Canadian transplant Lindsay Kay joins us at Rubies + Diamonds in Hollywood, CA to discuss her upcoming full length album For The Feminine, By The Feminine as well as the lack of women in power in the music industry, and doing what you feel is right as opposed to what you “need to do” in order to be successful.

So in anticipation of your upcoming full length debut, you’ve released its lead single, “Invited.” What inspired the song, and why did you chose it to be the lead single for the album?

Lindsay Kay: So the inspiration for this song came from two places because it was specific yet general. The general side of it was that when Trump had just been elected, a few of my friends had shared with me some of their sexual assault experiences, there was obviously a stirring among women happening in general, in society, and in this country especially. I was feeling the effects of it in my own life and to my own body. The night before I wrote it, I was just out in the world, trying to exist, getting groceries, or maybe I was going to a movie, and I had one of the sort of the typical everyday female experiences. I got stopped and blocked by a big group of guys, one of them was sort of whispering in my ear, pulling on my shirt, and touching me without my consent. These are things that happen pretty often in our world, and a lot of times women will just let it roll off their backs and try to move on. But on that specific night, I was feeling extra sensitive and bothered by this, and just really emotional about it. I couldn’t help thinking to myself, ‘Why am I normalizing these experiences? Why am I letting these roll off my back so often? Why do I not get upset more?’ So the next day I just sort of started to think about why people feel so entitled to women or female beings’ bodies, time, and space. It’s like, don’t touch me unless I invite you to touch me! That’s how it came about and why  I chose it as a lead single. It wasn’t like a massive marketing move or strategy of any kind, it just felt like the right first single, and was one of those decisions that wasn’t overly thought about.

Yeah. And that’s a very relevant topic that we’re still continuing, and probably will continue for the rest of our lives, to deal with.

Lindsay: I know. It’s unfortunate and confusing because it’s such a simple concept. And the song itself is so simple. It’s kind of just a list for men of what not to do, and yet it’s like they can’t seem to grasp it.

Hopefully in musical form it’ll be a little bit easier.

Lindsay: Hopefully! That would be nice.

Would you care to give us a little bit of a sneak peek on what the rest of the album i going to sound like, and some of the other themes that you’ve incorporated into the songs?

Lindsay: The album is all quiet, melancholy, acoustic-based music where I incorporate some elements of synth, horns, harp, and background vocals, but is still rooted in a simplicity that I always seem to go back to when I’m writing and arranging music. I like things to feel intentional, like everything is there for a reason with no excess of busyness, which always tends to kind of not thrill me in music in general. I studied jazz in college, and I was very much so doing contemporary jazz music for a long time, so that style is always kind of going to be present peripherally in my music. I’m really drawn to horns and to seventh chords, and to different jazz moments in the music. The way that I tried to structure the album, even just in the track order, I think it tells a bit of a story and has a bit of an arc, at least for me it does. I start the album by exploring themes of questioning and seeking faith, wondering why things are the way they are, and sort of looking to some sort of higher power to explain it to me in some way. In the song “How Much?” I kind of ask myself ‘How much of a man do I need men to be?’ And even with femininity and masculinity, like, what are these roles, why are we playing them, how much of this masculine thing I’ve been taught to want do I actually want in the end? You know? And then of course the overarching theme of femininity and womanhood is in every song, and just celebrating the softness and the selflessness of women. I also used it to sort of uplift myself and acknowledge that I am powerful, strong, and beautiful because I am a woman, and because I have femininity in me. It was kind of my first time taking that and being like ‘This is amazing. This is powerful. I love this!’ But I also make sure to include moments of sadness too, because it’s not all easy, in fact it’s hard. The album sort of ends on a bit of a somber note with no real resolution because, like you were saying, we’re going to be working on this for a while, and it’s not resolved as of now for me or for anyone.

Sounds like the story line is going to resonate with a lot of people that are listening to your music.

Lindsay: I hope so!

And which song was your favorite to write and record? And these could be separate songs since I know the process is very different when you’re sitting down writing, and then sitting down recording.

Lindsay: Yeah, I think they will be different. I think the song “Sunday,” which is the first song on the album, was probably my favorite to write. It was just one of those gifts where it just came together really fast, and that just never happens to me. I’m not one of those artists that just gets struck by the muses, and then scribbles down an entire song in 30 seconds. That’s just not how I usually work. It tends to be a lot of editing, re-editing, and laboring over these songs, but “Sunday” came in and it maybe took me less than an hour to write it. I hadn’t changed a single word of it really. But yeah, so I was in this small town in France called Noyers in Burgundy, and I had just gone to a really intense Catholic mass in France. I don’t speak French very well, so I didn’t understand what was happening, and I felt like a total outsider. But I came back in and wrote that song, and it was just one of those beautiful, ‘Oh it just came so naturally’ kind of songs. It was special because that doesn’t happen super often, and it’s a beautiful feeling when it does. My favorite song to record on the album was a song called “Worship Me” because we had recorded that song completely differently. We recorded it with a full band with bass, drums, and I think even like a Hammond organ. Gosh, I can’t remember exactly everything that was on it, but we recorded it fully in the studio setting. When I was listening back to it, I just really didn’t like it for some reason. I was just like, ‘Hmm, it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, I don’t like it, I don’t like it.’ Not the fault of any of the musicians, it’s the fault of me because I’m the arranger and the producer. So I ended up cutting everything, went back to the drawing board, and just kind of sat in my apartment for a day, tried a bunch of new things, demo-ed it out a few times, and ended up just stripping it down completely where it’s now two interconnected guitar parts, vocals, piano, and a little bit of synth. It’s super simple, but it was definitely the way that it was meant to be, and we recorded that song in I think like one day. It was super quick, and sometimes those quick ones can be the nicest. *laughs* There was just something missing, and simplifying it made it a little bit more honest. But it’s hard when you spend the money and you’re in the studio having probably spent four, five or six hours recording it only to have me throw all that away. It’s always a shame, but if it’s not working it’s not working. You kind of have to trust your gut on those things, you know?

Definitely. But as long as you’re doing it the way that you want to do it, and you feel it’s right, that’s really all that matters.

Lindsay: Exactly! You’re so right!

And how would you say that the recording, songwriting, and production process was different for this album in comparison to your other EPs that you released?

Lindsay: Great question. So the first EP that I did was straight out of college, like, maybe one and a half months after I graduated was when we recorded it. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, it was my first time making a record and even just being in the studio. I made so many mistakes and let other people push me around a lot because I trusted that other people knew better than me. And so, with the first EP, while it holds a special place in my heart nostalgia-wise, it’s not musically my favorite thing. It felt a little sterile to me to be honest, because I just felt like it had to be perfect. Everything had to be perfectly in tune and every note had to be perfect, so it just got perfected to a point where it felt a little sterile to me. It didn’t have the life and the breath my music usually does. So yeah, that one was a little too perfect for my taste. Then for the next EP, I think as a reaction to the first one I just went in the opposite direction. I was just like, ‘Okay, I want to make something fast and super simple with lots of mistakes and imperfections.’ I just wanted it to be a totally different sounding thing. So we made Quiet Songs in my friend’s house on an afternoon with pretty much full takes and very little editing. It was very casual, and more so I just wanted to put something out that felt a little bit more raw. But you know, neither one really nailed it because one was too perfect and one was too imperfect with too many problems. So with this album, I think I achieved something in the middle, in which it’s a professional studio quality album, but it still has life and still feels raw. We recorded all of the live band pretty much live, and overdubbed a few things here and there, but I’m really a proponent of putting the foundation of the music in a room together live so it moves. And yeah, I think it still sort of has that special organic thing to it, even though it’s in-tune and good. 

I mean, it looks like you learned your lesson from the first and second ones to make a perfectly balanced third one. Third time’s the charm! *laughs*

Lindsay: Yeah! Or at least just striving to improve each time, you know? It’s never going to be perfect, and at a certain point you have to just stop and be like ‘It’s done now, we can’t keep trying to do more and more and more.’ But yeah, the goal is just to always be improving, and getting better with each project.

It’s so hard because it’s your baby, and you want to give everybody the most perfect version of it. But everybody’s definition of ‘perfect’ is still so different! 

Lindsay: Yeah, it is, which makes it hard to figure out when to stop. Knowing when to let go is a good thing to know out how to do. *laughs*

Absolutely. Now with what you had mentioned about all the things that are happening in the world regarding consent and the interaction between men and women, do you think that a woman needs to portray herself in certain ways in order to be successful in the music industry?

Lindsay: I think that society and men want women to portray themselves in a specific way in order to open the gate to success for them. But more and more now, we’re seeing that the gatekeepers aren’t just straight white dudes anymore, I mean, majority still are certainly, but there are more and more women in positions of power. It’s happening slooooow slow slow slow slow, but it is happening, and I think that women and female-identifying people, like any sort of marginalized community, are all really hungry to see work being made by our people, you know? For example in this new show Pose, I don’t know if you’ve watched it, but it’s featuring all of these incredible trans actors and is hugely successful. It’s completely hit a nerve because trans folks, queer folks, and just people in general want to see new stuff. They want to see innovation, and want to see diversity if they’re smart, interesting, cool people who actually care about anyone who doesn’t look just like them. So I think that people in general do really want to hear big things being made by women, see work being made by women, see women in interesting roles, hear women’s multifaceted and multilayered stories. We’re not just one thing, and women know that, and women want to see that mirrored back to them in the media and art that they consume. All marginalized groups want to see that kind of thing. I think the only people that don’t want to see that are the men who are currently in control of the industry. So it’s a slow process, but I do think that with every project that comes out that’s different and boundary pushing, it will get rewarded. We see it time and time again that people are interested in hearing new stories and seeing diversity in their art.

Yeah. And we have so many different kinds of women that are putting out music in all very different styles as well. Like you’ve got The Interrupters, this female fronted ska band, and the last time you saw that was with No Doubt, which was a while ago now.

Lindsay: A long time ago, yeah. It’s an interesting time. I mean, I find the music industry to be deeply deeply masculine, and it’s really challenging sometimes because seeing people constantly trying to take credit away from women is such a killer. There’s this great interview that Bjork did a couple years ago where she brought up that every single time she speaks to men about her music, they assume that she didn’t produce it or that she had nothing to do with the technical elements of the music. The same thing happens with Grimes and all of these awesome female artists that are attuned with the technical levels of it.

Yeah, which sucks because they’re all very involved with it and no one wants to give them the credit for their hard work.

Lindsay: Exactly! People assume that they’re just the mouthpiece for this operation really run by men, like, they’re just the puppet and the puppet master is always a man. That’s not always the case and it’s really disappointing to hear that some people still believe that. But people speaking out about it is making progress, and slowly but surely, is giving people a voice. It’s an exciting time.

Do you think that modern society is more open-minded to having a woman be successful in the music industry instead of trying to pigeonhole them?

Lindsay: It’s such a hard question to answer because, like I had said, it’s better slightly,  but in general it’s still ‘no.’ I think society is definitely open to women being successful in the music industry, but they have to fit into this very specific definition of ‘successful female artist’ box. They have to be like the Katy Perry-s, you have to be a ‘pop star.’ Rihanna’s not even a good example anymore because she’s doing so many other things now. You have to be this very fashionable, very conventionally beautiful, major label signed, on a billboard, and have this overall ‘pop star’ image. Anything other than that, people don’t know how to handle it or take it or understand what it is. And that’s the thing that’s frustrating. You can be so many different things because most people are so many different things at once. I get frustrated when people try to put me in this singer-songwriter, acoustic, folk-y girl box where they expect me to show up to gigs wearing a hemp skirt that I knitted myself and no makeup. I mean, I’m a singer-songwriter that plays more of this quiet, acoustic-based music, so they want me to look like Joni Mitchell in 1965. They want me to be this folk-y, grassroots, simple girl, and that’s not how I care to present myself as an artist. I care about fashion and weird art. I like things to look striking and colorful and different and symbolic. I have lots of ideas that don’t fit into that little box that people expect me to be, so the only way that I can express myself is to keep doing my thing and confusing people and hope that they can catch up at some point. I get a lot of hesitation and weird looks and things, but it is what it is. I’ll be ok. *laughs*

Hopefully the confusion leads to intrigue and interest.

Lindsay: It usually does. It’s so interesting to watch people’s reactions. Usually what ends up happening is I’ll go to the studio, which is always men because music studios only have 2% women employed in them for the most part, sometimes 5% depending on the city you’re in, but normally 2%. Anyways, I’ll go into the studio with my band members and I’ll be wearing this big, long, silky, weird fabric thing wrapped around me, and we’ll be wearing veils doing this symbolic thing, and they’ll be like, ‘Who is this person?’ I assume they’re going to have a bad reaction to it, but then when we start playing they’re like ‘oh!’ and then they slowly get on board, and by the time we’re leaving the studio they’re like our pals. *laughs* But at the beginning, it tends to be this kind of hesitation and judging thing, and it’s just frustrating to not be given the same kind of respect that a guy coming into the studio would have without question. We have to earn it first.

Hopefully things will be changing soon. If you could give your younger self advice, what kind of advice would you give her in regards to the music industry?

Lindsay: I would definitely tell myself to stop doing all of the things that feel wrong for me just because other people have told me that I have to do this in order to succeed or that I have to do that in order to pay my dues. That’s been the biggest struggle for me. I’ve been told to so many things because if I don’t do them I will never be successful or I’ll never be a good musician or I’ll never achieve X, Y and Z. I hated so many of those arbitrary checks that I thought I needed to check off the list, and now I’m realizing that none of those things really did that much for me at all. Always do the things that you think are important, that you feel are contributing to your artistry and your music, and they will get you to where you need to go. You may not get to the place that you thought you needed to go, but you’ll get to where you’re supposed to be, you know? People just love telling people what to do and imparting wisdom on other people when really it’s just unsolicited advice. They need to be careful with what they tell young artists to be doing, because nothing is ever set in stone. Nothing is a ‘must do.’ Everything is so specific to you and art is just so sensitive and weird that you should just follow your own thing. I really had trouble with that for a long time. But now I’m just settling into myself and doing things that feel good to me. I’m so much happier, and my career is just overall better because I’m not wasting time and energy in the wrong places.

Yeah. Music is someone’s passion project so they should pretty much be able to do whatever they want.  But like you said, people just love to give out advice even if we don’t ask for it. *laughs*

Lindsay: Yeah, people just sort of dole out advice whether they are asked or not. And when you ask for it, there’s sort of this mentality that older artists get where it’s like ‘If you want to do this you have to be playing a different gig every night and a ton of crappy dive bars and this and that. For the longest time, I was inserting myself into these gigs and into these venues that just did not fit my music. Like, I was playing sports bars even though I play this kind of quiet, sweet, melancholy music that would just get talked over, and at the end of the night I would just think, ‘What was the point of that?’ Truly! I was told that this is the way and how you hone your skills, and this is how you pay your dues, but it just did nothing for me but waste my time and energy. If it doesn’t feel good, don’t do it. That’s the only thing I would say, because I forced myself to do all these these things that were terrible for me when I was younger.

Well now you know. Such as life, you’ve gotta make the mistakes in order to learn from them and not do them again.

Lindsay: Of course! *laughs*

Who would you say are some essential women in music that we should be to listening to?

Lindsay: That’s a tricky one too. That almost goes down the path of older artists saying who to listen to. Not like I’m old, I’m still in my twenties. *laughs* But listen to whoever you like! Just listen to whatever strikes your fancy, whatever catches your eye. I think there’s always been a huge problem with hearing “If you’re a good artist you have to be listening to this person or you have to be listening to that person.” I definitely felt that when I was younger and still see it now, but I think everything is more of a taste thing, because there is no such thing as ‘good music’ and ‘bad music’ to me. ‘Good music’ is music that you like and ‘bad music’ is music that you don’t like. There’s just so many people that judge your taste and say “Oh, she’s got a bad taste in music.” But what does that mean? It really means that you don’t have ‘cool’ taste in music or you aren’t ‘cool.’ Being ‘cool’ is so stupid and boring and irrelevant and also unsustainable, because you’re just constantly trying to keep up with what’s ‘cool.’ But with that being said, let’s see, who are some of my favorite female artists who I love? I love Solange, Beyoncé‘s sister, and think she’s an absolute genius. She just pushes the boundaries between music and art where she just marries the two along with visuals, movement, and fashion so it all comes together in this culmination of real, beautiful self-expression. I find her to be a really exciting and powerful artist that doesn’t receive enough credit for what she does. St. Vincent, is another great female artist doing her own thing. Grimes. There are so many, I think it’s just a matter of listening to what catches you and not worrying about anything else. *laughs*

Do you feel that modern artists feel that pressure to be ‘cool’ and to put out ‘cool music’ to appeal to the masses?

Lindsay: To appeal to the taste makers, yes definitely. Maybe this is me sounding a little bit old-fashioned and judgmental in some way, but I do have a hard time finding contemporary music that really affects me in a real deep and emotional way. It’s out there for sure, whether I hear it or not. I just find that the vast majority of music put out by contemporaries sound like ‘trendy clothes look,’ you know? I struggle with that sometimes, because I don’t tend to like the stuff that other people tend to like. I don’t know, I’m just not buying into it. I get that it sounds good today, but will it sound good tomorrow? I love those moments that you stumble upon something timeless that you know is going to affect you in ten years from now.

Totally agree. That’s why we always go back to the songs that make us feel something over and over again.

Lindsay: Yes, absolutely.

So you handpicked your team to consist of all women or those who identify as women. What made you choose to go in that direction and what type of personal qualities were you looking for in a team member?

Lindsay: That’s a really good question. So it’s all women or those who identify themselves as women, or I guess really just female of center, feminine of center. It’s always tricky to be all-inclusive and include all of the terminology. It’s really important for me that the album is not just for cis-gendered straight women. I want it to be all inclusive to those who identify as feminine. It stems from a lot of different places, but I think the first thing that triggered this direction for me was from just observing a lot of female artists making projects who use the feminist narrative to promote their work, but then you notice that their team is still predominantly all men. For example, someone like Taylor Swift, when she won the Grammy she got up on stage with her feminist talk about how men will always try to take things away from you blah blah blah. And then you look at the stage and it’s all men behind her with maybe like two women or something. I just got frustrated with all of these people talking the talk but not really walking the walk. And why is that? Why aren’t people working with more women or seeking out more women to work on their projects if they claim that that’s such an important part of their identity? It was just so perplexing to me. That’s something that was going along in my mind and something that I was chewing on for awhile. This album consists of such vulnerable music for me because it’s me putting a lot of things on the table that are really hard for me to say, is really emotional, and really challenging. I wanted to feel safe and free and comfortable and understood while making this album. I tried to imagine recording this album with men, and it just did not compute. There are many men that I worked with who I love very dearly and are wonderful, and yet still I couldn’t imagine it. As I was writing the music, I just envisioned a fully female/female identifying team making this album with me, and I saw it through and it was hard. For me, I’m really introverted and quiet and really sensitive to other people’s energy and attitude. It was super important for me to find people to work on the album that were nice, good people that didn’t have egos. It took me a long time to find those people because there are so few women working in the recording environment to begin with, and then on top of that works in the style that I work in, and then on top of that to find someone who doesn’t have an ego and is nice to work with. So I ended up talking and meeting people in person for every role until I found my team. In general, it was a good experience and I found some really amazing people to work with who were really supportive of the vision and the project. Ultimately, it was important for me to see if I even could find a team full of women.

The challenge of the music industry.

Lindsay: Yeah for sure, but it was a worthwhile challenge that I really hope other people will do because I just hate seeing the same twenty-five guys working on every single project. It just kills me. There’s so many women who are so good that just don’t get the projects because they’re less visible. 

Yeah. I definitely hope that there’s going to be more of a stepping stone for women in the music industry, especially in the recording studio realm. So you are a Canadian transplant living in the heart of the music industry, and you have gotten a chance to not only tour both countries but Europe as well. What significant differences have you seen between U.S. and Canada and then in comparison with the European music scene? I can only only assume that just between the U.S. and Canada that it’s very different and then you get to Europe and it’s a completely different ballgame.

Lindsay: Yeah, it really is. So full disclosure, I haven’t fully completely toured Europe. I did tour the states for sure and I’ve played in a bunch of cities in Canada, but I haven’t done a full-fledged, cross-country tour in Canada yet. When I was in Europe, I was there doing artist residencies, so I wasn’t really touring and playing shows as much as I was there working on music. But I did play music in the places that I was and experienced the culture a little bit. So between Canada and the States, I would say that Canada is more contained and is kind of like its own community. I feel like Canadian artists tend to really self-identify themselves as ‘Canadian Artists’ and has more of this grassroots kind of movement to it. Now to be fair, I’ve lived in the U.S. as a professional musician now for about eight years, so I’ve definitely experienced more of the U.S. music culture than the Canadian one, but from what I have experienced in Canada, it’s a bit more organic with a smaller community where people really know each other. With being here, and I hope that I don’t offend anyone from Canada when I say this, but I notice that musicians here a lot more ambitious and eager to extend past the area that they live in and be global musicians. I’m not sure why that is or how that works, but that’s just what I’ve noticed. With that said, there’s also less of a community vibe here because there’s so many people here that are doing music and there are communities within pockets of style and city. And with Europe, even though I haven’t toured yet, just being there and interacting with other artists, there’s just a lovely pace difference. Everything is slower and less urgent. It’s less business, marketing, and money minded and more focused on the art, which I really liked. I think I took some of that away with me because I still tend to be really resistant towards the business end of things. *laughs* It’s a struggle because it’s definitely something that needs to be done in order for the music to be heard. I think the European mindset towards music coincides with my lifestyle and who I am as a person and as an artist, but I think that if I ever lived there I don’t think I would ever be able to get things done. *laughs*

And staying on the topic of touring, if you could do you own world tour, which three artists would you take with you and what would you name your tour?

Lindsay: Oh my gosh, that’s so hard! Does it have to all be musicians?

It can be whatever kind of tour you want!

Lindsay: Ok! If it could be anyone I want, I’m inclined to not have it all be musicians because I like cross-collaboration between the mediums a lot. This is a dream scenario, but I would want it to be Meryl Streep doing a one-woman show on stage written by the playwright Annie Baker, who’s one of my favorites, and me playing live music along to the story. 

It sounds really cool so far though!

Lindsay: Thank you! The thing about musicians is that some, not all, are musicians always, and I feel different in the sense of feeling more like an artist who specializes in music. I just don’t think of myself as only a musician because I enjoy all different types of art, but just happen to make music. Working with artists who aren’t just musicians is really thrilling and exciting and fun for me. But yeah, we’ll count Annie Baker the playwright as an artist because she will write the play. Meryl Streep will act in it as a one-woman show. I will play music, and then I will die happy after that because that would be like my dream. And what would it be called? Oh my God, I don’t know! ‘Me and Meryl.’ *laughs* That’s such a hard question. But good question though!

Which three artists would you want to collaborate with and why? And these could be artists that focus on being musicians, or songwriters, or producers, video people, just anyone that does an ‘art.’

Lindsay: Ah ok. Who would I want? I’d say Sufjan Stevens because he’s pretty much my favorite musician ever, and I think he’s one of the great musical geniuses alive today. He’s had been such a big influence on my music, so I would love to collaborate with him because stylistically. I feel like he’s sort of given me permission to be quiet and simple in my writing because that’s totally his bread and butter, where it’s perfect as it is and brilliant and unapologetic and great. I would also say John Mayer. Kind of out of the blue I know, but he was a huge influence on my when I started playing guitar in my teenage years from fifteen to eighteen. My music sounds nothing like his really , but it does at the same time because he was the catalyst for me learning how to play guitar and write songs. I still to this day love his songwriting and his music. And finally Solange, who we talked about earlier. She’s a genius and so boundary pushing and does so many exciting things. She’s pushing the boundaries of what it means to be a performer, musician and artist, so I strive to be more like her really. She’s a huge inspiration for me and I would love to work with her.

It’s a great mix of people!

Lindsay: Yeah! It’s kind of random. *laughs*

Sometimes random is good!

Lindsay: Absolutely! I think it’s important really take the time to listen to a bunch of different genres and take inspiration from places that you might not have normally found it.

What do you hope your audience away from your music?

Lindsay: I assume that my audience would be mostly comprised of women and female identifying people, at least those are the opinions that I care about. My hope is that they feel seen and understood, maybe hear some of their own experiences and their own pain and suffering through the music. I hope it’ll bring them some comfort in knowing that they aren’t alone in experiencing these sadnesses and moments of discomfort, sacrificing and not feeling heard or appreciated for them. I think that the best thing music does for their listeners is bring them some comfort and a moment of ‘I feel like that was written for me.’ If someone thinks that, it would be the highest praise I could ever get.

And to end off. Apart from your debut album that we’re very excited to hear, what other big, exciting plans should we be expecting from you in the near future?

Lindsay: Yeah! So the album comes out October 5th. I’m super excited and can’t wait for it to finally be out so I can move on with my life in some way. *laughs* I love this album so much, but I’ve been working on it for a little over two years now and I’m almost ready to usher into the next thing. I don’t know what that is yet, but it will be nice to release the project into the world so it won’t belong to just me anymore. That’ll be an amazing moment. And of course, I’ll be performing once the album comes out, so the most tangible thing to look forward to after the release is some live shows. I’ll definitely be hosting an album release concert. Like I had mentioned, I really like doing the multimedia and mixing things up in terms of art and music and visuals. We’re looking to put on a show that’ll be special and different than a typical live music experience that’ll feature some theatrical elements and visual components that I hope will feel a little it new.

Lots to look forward to!

Lindsay: Yes! Definitely!

Check out Lindsay Kay on her Website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Spotify!

About Rubies + Diamonds:

Looking for an engagement ring for you boo or a pair of earrings for your mom? Well, if you head to Rubies + Diamonds for that purpose you might be a bit disappointed because they are absolutely #NotAJewelryStore. However, they sell something which is even more fantastic than jewelry – coffee! While they may confuse the unsuspecting visitor on a consumer level, they absolutely live up to the chic-ness of their name when you step through its doors.   

Once inside, you’ll be amassed by a warm toned color scheme with a tasteful teal accent wall, and a gorgeous icicle style chandelier. For an extra touch of bougie (in the good way of course), gold accents are incorporated everywhere from furniture to table trays to tap faucets for their in-house nitro brewed caffeinated beverages and beer. And speaking of beer, which is something that you don’t normally expect at a coffee place, it’s got a pretty extensive menu to choose from for both drinks and food. I myself went for the Sea Salt Cold Brew, but I’m definitely going to need to venture back that way in order to try everything on their menu. Or maybe I’ll just continue to go there to live a life of luxury at a minimal price.

Check out more about Rubies + Diamonds on their Website, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.