Diandra Interviews Kaye: Finding The Sensuality In Her Power

Charlene Kaye is one of the smartest women I have ever interviewed. She is a visionary that sees her music as the equivalent to her heartbeat. That is why she put so much effort, from song to show, to invite a sense of fantasy in her fans because she, herself, is a dreamy heart. Artists live in their mind and write songs like love letters they hope their heart processes from their dreams. Thus, it is no surprise that in our interview we discussed what it is to idealize love, define sex, become a leader, and do it all while being a woman that dreams.

Diandra: What is one idealization about love that you have learned to let go?

KAYE: Wow! I love you already! Such a great interview already! Usually, it is what is your process for  writing music? Um…. I think that it is when you start idealizing your person that things start to get disappointing. I think when you are really in love, you go into this “worship mode” where you start ignoring a lot of the bad behaviors that come with a person or start rounding corners. I, myself, have lowered my standards for a relationship and to please somebody. I am a really big “people-pleaser” because, in part, of my upbringing in the Asian American community and my time in the Midwest, I tend to serve whomever I am with and compromise my standards. I like that I like to please people but I also have realized I need more practicality in certain situations.

Diandra: I feel that because, for me, it is not just the idealizing of a partner but also feeling like, once the bubble breaks, I don’t know how or whether I should forgive their flaws.

KAYE – CLOSER THAN THIS (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)

KAYE: YEAH! Totally! When you are in love, you can’t help but see their flaws as positive qualities, which can be beautiful, as well. Ideally, you want to find someone that does not annoy you so much because no one is perfect.

Diandra: So how do you feel your new songs embody how you have empowered yourself in love and life?

KAYE: Mhmmm! I really feel like in this new album I could hear the difference to my stuff prior. I think before I was playing it safe like, there is something a little more reserved. When I wrote this record, I was in this place of complete abandonment. It was about what I had given up sexually; I had left a long-term relationship. I thought I was moving away from New York, and I even spent 5 weeks in California: planning my move. And I was like, “Am I about to blow up my life?” So these songs came out of healing and necessity as opposed to something that I was trying to create to have content.

I am not the type of songwriter to do that, but there was an urgency to writing these songs like they were saving me. This record is darker, more sexual, and has this feeling of abandonment that I find is really freeing. There is also humor because, sometimes, when you are surviving adversity you need to find the humor to survive it. I tried to tap into that with this. “Closer Than This” is about a really lonely relationship that I had entered where we were playing with each other, not trying to attach emotionally, and it did hurt. So “Closer Than This” is, basically, about a relationship where we acknowledge we are, basically, each other’s f**kboy. At the root, it is about being afraid to be connected with each other.

Diandra: That is a really powerful answer because it taps into how “adulting” isn’t exactly this dreamy space. When you are in your twenties and thirties there is a feeling of abandonment because you have to keep learning that plans don’t go as planned. Do you feel like the abandonment you felt attracted that kind relationship and reverberated into how you wrote and wanted to change your life? In essence, abandoning because you feel abandoned?

KAYE: Mhmmm… Yeah! So much of this record is about what happens when your definitions of family and home and relationships feel ripped away. Who are you when all those comforts feel gone? What are the basic elements that comprise you as a person? I was really interested in answering that question. I am not the type of artist that believes in sowing discord to make their art; I much prefer to make it out of a happy place. I think in this particular creative moment in my life there was a lot of repressed  feeling going on, and I felt like the only way to uncover this new version of myself, it was to figure these things out. So, my choices caused a lot of fundamental change because I felt so un-anchored and detached like, I was floating in the ethers. The first song that opens the album, the first lyric is “Floating in slow motion, waiting for the explosion,” so I do feel it is like an origin, creation story. It is a rebirth story about learning the difficult lessons I wasn’t able to learn up unto now. It is about what I need to do to grow and keep learning to be the best version of myself.

KAYE – TOO MUCH (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)

Diandra: FIERCE!!!!!!!!!!! I think that is so relatable because what I hear is the story of someone losing the comfort of a plan or what it is to feel like you can have one. And one thing I noticed about your career, also I just watched Miss Americana, is that you reinvent yourself a lot. Do you feel like as a woman in the industry, you can’t have a plan or a set aesthetic?

KAYE: I think as a woman in the music industry, you, definitely, have to have more versatility than men because we have been pigeon-holed, historically. Like, I just googled female guitarists, and what I found was a bunch stock-photos of female models holding guitars. The image of a what a female guitarist can be is so narrow, but over 50% of guitarists are women. Yet, because the gatekeepers are men, the image and access to work is limited. We are waiting on men to allow us a forward motion in this industry, and that can mean thinking, as a woman, how we fit in the grander picture. That can mean sexualizing or desexualizing ourselves in how we fit into the zeitgeist or in terms of authenticity. It is something I think about, especially as a very visual person. On instagram, the more skin does get more likes. Though, I think, compared to the 90’s, we’ve come a long way. Before, there was a concept of this waifish vixen that was sexual yet virginal. I think now artists can have more creative direction and really do it without labels backing them. I am the leader of my own ship and start my own rebellion.

Diandra: First, Eljuri is an AMAZING female guitarist. Second, I think that is so true, in terms, of women being pigeon-holed, but I also see our versatility as a basic human, even spiritual, survival tactic. If you keep pigeon-holing someone, they keep learning how to escape and reform themselves to do so, and women keep getting pigeon-holed so we learn more to reinvent ourselves.

Kaye: 100% I think it is about surviving the contradictions women must face. I can be the bread-winner and the house-wife. I can be intelligent and sexual.

Diandra: Do you feel music can or should play a bigger role in empowering women to see their sexual importance?

KAYE: For sure! I think when a woman is sexual on tv it is always for the male gaze. We never see the idea, or even in the conversation, a woman being sexual because she wants to be and she wants to do it for herself. It took me a long time to embrace my own sexuality because 1) I had very conservative, Asian parents that thought it was not lady-like and 2) I had partners that were not comfortable with me exploring myself or doing things that are sexual. It was a form of possessiveness. I think music is about creating things for posterity as much as factually, and I don’t want to miss anything emotionally.

Diandra: When I hear that answer, it makes me wonder if you see self-love or loving the other person more important when having sex?

KAYE: Well, ideally, loving the other person is an act of self-love because they love you so well.

Diandra: UGH!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT IS SO GOOD! I want to tattoo that quote on my body. Perfect answer!

Kaye: (laughs) I give you permission. I think that women have needs and we have sexual ones.  You never see women in positions of power unabashedly accepting pleasure. When you see it, it always funny or awkward like, Magic Mike. I wanted to find a way to make it sensual with my music.

Diandra: YAAAASSS KWEEEENNNN!!!! Well, I know you work a lot with your sister on music videos. How do your parents feel about you both getting more sexual with your vision?

KAYE: I had to tell my parents not to watch it. (we laugh) My mom has had a life-long struggle for her to appreciate my path is different from hers. She grew up in Singapore, very poor, with 7 siblings sharing a bed and not having too much food. Her parents were worked for a wealthy family, and I think she sees my artistic life as frivolous. She is a fantastic mom so I think she would have me choose a career where she knows I am safe. Instead, I chose this vagabond lifestyle where I am always on tour and I will never have a 401K. She brought us to America to live the American Dream, and what is a better dream than choosing your own dreams.

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