When we last caught up with Minnesota-via-Phoenix noise-rap ensemble Moodie Black, they’d just received potentially career-altering news: the DIY lifers were personally selected by Maynard James Keenan to open for Puscifer on their 2022 US tour. Yet despite the massive amount of new exposure their confrontational take on hip-hop received throughout those dates, it was the period after they’d returned home that proved more pivotal. Two breakups quickly ensued for frontwoman K—one being a 16-year relationship with her romantic partner, the other being a nearly two-decade creative partnership with her bandmate, guitarist Sean Lindahl. A move back home to the Southwest surely served as the punctuation mark at the end of an era, as well as a new beginning.
The newly announced All Natural, Moodie Black LP serves as a documentation of these turbulent life changes, as well as an introduction to the project’s next chapter. Arriving later this year via the band’s longtime home of Fake Four Records, these songs see K striking out on her own with just as much harsh guitar tones and mounting dread as the band ever produced, albeit with a new outlook. “I started to believe, while making this record, that I had a purpose to continue to try and break the rules the MB way,” she explains. “I listened to new projects, some by heroes of mine, and noticed many sounding like social media posts in their music. I see a hole and a moment in time to find better, more impactful and nuanced ways to share what’s going on without being so overt about it. I’m inspired to create records you can get lost in and escape into. Writing from within the storm as opposed to pointing at it.”
With the release date for ANMB still under wraps, K is sharing a video for the album’s first single today, “To My Friends,” as well as a list of non-musical influences on the record, which mostly relate to her recent change in environment and the memories it’s conjured up. Check out the video and her influences below.
The end of our Puscifer tour
The Puscifer tour was one of our biggest breaks, and I had no idea it was going to end with a massive breakup and complete dismantling of my personal life and business. In hindsight, it’s where this new record really started. The wheels were already turning after seeing the inside of the top of the music industry and how well I think I’d navigated it and performed. The last day of the tour, on the way home, my partner’s mom died and it was a heavy and dark few months that culminated with our breakup. I ended up closing my business within a few days, packing up, and running back home from Minnesota to Arizona.
Verde Valley/Northern Arizona
It was almost serendipitous to have landed back in Arizona. My brother, who lives in Flagstaff, was leaving town for a few months and I was able to stay in his apartment. I was off the grid and a complete mess of a human at the time. My entire reality and sense of who I was had dissolved, and I was so sad I was literally in pain. When I was a kid I suffered from depression, and my parents would take me up north to go camping. I remember how dark and scary the woods felt. I felt that same way alone in Flagstaff on late nights after hitting a few bars, spending hours wallowing and crying. Eventually I needed to work, and Maynard and Merkin Vineyards allowed me to do some paperwork-filing for them. It was an hour’s drive to this unmarked compound in the middle of nowhere where I could mindlessly arrange order sheets in folders. Soon they let me become a cellar rat—I helped clean wine barrels and tanks and bottled wine. It was a nice escape. Although I was a mess, it gave me an hour’s drive back and forth to process, and the work helped me start to rebuild.
A very-’90s mansion on a hill
After helping out at the winery, my brother headed back and a friend who knew me through MB offered to let me stay in his home, which was listed for sale and sitting vacant. It was a pretty big house on an amazing mountain in Cottonwood. The upstairs, where I mostly stayed, had a total ’90s vibe: carpet, old-school finishings, completely empty. There was a full kitchen, dining room, and a master bedroom complete with a carpeted bathroom. It had this eerie, liminal quality that only encouraged my wallowing. I was able to park my food truck there, which had arrived from Minnesota with a ripped-out hood system. The plan was to get the truck up and running and start the business over in Cottonwood. In the small amount of time I had—mostly at nights, after a few cocktails—I started creating again. I set up a makeshift studio in the dining room connected to the kitchen and left everything on and ready at all times. Some of the first tracks were mostly about the breakup, but there were a handful I thought were special that would end up on the new record.
I used to sit out on the wrap-around patio and watch the Arizona monsoon roll in. Wild thunderstorms and lightning in the desert. When it rained you couldn’t tell where the rain started and my tears began. I would look out into the desert, weeping. Wake up early, work out, hit the winery, work the food trailer, make music. In that house I found myself again—brought a fling over, built a little oasis, danced, cried, you name it. That place rebuilt me and I am grateful to have had it. Other things happened, too, like my food trailer breaking off the hitch and plowing down the driveway and the mountain, but if I told every story you wouldn’t believe me.
Returning home to Phoenix
It’s hard for me to give Phoenix credit for anything, but I can’t say it didn’t significantly influence this record. Coming back after so many years, without anything I’d had before, made it feel like a familiar but totally foreign place. Like I’d been here—but had I really? It feels familiar in uncomfortable ways, but also kind of wonderful in ways I don’t want to give it credit for. The landscape helped me remember why I started MB in the first place. The inspiration of the desert felt like something that had been missing from the work for a long time. It inspired me to pay homage to this new version of myself—to mourn and celebrate the loss of the old me. This record is the end of a chapter, the close of a 20-year first era of MB. In the time back in the city I found a new partner who instilled a bit more confidence in me to continue solo and give MB one more real push.
The current digital climate
For years after the pandemic, like other humans and artists, I felt that things felt less important in terms of my contributions to art. After coming back from that tour and things blowing up, I spent a lot of time studying how to make sense of continuing my dream, my journey. The music industry has shifted dramatically, and some even believe it has crumbled entirely. In many ways that feels true, yet there are bands out there that have been able to continue to make it work. I started to believe, while making this record, that I had a purpose to continue to try and break the rules the MB way. I listened to new projects, some by heroes of mine, and noticed many sounding like social media posts in their music. I see a hole and a moment in time to find better, more impactful and nuanced ways to share what’s going on without being so overt about it. I’m inspired to create records you can get lost in and escape into. Writing from within the storm as opposed to pointing at it. To give a perspective from someone at the intersections of many of the fires, yet who still finds that life has mostly remained the same outside the influence and noise of digital media. I was highly influenced to keep my head within my experience—affected and colored by the now—and to allow humans to connect with it on an emotional level.
