Interview with Hey, King: ‘Thematically, there’s hope, vulnerability and coming out the other end of bad times’

LA-based indie rock duo, Hey, King, craft the kind of resilient songs that are full of heart, hinting at overcoming a great deal of adversity along the way, as they bring us their self-titled debut album.

The duo comprises London, Ontario songwriter, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist, Natalie London, and her partner, vocalist and percussionist, Taylor Plecity, from Tucson, Arizona, who have been together for six years and playing music together for four and a half years. Their name was taken from the story Where The Wild Things Are by American writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak. Plecity describes London’s music as ‘the soundtrack’ to her life: ‘She’s one of my favourite songwriters and happens to be my girlfriend,’ she said. Plecity is equally complimentary: ‘She would sing along so naturally, it was clear we had to try something.’

Hey, KIng’s album brings together 11 tracks that run the full gamut of emotions in a relationship at different stages of its journey and London’s raw, emotive lyrics will resonate with her listeners: ‘I write based on the experiences I’m having,’ she said. ‘I think about how to service each song. Thematically, there’s hope, vulnerability and coming out the other end of bad times. I play almost everything on that album. I love creating the orchestra in my head.’

‘We reached out to 21 women, some of the coolest, most talented I know, it was such an extraordinary gift’

‘Road Rage’ is one of the standout tracks on the album, it’s rocky, impassioned and gloriously defiant: ‘It’s the first time we ever commented on gender,’ Plecity said. ‘We were scrolling through Twitter during the Me, Too movement and pondering how our lives would be very different if men had a curfew. We started talking about it with our friends and everyone had a story to tell, whether it was an extreme story like me about sexual assault, or catcalls on the street.’ Their video to the song features different women singing snippets of the song in a way that adds extra gravitas and power to the message that some men’s behaviour continues to threaten and intimidate women in a way that is wholly unacceptable. The fear that you can feel walking home in the dark on your own bubbles up in the lyrics: ‘Every little joke, another harmless tease, my keys slid through my fingers, can you just stay on the phone with me.’

‘With the music video, it’s not just our story, we reached out to 21 women, some of the coolest, most talented I know, it was such an extraordinary gift,’ London said. ‘To get their clips back and to see how each person interpreted the song differently was amazing.’ Plecity nods: ‘It was one of the highlights of editing for us.’

One of the biggest challenges was deciding just how much instrumentation to keep in, they say: ‘A lot of songs had more instrumentation in at first but you’re really good at cutting them out,’ Plecity said to London. I say that I wouldn’t know when to stop adding parts in and Plecity laughs: ‘I’m that one! I struggle to take bits out. I came to LA to do film making and with film, I find it really easy to just cut things out but with music, I’m like “Oh, but I love that, does it really need to go, can’t it stay?” But her first language is music.’

Subsequently, some songs have had radical overhauls, most notably, ‘Morning’, which is about a night with someone who isn’t the person you want it to be. ‘At the beginning, it was just the guitar and the cello but we added twinkly synths and got rid of the guitar completely,’ London said. Equally, some songs had no additions: ”Road Rage’ is more grimy and alive, it’s the feel that the song needed,’ Plecity said.

‘We started writing songs like ‘Beautiful’ to lift up the energy!’

The opening track, ‘Beautiful’ was one of the last ones they wrote for the album. ‘We did three tours with Ben Harper, singing songs like ‘Morning’ and ‘Holy’ every night and it gets sad,’ London laughed. ‘We started writing songs like ‘Beautiful’ to lift up the energy!’ Essentially, ‘Beautiful’ is about appreciating the little things that make you happy and could easily be interpreted as a song about discovering what matters to you during lockdown, although it actually pre-dates it: ‘For me, it’s saying, we’re in LA, when am I going to be able to marry this girl and have a home but nobody has the answer to these things,’ London said. ‘But you can get in your car and go for a drive and you can have somebody to be able to laugh with.’ The video is filmed in various locations, including on a train track and in a forest and features two gorgeous dogs, so I ask if they’re theirs. Plecity moves the camera around for me to see: ‘This is Finn, he’s a Newfoundland,’ she says, cuddling an enormous dog. ‘Then we have Elliot, our border collie, who loves being outside!’

As the catchy chorus goes: ‘Come on now come on and get me, ’cause with you, the world that I see is beautiful, oh, we’re beautiful tonight.’

All of the tracks are rooted in their own experiences. London penned ‘Don’t Let Me Get Away’ after they’d had their first fight a few months into the relationship and after Plecity had gone away for a few days for work. ‘I went for a walk and it all came out of me,’ London said. ‘There was no reconstruction of that song, I never messed with it, that’s weird for me. It’s cathartic to write songs like that, it’s so nice to say what you mean, to say “Here’s the baggage that I have, my trust issues”.’ On the confessional track, London belts over impassioned acoustic guitar strums, ‘I’ll tell myself to fuck it up first, just in case, tell myself anything in hopes to keep me safe’. Plecity jokes affectionately that London sometimes comes up with bad song titles: ‘Do you know what this song was initially called?,’ she laughed. ”Abandonment Issues’! I say it’s a bit like journalists who can write a good story but ruin it with a bad headline and we agree that a bad headline might put people off a news story but once a song starts, the song title’s not important, it only matters whether you like it or not.

One of the most emotional tracks is ‘Half Alive’, which features the memorably raw declaration ‘I was only half alive before I loved you’ and I ask London if she wrote the song around that line: ‘No, I found that line later. I was having fun with the super sexual song – when you can’t touch each other at a family member’s house – but I felt it needed a shift and that line is what was needed.’ Plecity jokes that the ‘half alive before I loved you’ line is ‘a lot of pressure’ and London laughs.

‘What I wrote in the memoir – and what bleeds into the music – is that you’re told if you fight hard enough, you’ll get your life back‘

It’s no coincidence that London writes such honest and hard-hitting songs, given that she has overcome many years of near-death illness. She started her career while at Columbia University but contracted Lyme disease and co-infections Babesia and Bartonella on an early tour, which left her bedridden for more than four years. ‘During that time, I couldn’t walk, talk, read or write, I lost a great deal of my memory. I felt like I had a complete chance at a brand new life and everything from my writing to what I listen to reflects that,’ she said. She wrote a memoir, Lyme Light, about her illness, in 2013, which has received critical acclaim for its honesty, with Russian Doll actress Natasha Lyonne reading the audio book. London is grateful to be out on the other side of her illness: ‘I didn’t think I’d ever get to play music again or be alive when other people as ill as me didn’t make it,’ she said. ‘I still deal with some residual issues of Lyme. It was a weird life to live for months, let alone years. What I wrote in the memoir – and what bleeds into the music – is that you’re told if you fight hard enough, you’ll get your life back, which is a really detrimental thing to say. I’m not going to get that time back, so let me grieve it and have the freedom to re-write my story and have a new life, it’s a real gift. It opened the door to finding the love of my life.’

If she could go to any gig tonight, Plecity plumps for Matt and Kim, an American indie electronic duo from New York. ‘They’re so fun, they’ve been a couple for over a decade. I want to be able to do what they do, they have this way of connecting with the audience. I love their song ‘Daylight’, it’s a fun road trip, it’s feel good.’

‘You don’t realise how much music is a conversation between you and the listener’

They both acknowledge that releasing an album during a pandemic ‘is such a weird thing to do’: ‘You don’t realise how much music is a conversation between you and the listener,’ London said. ‘I miss that, that interaction with people, seeing those connections.’

If she could tour with anyone, London picks Mumford & Sons, an English folk rock band: ‘They’re my first instinct,’ she said. Plecity looks excited: ‘I have a musical theatre background, so I’d love to tour with Glen Hansard (an Irish singer-songwriter, whose song ‘Falling Slowly’ for the film Once won an Academy Award).’

Plecity jokes that London reminds her a lot of American comedian Larry David in his hilarious comedy series, Curb Your Enthusiasm: ‘She’s the person most like Larry David that I’ve ever met in, like, an Asperger’s way.’ London is laughing: ‘I have this friend, I got them a job and there wasn’t an appropriate thank you, I’m making this whole deal about it (she rolls her eyes at herself). A couple of days later, we’re watching an episode of Curb where Larry David is complaining that something isn’t an appropriate thank you.’ Plecity jumps in: ‘He was being JUST like you were, when you’re thinking something, you can’t hide it. She pulls this face (she shows me a very sceptical impression), I have to tell her not to!’ London is still laughing: ‘I have a hard time not showing these things,’ she admitted. ‘We’ll be in a meeting and she’s elbowing me under the table to say “change your face, change your face”!’

(Photo from left to right: Taylor and Natalie)