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King Princess Announces New Album and Tour, Shares “For My Friends”: Stream

Hold On Baby is set for release later this year

Three years since  Cheap Queen ,  a new King Princess era is officially upon us. The singer-songwriter has shared “For My Friends,” the first look at her forthcoming sophomore album Hold On Baby , and announced a supporting North American tour.

Few other details exist about Hold On Baby  besides the fact that it will be out this year, but “For My Friends” previews the album with straight-ahead pop sheen. A love song to the artist’s oldest friends, the track melds a stop-start melody of distorted synthesizers with impassioned vocals from King Princess. “Loving me takes patience,” the singer admits, but she takes comfort in knowing her bonds are unbreakable.

“I thought it would be extra fab to begin releasing this new record with a song about my two best friends from high school,” King Princess said in a statement. “These girls have been through the pits with me, and the more time I spend with them as an adult, the more I’m reminded that they are my home. So thank you my angel horse queens for sticking with me. I love you all and I can’t wait to give you this song.” Listen to “For My Friends” below.

Ahead of Hold On Baby,  King Princess has also announced a tour for the album. The “Hold On Baby Tour” begins July 5th in Vancouver and wraps up September 15th in St. Paul, Minnesota. See the full list of dates below, and grab tickets via Ticketmaster .

Back in January, King Princess teamed up with Fousheé on the song “Little Bother.” Before that, she shared a studio version of live favorite “House Burn Down,”  and delivered a faithful cover of The Velvet Underground’s “There She Goes Again,” which we named Song of the Week .

King Princess 2022 Tour Dates: 07/05 — Vancouver, BC @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre * 07/06 — Seattle, WA @ Paramount * 07/08 — Forest Grove, OR @ Grand Lodge * 07/09 — Boise, ID @ Revolution * 07/12 — Denver, CO @ Mission Ballroom * 07/13 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Union Event Center * 07/15 — Berkeley, CA @ Greek Theatre * 07/16 — Los Angeles, CA @ Greek Theatre * 07/18 — San Diego, CA @ SOMA * 07/19 — Phoenix, AZ @ Van Buren * 07/21 — Austin, TX @ Stubb’s Amphitheater * 07/22 — Houston, TX @ House of Blues * 07/23 — Dallas, TX @ House of Blues * 07/25 — Kansas City, MO @ Arvest Bank Theatre at The Midland * 07/26 — St. Louis, MO @ The Factory at The District * 09/28 — Charlotte, NC @ The Fillmore † 09/30 — Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore † 10/03 — New York, NY @ Radio City Music Hall † 10/05 — Boston, MA @ Roadrunner † 10/06 — Portland, ME @ State Theatre † 10/08 — Toronto, ON @ HISTORY † 10/09 — Detroit, MI @The Fillmore † 10/11 — Pittsburgh, PA @ Stage AE † 10/12 — Cleveland, OH @ Agora Theatre † 10/14 — Madison, WI @ The Sylvee † 10/15 — St. Paul, MN @ Palace Theatre †

* = w/ Dora Jar † = w/ St. Panther

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King Princess Is Prepping Her Sophomore Album, ‘Hold On Baby,’ for 2022 Release

The star is also plotting her next North American tour, which will start in July and see her perform at world-famous venues for the first time.

By Stephen Daw

Stephen Daw

Pride Editor

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In the three years since King Princess unveiled her debut album Cheap Queen , fans of the bedroom- pop sensation have been craving more. Now, it looks like their prayers will be answered soon.

On Friday (March 18), the singer released her latest single “ For My Friends ,” a touching, woozy pop single focused around thanking the people who have stuck by her for years. Alongside the single, King Princess, known off stage as Mikaela Straus, announced that her highly anticipated sophomore album, Hold On Baby , is due out later this year.

Joshua Bassett Announces 'The Golden Years' Headlining Tour: See Dates

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“I thought it would be extra fab to begin releasing this new record with a song about my two best friends from high school,” Straus said in a press release. “These girls have been through the pits with me, and the more time I spend with them as an adult, the more I’m reminded that they are my home. So thank you my angel horse queens for sticking with me. I love you all and I can’t wait to give you this song.”

With a new album cycle also comes a new touring schedule, and Straus is already preparing her next move. The singer confirmed that she will also be heading out on her Hold On Baby Tour starting in early July 2022. Kicking off on July 5 in Vancouver at the Queen Elizabeth Theater, the tour will see King Princess performing for the first time at world-famous venues along the way, including The Greek Theater in Los Angeles and Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

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KING PRINCESS: The Hold On Baby Tour

Presented by 91.3 wyep, promowest north shore & opus one, king princess, st. panther, boo barrymore, king princess, st. panther, boo barrymore, is for lovers & hawthorne heights present: 20 years of tears, hawthorne heights, thursday, anberlin, armor for sleep, stick to your guns, this wild life, kahone concept, ritt momney, rainbow kitten surprise: love hate music box tour, presented by promowest north shore and opus one, rainbow kitten surprise, tori kelly – purple skies tour, tori kelly, maisy kay.

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This show occurred on Tuesday October 11, 2022 .

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KING PRINCESS: The Hold On Baby Tour w/ Em Beihold - RESCHEDULED FROM 7/21

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King Princess at Stubb's has been rescheduled to November 5, 2022 and moved to Emo's. All previously purchased tickets will remain valid for the new date and venue.    

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Hold On Baby

By Shaad D’Souza

Pop/R&B

Zelig / Columbia

August 2, 2022

Cheap Queen , the debut album by King Princess , played like one of those summer nights that stretches on forever. Across a series of louche, Mellotron-heavy ballads, the New York songwriter and producer born Mikaela Straus sang about shooting the shit with friends and exchanging furtive glances with girls across crowded parties, each scene rendered with the insouciant, reflexive cool of an Eve Babitz story. It was a debut whose supreme confidence belied the fact that Straus first became famous after their Patricia Highsmith-referencing debut single “ 1950 ” went viral in early 2018. Where so many musicians react to virality with hesitance—quickly shifting gears or denouncing their early work—Straus delivered on her early promise with the grace and mien of a star.

Like Cheap Queen , Straus’ second record Hold On Baby is urbane and self-possessed, the work of a keen-eared musician coming into their own as a producer and stylist. She sounds even more like herself: More flexible as a vocalist, more cutting as a lyricist, more confident in her own power to bridge gaps between disparate styles. If Cheap Queen ’s palette was ambiguously vintage—all old-school soul flourishes, redone as to slot in easily somewhere between Troye Sivan and Lorde — Hold On Baby firmly positions Straus as someone who came of age in the 2010s, when indie rock was hitting its mainstream peak.

Working alongside a murderers’ row of mainstream-indie heavy hitters including Aaron and Bryce Dessner , Ethan Gruska , Shawn Everett , and Mark Ronson , Straus pulls influences liberally but never thoughtlessly: A Strokes -y guitar line lopes through “Cursed,” while “Crowbar” nods to Sufjan Stevens ’ fluttering piano ballads; the piano at the beginning of “Dotted Lines” recalls Rostam Batmanglij and Ariel Rechtshaid ’s work on Vampire Weekend ’s Modern Vampires of the City , and “Sex Shop” feels of a piece with the alienated sexuality of St. Vincent ’s Strange Mercy . These references never feel winky or obvious, in large part because Straus’ own sense of mood—their fondness for warm tones and spacious atmospherics that can turn cold and claustrophobic in a second—always takes precedence. She presides over the affair with a cool hand and a keen awareness of when to pull back—the restrained elegance of someone who’s spent most of their life hanging around studios.

Hold On Baby is a more solemn record than its predecessor. The energizing frisson that Straus found on Cheap Queen has been supplanted by anxiety and despondence. Hold On Baby isn’t a breakup album; instead Straus finds inspiration in the tensions that arise in a long-term relationship. On “Hold On Baby Interlude,” they describe themselves as “a chipped tooth with the nerve exposed,” and that queasy tension pervades the album. The plush, weightless love song “Winter Is Hopeful” curdles its sweet nothings (“I’m always thinking, thinking, thinking of you”) with ribbons of acid: “But you never believe it.” Straus practically whispers the lyrics; it feels like she’s practicing lines from across the room rather than actually addressing the object of her desire. “Change the Locks,” one of a handful of songs produced with Aaron Dessner, explodes from pleading minimalism into booming, gritted-teeth arena rock, even though one of its primary tensions is impossibly small: “Losing your mind over something I wore/Just ’cause it’s yours.”

Despite its subject matter, Hold On Baby is far from dour. It’s rich with little details that make the whole thing feel alive, like the goofy, overdriven synth that opens “Too Bad” or the crunchy, stomping drums, played by the late Taylor Hawkins , that power “Let Us Die.” The unfussy orchestration of “Winter Is Hopeful” feels like a verdant update of Cheap Queen ’s humid atmosphere; it floats in and out of focus like the scent of jasmine on a spring breeze. Everything on Hold On Baby feels so easy that its missteps are particularly overbearing: “Little Bother,” a collaboration with New Jersey musician Fousheé , feels too similar to all the other emo revival songs that have shown up on pop albums over the past couple of years. It’s one of the few times when Straus’ personality gets lost in the vibe.

Between records, Straus has become a more interesting vocalist. No longer singing with the soulful but slightly anonymous affectation of Cheap Queen , they refit their vocals to suit the needs of each song, jumping into a nasally drawl to convey the sneering nihilism of “Too Bad” and adding a strained, breathy tension to “Change the Locks” and “Dotted Lines.” And her lyrics still possess a dark, needling humor, whether running through a deadpan lockdown routine (“I watch TV, fuck my girl, check my phone, babe/PS5, change my shirt and drink alone, babe”) or telling an ex, “You look the same/Did you stop smoking weed?/Or trying to please your dad?” As with Cheap Queen , Hold On Baby doesn’t achieve any great innovations, but thanks to their stylistic and structural instincts, and their innate star power, Straus still manages to thrill.

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• Perspectives

King Princess is a force to reckon with. The “Hold On Baby” Tour hit Cleveland, Ohio at The Agora on October 12, 2022 as it should, considering she didn’t write the song “Ohio” for nothin’. Opening her set with “Little Bother” and the prettiest stage production, the room couldn’t have felt more ethereal. The band was a great touch to pair with her emotional piano playing while looking at herself in a mirror, literally she had a mirror on her piano, throughout the “slow dancing” portion of the set. The more art and music King Princess creates, it is crystal clear she was born to take the stage to perform around people who may share the same experiences as her and she wasn’t shy to voice how much that meant to her before starting her encores. Her fans are die hards and it’s easy to follow especially when she gives queer people a platform, considering she opens her shows up with local queer artists every night on her tours. Closing the set with a single from her latest record, Let Us Die , nobody was ready for the night to end but until next time.

Words & Photography by Paige Farrow

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• Cheap Queen Tour 2019-2020  ( 19 )
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Average setlist for tour: The Hold On Baby Tour

• Little Bother Play Video
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King Princess’ ‘For My Friends’ Is a Poignant Portrayal of Lifelong Friendships

By Kat Bouza

King Princess will release a new full-length, titled Hold On Baby , later this year — and to mark the announcement, the singer has dropped “For My Friends,” an ebullient, hook-laden pop ballad slated to appear on the album. The single follows “ Little Bother ,” a collaboration with Fousheé released earlier this year.

The project of 23-year-old songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mikaela Straus, King Princess first gained acclaim for her 2018 queer anthem, “1950.” Hold On Baby marks the follow-up to the critically acclaimed 2019 debut album, Cheap Queen.

Driven by pulsating synth arpeggios and Straus’ delicate, airy vocals, “For My Friends” is an emotive expansion of the finely tuned maximalist pop that’s become the New York-native’s signature. “You hate it, but loving me takes patience/So we lose touch when I’m faded,” she sings on the track. “And it can get dark but still, I know/You’re waiting/Loving me takes patience.”

The single was inspired by Straus’ relationship with her close friends, Cicely and Chloe. “I thought it would be extra fab to begin releasing this new record with a song about my two best friends from high school,” she said in a release. “These girls have been through the pits with me, and the more time I spend with them as an adult, the more I’m reminded that they are my home. So thank you my angel horse queens for sticking with me. I love you all and I can’t wait to give you this song.”

“For My Friends” is accompanied by a video directed by Nick Harwood, which finds Straus and two pals prepping for a night out in New York City that, like so many reckless evenings do, quickly devolves into chaos — drunken fights, raucous laughter in the streets, holding a friend’s hair back as she pukes her brains out, facing a hangover the following morning. Despite the drama, the video is an honest — if not somewhat sentimental — portrait of the highs and lows of friendships in young adulthood.

King Princess will embark on an expansive U.S. tour in support of  Hold On Baby this summer, with stops scheduled at Radio City Music Hall in New York City and the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.

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King Princess Tour Dates

July 5 – Vancouver, BC @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre July 6 – Seattle, WA @ Paramount Theatre July 8 – Forest Grove, OR @ Grand Lodge July 9 – Boise, ID @ Revolution July 12 – Denver, CO @ Mission Ballroom July 13 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Union Event Center July 15 – Berkeley, CA @ The Greek Theatre July 16 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Greek Theatre July 18 – San Diego, CA @ SOMA July 19 – Phoenix, AZ @ Van Buren July 21 – Austin, TX @ Stubb’s Amphitheater July 22 – Houston, TX @ House of Blues July 23 – Dallas, TX @ House of Blues July 25 – Kansas City, MO @ Arvest Bank Theatre at The Midland July 26 – St. Louis, MO @ The Factory at The District September 28 – Charlotte, NC @ The Fillmore September 30 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore October 3 – New York, NY @ Radio City Music Hall October 5 – Boston, MA @ Roadrunner October 6 – Portland, ME @ State Theatre October 8 – Toronto, ON @ HISTORY October 9 – Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore October 11 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Stage AE October 12 – Cleveland, OH @ Agora Theatre October 14 – Madison, WI @ The Sylvee October 15 – St. Paul, MN @ Palace Theatre

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Meet King Princess. The Queer 23-Year-Old Rockstar With A Knack For Keeping It Real

Following the release of her sophomore album "hold on baby" grazia speaks with the rock-pop singer on growing up in brooklyn and rising to fame.

It’s nearly 8pm on a Wednesday night in Brooklyn, New York when I connect to Mikaela Mullaney Straus – aka King Princess – on a Zoom call. She’s sitting on her bed with a red wine in one hand and a vape in the other. Her girlfriend Quinn Wilson is in the background raiding her mother’s vintage shoe collection from the basement. “Oh my gosh what are those,” King Princess exclaims, looking past the webcam and at some fabulous pair of shoes. She looks back at me and continues, “Quinn fits into my mum’s shoes.

“I also don’t wear heels so this incredible shoe collection my mum has arranged over years and years goes to waste with me,” she adds. “I’m a non-binary queer person that doesn’t wear heels. My cis-gendered girlfriend wears heels – she’s stomping around the house!”

King Princess is quick to call out the thick Australian accent of myself and her local publicist. We laugh and reminisce on old Australian television sit coms, a niche genre that the 23-year-old is surprisingly well-versed in. It’s clear that the indie singer carries the same relaxed rock ‘n’ roll sensibility that can be heard in her music, but she’s not without her demons and isn’t afraid to sing what she feels.

This month, King Princess released her second studio album Hold On Baby   following viral success from hit singles “1950” (a personal favourite of Harry Styles) and “Talia”. Before she travels to Australia to support Florence + The Machine ‘s tour, we caught up with the star to discuss her upbringing in New York City, rising to fame and working with legendary producer, Mark Ronson.

GRAZIA: Not many people can say they grew up in Brooklyn. Can you recall that experience?

King Princess: “It was super cool. Growing up in New York is a weird, amazing privilege where you are just inundated with art and culture and people of all different walks of life. All I knew was this city and it has shaped so much about how I communicate, how I meet people, my openness. It’s such a city of individuals.”

“Hold on Baby” forms the interlude for the body of work. Why did you choose it as the title track?

KP: “I chose the title track before I wrote the interlude. But that melody at the end of the interlude was actually written as a joke – me and [songwriter] Ethan Gruska wrote that as like a lol. And then we thought, that’s a really good melody… I chose it because that’s what I’ve been saying to myself for the past five years now: just hold on.”

What inspired the album?

KP: “Anti-depressants (laughs). Figuring out my s**t. It’s a really really challenging world we live in and a really challenging time to be young. I know I feel it. I feel so out of my body sometimes that I’m so disillusioned by the world and I feel like I turn into a shell, and stay inside and don’t do anything. While I was doing that for two years I thought, ‘I need to write about this. Because this is not healthy.’ I’m a social person but I’m introverted in some ways and I feel like I really lost a big part of myself when I went into isolation. I was feeling so down that I wasn’t seeing people. I wanted to write about those feelings, we all feel that way sometimes. Some more than others. People are resonating with the themes and people are wanting to feel good about themselves but knowing how hard that is.”

Did you feel any pressure backing up your debut album with this second body of work?

KP: “Yes, I felt pressure (nervous laughs). I felt really sad and really stressed out but what I came too was a record that I’m very proud of, that one day I will be proud to have made this record for the rest of my life. I love this music, I think it’s great, I love playing this music live… I don’t want to ever [release music] that I don’t feel this way about.”

View this post on Instagram A post shared by mr princess (@kingprincess69)

In a past interview, you recalled what a huge deal it was when Harry Styles tweeted about you in 2018. Looking back, how have you personally and professionally evolved since that time?

KP: “I think my music is better. I’ve gotten better at making music and I’ve gotten better at playing live. I’m more openly sensitive and kind. I’ve spent a lot of time working out how to be a better friend, a better girlfriend, family member. I have a lot of work to do but I see an evolution in myself that is for the better, just as a person. That’s the goal right? To not be a d**k. I would really like to leave a positive mark on whatever I do and even when it’s hard and the music is sad, I hope that it’s aiding someone in their journey. In order to do that you’ve got to be honest and really feel that way.”

Did you ever expect your music to take off with the track “1950”? It’s certainly where I first discovered you.

KP: “I knew that song was really good. I didn’t know it was going to go viral. To some degree it’s hard because you’re chasing after those 550 million streams… it’s so crazy how many streams that song has! It’s like a Drake song! That song popped off on a whim. There was no promotion behind it, there was no big money organisation funding on the low. The people just loved that song. So, I had to go back and do all this ground work and realise what type of artist I want to be, because one song does not an artist make.”

You’re currently signed with Mark Ronson’s Zelig Records. What career lessons have you learnt from the producer?

KP: “I’ve learned a lot about sonics and recording and how s**t has to sound good. Getting things to sound good requires innovation, it requires getting into the nitty gritty, getting real players, getting people to come in and play with you… because music is communal, music inner personal.”

You’re returning to Australia and New Zealand in 2023 to support Florence + The Machine’s World tour. What do you love most about being on stage?

KP: “The crowds are wild. The gays are wild. Gay people in Australia go extra hard at shows. I think you guys have an appreciation for music in a way that… [the US] have pop radio and we have this hierarchy systems of charts but y’all have Triple J. Triple J plays what Triple J likes and its good music and it’s across all genres. It’s not specific to queer versus straight…the people who listen to it have a lot of autonomy and choice. That is so foreign to me as an American musician because you just have no say.”

The lyrics from many of your tracks are incredibly vulnerable. Can you recall how it feels to sing those lyrics to a live audience?

KP: “It feels really good because when you’re validated for your most inner, introspective, personal feelings – we all have them – some of us are just extra enough to write them down. I feel really amazing when I get that osmosis, that transfer of energy from people. It’s even more healing than recording it. You’re releasing this energy, this pain. I love it.”

What did you have to do to break through that mainstream/pop sphere to really have your career take off in the US?

KP: “I haven’t (laughs). I love my career in the US, I love playing shows and I love my fanbase. But I’m not on pop radio. For all intent and purposes I’m an indie artist and I think that what is also nice about coming to Australia is how much love there is for people coming in and playing shows… artists are taken care of in a way that, we just don’t roll like that.”

What do you hope listeners take from this new album?

KP: “I hope that people listen to this album and think that they’re being too hard on themselves. That it’s ok to feel incredibly overwhelmed and saddened by life, but that through art we can figure out ways to cope. You’re never alone in those thoughts.”

King Princess’s new album “Hold On Baby” is available to stream now. 

topics: King Princess , music , Trending