Straus stands at a vintage Neve console, ready to play me some tracks off her laptop. Photographs by Gioncarlo Valentine for Rolling Stone.įashion Direction & Styling by Alex Badia. A platinum plaque for “1950,” Straus’ breakthrough 2018 hit about queer love (“I hate it when dudes try to chase me/But I love it when you try to save me”), is framed on the wall. There’s one wall separating the studio and home (you can tell by the sign on the door that simply reads “Not the studio”), and classic rock memorabilia is everywhere, from the recent Get Back Beatles book on the coffee table to the 1978 Frank Zappa poster that resides above the toilet. She describes the studio’s vibe as “shabby chic,” gesturing to the tattered, multi-colored kitschy couches around her. “Nothing better than being stony baloney on the train.” “I come back and I’m the person I’m supposed to be,” she says. Even though she partly lives in Los Angeles these days, she has a true New Yorker’s preference for her hometown. We’re at Mission Sound, her father Oliver’s studio in Williamsburg, the neighborhood where she grew up. It’s early April in Brooklyn, and Straus is on the cusp of completing her new album, Hold on Baby, out July 29. A story, by the way, that Straus feels she was born for. She uses the word “cunt” in almost every sentence, so much that her publicist is worried her quotes will be unusable for this story. With her feathery, shoulder-length chocolate-brown hair and extensive knife collection, she exudes a rock-star persona as purely savage as anyone in her generation - she could be Marc Bolan reincarnated or a long-lost cousin of John Lydon, dropping brazen one-liners in between hits from her vape pen. This is what it’s like to converse with Mikaela Straus, the indie-pop visionary behind King Princess. “I was like, ‘Cunt!’ That’s exactly what I’m going for!” the 23-year-old musician says. But the description that really nails “Change the Locks” - the one that makes King Princess beam as she shares it - came from someone in the studio, who said it sounds like menstruating at Lilith Fair. It’s a breakup song that starts out soft and dreamy before erupting into a scorched-earth mid-Nineties rager with the biggest chorus she’s ever belted. King Princess has a new song she can’t wait to talk about.