Interview: Kate Faust wastes no time gettin’ into trouble ⎯⎯ sort of

Trouble discharges like darkness. It snarls around bones, breaking some, crushing still others. It’s not an element like earth, air, fire or water, but rather, it serves as elastic tendons between each fibrous-like pillar. We can’t fight it either, which becomes the crux of humanity; no matter how much we wrestle our fleshly limbs away from its bone-tearing grasp, trouble always finds us. Always. It’s about acceptance, really, and for rock singer-songwriter Kate Faust, that journey wasn’t easy. “I don’t think trouble is a part of me anymore. I do think that I know it pretty intimately, so I recognize it when I see it,” she talks openly in a conversation with B-Sides & Badlands, detailing how her latest Savior EP plays as both an emotional exoneration over herself but a mischievously pop-heavy explosive.

From her early days of jostling with trouble’s demons in Catholic school, “mostly for asking too many questions,” she smirks, to undergoing the ravages of a typical boxing match with adulthood, Faust is a mighty and freakish force. “Feel the spirit in your soul / Let the rhythm take control,” she babbles in spellbinding discernment in penetrating, crisp shockwaves on “Breaking Free,” splitting the project right in half. She’s a torrid rock performer, in much the same fascinating veins of Joan Jett, Regina Spektor and Heart’s Ann Wilson. Her voice is notably more celestial, like painted orbs floating in and out of the physical senses, and while she coalesces her storied past into her instrumentation’s blustering strength, it doesn’t define her or the music. “I’ve survived some serious trouble, and it definitely changed me and made me much stronger. I don’t feel called to dance in it anymore, only to see it and know it and thank it for the lessons,” she says. “Anytime I’ve doubted myself, been out of alignment with my purpose or let certain characters have access to my magic, it always leads to trouble. I’ve had to learn to respect the power that I have and learn to protect it and use it.”

“Trouble, troubling coming for you / No it’s time to pay what’s do,” she sings, a witchy incantation whose gloomy presence is the EP’s downright frightful moment ⎯⎯ yes, that’d be “Trouble.” The mood is magnetizing, seemingly beckoned from the earth’s core and rumbling through Faust herself. Upon reflecting on trouble’s fiendish and tense role in our lives, and considering if it is somehow related to the greater natural world, she broods, “I think, if anything, earth is our mother and is unshakeable. Earth doesn’t fear air, water or fire. They trouble her and change her, but she needs them sometimes in order to grow and support the amazing variety of life she contains.”

Shredding and shedding those rusted chains, Faust exudes an imposing sense of “joy, strength and personal power,” stamped with the fundamental notion “that a person can really understand once they get a second chance to own it.”

She seizes the reigns over her mental, emotional and physical capacity in vigorous shades on her Savior EP. Through shattering the glass ceiling and offering a comforting hand to wayward sufferers, she unmasks rare universal truths, filtered through her own chilling gaze. “I’ll be the savor,” she sings, situating the titular cut as a suitable and compelling bookend, shutting the door on her past and present before soaring off across the sun-caked horizon to some unknown future.

Below, Faust discusses karma, women finally getting justice in the world and interconnectivity online.

In the song “Trouble,” you’re singing about karma, specifically. How do you think karma works?

I think karma happens before we get here, before we agree to come back. It is our mission to learn and understand the karmic agreements we have with certain characters in our story and lovingly let them go so we can grow. I used to feel troubled and tortured by certain karmic patterns, because I couldn’t recognize them until it was too late. When you are ready to move forward and grow at a soul level, you can really look at those patterns with love and forgiveness. It feels good.

The accompanying music video then employs the current social climate to empower and move the needle forward. Why do you think it took so long for many women to finally get justice?

I think the definition of justice for women is still being written by women and all people who have been victimized in this life. There is a paradigm in place that kept us far from our power and really entwined in a false narrative. So many of us have been stepping away from that and into empathy, compassion, forgiveness and true power. Society is still catching up.

On the title cut, who are you saving?

I think the word “savior” has so many connotations, which is why it is so yummy. I’m not saving anyone. My mission with my music and even in this song is to say, “You are the savior you are looking for, and I’m here to help you get to that place, even if it just means feeling good or feeling held for three minutes and thirty seconds.” I’m that friend in real life and in my music that will always let you know that you already have everything you need and you are not alone in this.

How did that song make sense to become the heart of the EP?

The track just felt really powerful, just like the title of the song. I wanted the EP to live up to how big and beautiful the tracks are ⎯⎯ thank you, [producer] Xander Rushie ⎯⎯ by feel uplifting and empowering. My energy is big, like an embrace. I wanted that to come through.

“Brace Yourself” is a definite standout, jump starting the record with fearsome energy. How did it come together?

Xander sent me the track, and it had me feeling all types of fierce ⎯⎯ literally feeling like “you better brace yourself!” It was so fun to work on it with him and Tomas [Costanza]!

How does the EP hit you now as opposed to when you first completed it?

It just washes over me and makes me smile. It is fun, fierce and full of love ⎯⎯ just like me!

You reach out via social media in ways most artists do not. Was that something that seemed like a no brainer for you?

[laughs] Thanks for saying that. I hope… is it a compliment? I am transparent. I always felt bad that I was never like… the sexy, cool, aloof, mysterious, manic pixie blah blah blah. But I have always been big, always sharing, always tender. I felt like people on social media were not being honest or kind to themselves. So, I just started sharing what felt good and honest to me. I have people reach out to me all the time to thank me for being real and for sharing. The best compliment I ever received was “I feel loved when I see your content.”

Follow Faust on her socials: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Website