which was just my first name, Kali.

I was doing demos for that stuff and promoting it on Instagram and an A&R at this label network found me and signed me when I was 15, right before the pandemic hit and then I made that first project and started taking shit more seriously. It's funny how things just kind of started to click when I actually needed to make music in terms of an emotional outlook.

When you say “started taking shit seriously,” was it hard to maintain the feeling of play you felt when you were much younger making music? When you had the luxury of it being a private and personal endeavor. Considering that you’re now in a position where other people listening, labels are involved, etc., has it been difficult to stay true to that origin?

It's been a journey because I think in the context of a year — just the timeframe of a year and how the process of making music ebbs and flows within that year — there are points in time where I don't feel like making music. And when I was younger, I didn’t have the security of self, and I'm still learning to listen to my gut instincts, but I wasn't comfortable with that absence when it wasn't there and wasn't clicking. So that would be super frustrating, but then you end up forcing things and make things that you don't like. I’ve been super fortunate to be working with a label that honestly gives me complete creative control over my music and stuff, which is great because I know exactly what I want.

Yeah, and pretty rare too.

Yeah, very rare, and very rare in terms of their support as well. I'm super grateful, and I've been with them since I was 15. I say that it's been a journey because I’m about to finish my first full length, and all of the old music that I've put out under my first name is completely different to the new stuff that I'm making. All of the new stuff I've been making is super personal, my lyrics are pretty blunt, I'm using less instrumentation, and relying less on production to tell the story, even though I feel like I strengthened that muscle in past projects.

But I think in terms of the purity of your artistic expression being preserved, it's really about why you're making something, and where your head's at in terms of making decisions, and I feel like as I've grown up, and am still growing, but going through being a teenager and making music and growing in that sense at the same time, there’s that whole layer of proving yourself to other people. When I was younger that was a bigger part of the process than I realized. Of course inherently it's gonna be there for a little bit, especially when you grow up in an environment that's pretty competitive such as LA, and the way I was raised was to have really high standards for myself and be on all the time, but that's not sustainable, and you realize that's not what life is. Removing other people from my consideration in terms of making decisions, not in terms of collaboration, but in other facets has been really important. When I made this album, it felt like the first time that I was equally respected by the person I’d been working with — his name is Gabe Wax. So it doesn't feel like I'm going to change the way that I’m articulating myself when making music or writing songs for him, which is great. And the same goes with an audience or whatever — I think as soon as I realize that I'm catering to something that isn't what I want to do, I kind of cut it off.

When you were building the album up, was there an initial thematic or narrative through-line that helped dictate the process and approach, or did that come about naturally and spontaneously while making it?

When I'm working on any project, there's always a point where I’ve realized that I've done something that I haven’t done before that is exactly what I needed to make at that point in time, and I think that is a mission statement in itself, and I did have that for this project. It’s the first song I play live and the first song on the record — the song is called When You Come to LA. It was the first time where I felt like I was being honest with myself in the context of songwriting, and was feeling a lot of guilt and shame about a lot of different things and didn't know what to do with it because I wasn't able to project that onto somebody else's perception of me. So it was a moment where I had to look at myself in the mirror and be like, okay, let's address this. And that started the whole process of making this album, and the song sums up my process, because it's a collage of a ton of different things and how their synonymity exists, and that existing creates these feelings that can't be articulated in one word. They can be articulated by vague descriptors like guilt or shame, but there's all of these weird nooks and crannies of context that contribute to this feeling that are reemphasizing.

Totally. Does this new approach you’re taking in terms of expressing emotional ambiguity, ambivalence, and depth through lyricism one of the reasons why you decided to switch your stage name from Kali to Superfan?

Yeah, completely. And secularity as well. There's quite a few reasons. One of them being other musicians having the same name, which is honestly really surprising because I'm named after a Hindu deity of destruction and it's a rare name even in India, or at least it was when my mom named me. My grandma was like, you can’t name him that because it's too powerful, but she did anyways. Another part is that I noticed how I was presenting myself as an artist and how I was finishing songs with other people was not what I had intended for my expression and my outlet, and I think a huge realization I've had in the past year is I'm not actually a very show-off person. So for me to make my name and make it my artist project just feels weird. I also really enjoy the anonymity because it allows me to separate myself in a way that I can say all of this. Even though of course whenever you participate in the creation of something, it’s interwoven, it's a relationship between input and output and how you are living your life, etc., but it just allows me to be more honest and put less pressure on myself.

By having your name be an anonymous one, which also establishes separation, do you find yourself thinking about an alternate persona or aspects of performance art?

It’s kind of ironic because I feel like I am less so putting on airs of any sort or putting on a performance since I've been making music and performing it under Superfan. The name itself came to me as I was playing the last show as Kali and playing those songs. As I was playing the songs, it was the last time I played them, which was about a year ago, I just was feeling so disengaged as I was playing them. And I was like, I can't do this for the rest of my life. Afterwards the name came to mind because people were coming up to me and saying they were super fans and taking pictures with me and it triggered something because I was thinking about how I feel like a super fan a lot of the time. I feel like a super fan is an underdog or somebody that kind of feels almost guilty for knowing so much about somebody, or like, being so excited about something, and I feel that way in a lot of different aspects of my life. Especially music, I mean, I'm definitely always the person that if I see somebody whose music impacted me, I'm gonna say something.

That definitely connects to what you were saying earlier about how you don’t perceive yourself as a show-off — the name Superfan, and what the terms means, feels completely antithetical to vanity and boasting. By that same token, it seems to also underline your excitement and gratitude to be doing what you're doing.

Exactly. I've been playing a ton of shows, and started playing songs from the album in April of this year, and before that I had never done stripped down sets of my material before. It was the like the complete opposite of what I’d been doing before. Where before I was essentially putting on a show — I would wear a suit, etc., now I just show up in my normal clothes and play my songs that are very journalistic in a way.

It seems that you have a pretty substantial clarity of mind in terms of staying attentive to the “why” aspect of what you’re making and how that process comes into fruition. But to jump from singles/EPs to an entire album is a completely different animal. What what would you say have been the biggest considerations you’ve had to take into account while building a more holistic and expansive project?

I think a lot of it is narrative. And it's tough because you don't really know what you're trying to say until you're way past the point of even talking about it. But I think the biggest thing is being attentive and interactive with the environment that isn't music, at least to me that's been a huge thing. When I've made EPs and music as a younger person, I was experiencing things for the first time, which I'm still experiencing, but my depth of the kinds of feelings I'm trying to articulate now is much grander. So it's less straightforward than an EP about a one sided, unrequited romance that lasted over a summer.

Which came first, the reinvention of your sound, or the changing of your artist name? Did one give you more courage to do the other, or did both facets bloom at the same time?

It’s funny because changing my artist name is sort of metaphorical considering that I’m trans, so the changing of the artist name also represents this change in my identity and how I present myself to people, which is now much more honest.

My voice has changed so much, and on the record itself, you hear it change throughout the making of the songs depending on the different times we've been recording. As I've been doing the shows, people have watched my range shift a ton and heard it crack a lot, but now it's kind of stabilizing. When I was in high school, I would play at the smell a lot and would play those first songs that I really felt connected to. It was really positive in terms of continuing to make music and feeling empowered and not worrying so much about a musical product, but instead enjoying it for what it is.

So I wanted to live that through songs that I felt like were impacting me in the same way. So that was a big part. I also think that visibility is a huge part of it, and although the name change is sort of ironic, because it’s an alias, it does allow for more visibility in a sense. If somebody's referring to me as Kali, they're talking to me as a person, not somebody that's performing. There has to be a little separation, because it's complex relationship to be on a stage interacting with an audience that's a couple feet below you. That relationship in itself, the name change, transitioning, and making music that is pretty vulnerable, I've realized the importance of saying things that you'd wish other people would say. I wish I heard other people say this so I would feel less alone, you know? There's this whole thing of idolization and there’s a line because being young and being highly susceptible to being pigeonholed for a number of reasons, whether that be my age, my gender, my ethnicity, where I'm from, whatever, it’s hard to maintain visibility without commodification. But it's so important because if you don't have visibility then there's no connection. And people need to see you so they can see themselves.

It’s a very fine line to walk, expressing the things which contribute to your identity, both as an artist and as a person, but in having such things exposed, opening the door for their own commodification without consent. Even though this is a worry, it doesn’t seem to have effected the fact that you’ve been playing live a lot more than usual, what’s changed? Why are you more inclined to perform now?

I just love it. My album isn't even finished but it’s just really healthy for that process to flourish because it can be really easy to feel isolated and be like, I don't know what people are going to think, blah, blah, blah. Especially with the music that I'm making, it's so personal that I had to challenge myself to let myself be seen. It's been really rewarding.

Has performing live helped inform the actual production or recording of the album?

Totally. When I make demos, I essentially try to make as close to the final recording as I can, within my bounds. That’s been a problem in the past because I've hired big name producers, but in knowing that I was going to work with them made me work harder. The problem with that is then there's nothing for them to do because I already had a vision. When I started making the album, I was still doing that, and there wasn’t a lot of clarity to the sonic palette. When I was planning the first set, I got my electric guitar and had a ton of pedals, and loaded up a sampler and was doing all this shit. But the songs are already so lyrically dense that I was doing too much and didn’t like that approach to performing them. At the same time I had just started playing my songs for my friends, and instead of showing them a produced track, I would just play it for them acoustically. After they heard those stripped down versions, they responded by saying I should just continue to perform it in this way. So after I played a few shows doing that, I felt there was something here. So I started working with my producer, Gabe, and after those performances, we felt that we needed to first base the album around me and a guitar and then build up from there so the songs could be as good as they were bare bones.

Was it daunting to pretty drastically amend your process which had become habitual after years of writing and producing, especially in terms of this new lyrical vulnerability?

As I've been finishing these songs, it's been a little draining to a certain extent because there's a lot of admittance in these songs of things that maybe I've had a hard time being honest with myself about. Additionally, there are other people involved in the depictions of my experiences, whether that be my relationships with other people, my family, or my friends. So that's also an interesting line to walk that makes it all the more hard. It definitely felt like an of bravery in some ways, but you're gonna have to cross a boundary if you want to make something that impacts you — it has to be controversial to a certain extent. Whether that be in terms of sonics or what you're talking about. It's important that not everybody likes it, because then what’s the point?

Music

Jesse Jo Stark Is in a Genre of Her Own

April 19, 2024

In the midst of a total solar eclipse, I got the chance to talk about music and style with Jesse Jo Stark.

As I’m on the phone with her from New York, Stark is on a tour bus with The Veronicas, driving through the Colorado mountains to enjoy some time off in between shows. The Veronicas have just started their Gothic Summer North American Tour, and Stark is opening the show. What’s special about this tour for the lifelong music obsessive is the sense of powerful feminine energy encapsulating the tour. “We just started [tour], but it’s been really lovely. I’m obsessed with the fact that we’re all women — it feels like a very powerful crew. The Veronicas are lovely, the crowds have been so fun, and the venues are beautiful. It’s gonna be a good month.”

Photography Sophia-Liv Maguire
Styling Marc Eram
Interview Angelina Hazzouri
Talent Jesse Jo Stark
Hair Antoine Martinez with PARADIS using Roz Hair
Makeup Sydney Szramowski
Photo Assistants Mia O’Neal, Rashaun Richardson
BTS Ms Josephine
Creative Producer Olivia Roper-Caldbeck

This is Stark’s second time touring since the release of her full-length debut album DOOMED in late 2022, which was very well received and led to Stark’s first sold-out international headlining tour on behalf of the album. Previous to her solo tour, she’s opened for various notable acts, such as Guns N’ Roses and Jane’s Addiction. I asked Stark, who’s been writing and playing music since age 11, what it was like to prepare for her first sold-out headlining tour. Unsurprisingly, before any tour, Stark goes into what she describes as “bootcamp mode” — dancing every day, vocal training, rehearsing with her band, and of course, working on her outfits. “That’s the sort of homework I love,” she says, smiling. (Even though we’re on the phone, I can tell she’s smiling when she talks about the outfit part. I’d smile too if I had her tour closet.)

What’s unique about Stark as a musician is that she has ultimately created her own universe by embracing every aspect of her creative upbringing, her raw talent, her fascinating influences, and her unwavering beliefs in not needing to fit into a certain box when it comes to her art. She creative-directs and styles all her own looks, referencing an ever-evolving list of influences that range from Vegas showgirls to Halloween to old films to her parents in the 90s. “I think when I was younger, I had this rebellion against what I was made from,” she tells me, “but now it’s just my blood. I constantly reflect on my childhood and everything I was taught and everything I saw. My brother and sister and I are constantly pulling influences from our parents from the past. I think, more than ever, I’m heavily influenced by them.”

Stark, the daughter of founders and owners of the self-made American fashion brand Chrome Hearts, and now its creative director and designer, is someone who always knew what she liked, but as she describes it, had to ‘go through the motions’ that come with growing up and knowing one’s identity. Today, her self-efficacy is palpable — and it’s inspiring.

...when I was younger, I had this rebellion against what I was made from, but now it’s just my blood.

When she’s on tour, Stark is growing with herself and with her art — she’s not afraid to take life as it comes and learn through the process. With every show, regardless of whether it was on her DOOMED tour or this tour with The Veronicas, Stark understands the importance of human connection through music. Seeing faces of music lovers like herself, meeting those who have traveled to see her, and visiting familiar and unfamiliar cities has reminded her that she loves being on the road. “The growth that happens on tour is so important to me as an artist.” Sometimes we have to leave behind what’s familiar in order to rediscover what’s important, and Stark is a proponent of this growth mindset.

Growth doesn’t just happen on tour with Stark — this evolution of herself happens within genre as well, and for Stark there’s no such thing. Since her first release Driftwood in 2017, the artist’s sound has shifted year after year, but in a harmonious way that still feels central to her gothic Americana roots. When asked if she’ll experiment with genre in the future, Stark confidently answers, “I think I’ve only experimented with genre. I don’t think anyone knows what genre I am.” (She calls herself a “horrific hillbilly” — a perfect descriptor.) Steadfast in her belief that we as humans can constantly evolve in our work, Stark thinks it’s antiquated to fit yourself into a certain box and focus on one specific trade in order to succeed. “If you look at us as people, we’re seasoned. We change all the time. I want to experience different things.”

Since Driftwood, a two-song EP rooted in rock and country, Stark has experimented with more robust beats and 808s on DOOMED, and her most recent single “skeleton” features a softer, grungier punk sound. Without fitting into a specific genre, Stark’s music is undoubtedly and wholeheartedly her own, transcending the boundaries of what many artists struggle with when finding their sound. “I don’t think we should have to label ourselves in any way, shape, or form; so I’m not going to. I will continue to make all types of different music.” Fuck yeah.

If you look at us as people, we’re seasoned. We change all the time.

This goes beyond just music — in terms of her personal style, the same mentality applies. We discuss the idea that clothing and dressing is a sort of playground, and personal style comes from within. Stark isn’t about following trends, but rather, she thinks it’s important to tap into different stylistic elements that amplify who we are at our cores. On her DOOMED tour, Stark wore a lot of leather and stuck to a fairly dark color palette. Right now, she’s into more bourgeois satin and lace, experimenting with different textures and wearing things that feel slightly daintier and more delicate. On this current tour with the Veronicas, Stark is making it more of a point to take everything in — absorbing inspiration from every city, writing songs on the road, recording video on a friend’s super 8 camera, styling and wearing new outfits, learning and performing new covers — ultimately growing through the whole experience.

It’s endearing and inspiring how well Stark knows herself. A Los Angeles native, she proudly tells me that the tour finishes on May 5 in her hometown, a show that she’s especially excited for. While we can’t predict what thoughtfully-curated outfit she’ll wear or what songs will be performed, with new music already underway, one thing is clear: Jesse Jo Stark is just getting started.

Music

9lives' Latest Single Continues to Push Sigilkore

April 19, 2024

The versatile artist, producer, and pioneer of the sigilkore genre, 9lives, has recently unveiled his latest single "CANADA" featuring jnhygs. In less than two years since his emergence onto the music scene, 9lives has carved out an impressive niche for himself as a prominent figure within the digitally-driven sigilkore movement. "CANADA" sees him teaming up once again with experimental dance artist jnhygs, following their successful collaboration on "XTAYALIVE".

With aspirations to establish himself within the mainstream arena of experimental music production and artistry, 9lives is blending his distinct dark production style with collaborations with a diverse array of influential artists who trust him to create innovative sonic landscapes. "CANADA" marks his second release of 2024, as 9lives continues to champion the burgeoning sigilkore movement, pushing the boundaries of genre, evolving into a multifaceted artist, and solidifying his status as a rising star with an expanding audience.

Image by Connor Pritchard

Reflecting on their latest project, 9lives shares, “In early 2023 jnhygs found my music and we started chatting through TikTok, releasing our first song together called "XTAYALIVE"." He adds, We’ve been friends since this song had a viral moment, and fans have been heavily requesting for us to work together again all over our videos.” Describing their creative process, he explains, “I sent a bunch of new ideas to jnhygs via Discord and she sent back vocals to “CANADA”, which I then used to create melodic layers and extra percussion to complete the song.

Music

Eclipsed at Vampire Weekend

April 16, 2024

It had been about a week since the goosebump-inducing communal howls at the moon, as it covered the sun through a cloudy Austin, Texas sky, left me needing to take a seat—suspended in awe of the totality of the event and the synergistic break from routine. I overheard someone say, “I mean, it feels like we’re all going to die, but in a way that’s okay, you know?" under the shadow of the eclipse's peak, ceremoniously brought in as the band performed “Jonathan Low,” (in Vampire Weekend's familiar ironic hue) a track they wrote for the third movie in the Twilight series, Eclipse.

It had been five years since the band had released an album. In celebration of their latest album, "Only God Was Above Us," ticket holders wrapped the streets in blocks outside the venue for the band’s first Stateside show in about two years. Event managers searched to replenish the venue’s stock of eclipse glasses, while the band prepped a show reminiscent of 'getting the boys back together again'.

Words and photography by Rianne Akindele

In between newly released songs like “Classical” and “Capricorn”, the boys filled the almost two-hour-long show with old favorites like “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”, “Diane Young” and a genre evolved rendition of “Sunflower” as the crowd danced barefoot feeling the Earth’s energy intertwined with their own and the vibrations from the amps on stage. People stole glances at the imminently darkening sky, artists doodled, friends grabbed onto each other to scream the lyrics in each other’s faces, and onlookers from the highest level of the parking garage across the street cheered on in a symphony of nostalgia and anticipation.

Adding to the layers of the celestial afternoon, the band invited to the stage the likes of Thomas Mars from Phoenix, Dave 1 from Chromeo, and guitarist Brian Robert Jones, inducing further levels of indie revival euphoria.

As the show drew to its close, and the zydeco/country-rock “Cocaine Cowboys” medley fiddled through the air, a conversation could be picked up between two sisters in search of their Lyft driver through closed-off streets,

“I wish this happened more often.”
“Eclipses or shows like this?”
“Both.”

It’s moments like these that remind us of our shared humanity and the power of collective experiences; a gathering of souls under the same sky, sharing the joy of music and a wonder of the stars above. Perhaps it’s the rarity that allowed such transcendence, reverence, and gratitude to be felt. Either way, what a beautiful moment in time it was.

Here are a few shots from the Monday afternoon: