With his new album ‘AVANTI’, Malice K proves there’s beauty to be found in the darkness of small-town memories. Check out our latest Hype playlist cover feature.
Words: Ciaran Picker.
Photos: Jennifer McCord.
If there’s anyone who deserves to have a Hollywood hit made about their life, it’s Malice K. From teenage rebellion in rural America to an adulthood now spent in the City That Never Sleeps, his experiences (both good and bad) have led him both to this moment and the creation of his new album, ‘AVANTI’. A homage to his hometown, it is an open and honest account, one which sees him shed some emotional baggage and walk into a bright and beautiful sunrise.
In its essence, ‘AVANTI’ is a heartfelt retrospective that confronts demons with crystal clear vision. Blurring the edges of grunge, punk, and folk, Alex Konschuh – aka Malice K – contrasts his small-town youth with his newfound big-city life, combining childhood hopefulness with a more experienced sense of dread.
“I think bleak-but-romantic pretty much sums up the record; to be honest, it pretty much sums me up as a person,” Alex laughs. Taking time to carve out the exact record that he wanted to create, using moments of self-reflection to slowly amalgamate a collection of tracks that represented exactly how he felt at that time.
“There are not many times that I have revealing moments or where I can be transparent about how vulnerable I’m feeling. It all comes in flashes of inspiration, so I just try to make myself totally available to those moments.”
Waiting for writing sessions to align with personal breakthroughs meant that the creation of ‘AVANTI’ took two years from start to finish, but this never worried Alex, with his art always being a labour of love rather than a money-grab.
“I play guitar and try to write a song every day, but sometimes there’d be weeks or months between recording because I always wait until I have something worth laying down. I don’t like to rush it and force myself to create a product because I have to stand by it.”
“I’d love to be able to force inspiration and speed up the process, but I just get really stressed out when I try that; it feels like I’m copying someone or sometimes even copying myself. I’m like, ‘Ok, I need to create this super real Malice K song’, and I can’t deal with that.”
It’s clear from listening to ‘AVANTI’ that Alex’s biggest critic is often himself, something which resulted in him pouring himself into this record wholeheartedly. Most clearly put forth in the form of delicate acoustic tracks such as ‘Radio’ or ‘Fade’, the album is peppered with moments of heartbreaking expression that represent an artist forging treasure from their trauma.
“I care too much about it, probably in an unhealthy way,” Alex admits. “I avoid trying to feel too disappointed in myself, which is partly why it takes so long to make music. It’s rewarding and I’m excited for it to be out, but I attach so much of my self-worth to my music that by the time I get something done I’m exhausted with myself.”
Alex hails from Olympia, the capital of Washington State, a place renowned not only for its breathtaking natural beauty, but also for its illustrious alternative music scene. Famous riot grrrl bands such as Bikini Kill grew out of the Pacific Northwest, and the city even boasts Moldy Peaches’ Kimya Dawson as a resident. It’s the town’s most prodigious export, though, whose presence lingers across this Malice K record: Kurt Cobain.
“Bleak-but-romantic pretty much sums up the record; to be honest, it pretty much sums me up as a person”
Malice K
“Everyone’s got a story of meeting Cobain or seeing him around,” Alex nonchalantly states, “my parents always talk about going to house parties and seeing Nirvana playing, or Blush anyway, and it’s a small city, so you couldn’t really escape the effect he had on the place.”
Whether in Alex’s strained vocal style or the sometimes manic, sometimes melancholic atmosphere of ‘AVANTI’, it’s impossible to avoid the connections to Cobain and Alex’s youth immersed in the Washington grunge scene. Effortlessly punchy ‘Weed’ could easily be an ‘In Utero’ B-Side, whilst obsessive love song ‘You’re My Girl’ contains all the passion, energy, and catharsis that was at the heart of Washington’s 90s grunge scene.
This record isn’t just some pale parody or cheap knockoff, though, with these nods to his hometown stitching together the fabric of an album that was designed to be a tribute to his upbringing, one that was – by Alex’s own admission – far from smooth-sailing.
From the initial bone-chilling scream in opening track ‘Halloween’ right through to the trembling vocal of closer ‘Blue Monday’, ‘AVANTI’ is an example of how to find beauty in the darkness. Named after the alternative high school he attended, Alex brought together the teenage angst that consumes so many of us, and the support he felt from adults around him as they tried to nurture his artistic and musical talent.
“My teachers were really awesome,” he recalls, “they were the most encouraging of my artistic talents out of anyone at that time. It was an alternative high school, so they would incorporate music into math class, with ukeleles and stuff, which led me onto playing guitar and writing songs.”
“But when I got to my junior year, I just thought, ‘I’ve been here ten years, what am I doing?’ and wanted to leave. My teachers were super worried and didn’t want me to drop out, so were like, ‘Ok, you can just do whatever you want, just draw for every class!’. It felt really nice that they cared so much, but at that point, I just knew I had to get out; I had so much to figure out about myself and my life that nobody had the answers to.”
“I’m at that age anyway where I’m naturally figuring out ways to be less burdened by identity”
Malice K
“With this album, I wanted to give a shout-out to that school and those people, but it also means progress and moving forward in Italian, so it worked for what I was going for.”
Both in name and content, this Malice K album represents an endnote to Alex’s exploration of his past, with his new life in New York City – a far cry from the relative quiet of Olympia – forcing him to grow up and grow out of who he was.
“I think these will be some of the last songs I write about that time of my life. My relationship with Olympia has changed because my relationship with myself has changed. The influence my growing up had on me is subconscious now, and I’m at that age anyway where I’m naturally figuring out ways to be less burdened by identity.”
Journey is a key theme of this record, in regard to Alex’s changing circumstances and the flow of the record. Inspired by some of the greats, ‘AVANTI’ is designed to be surprising, intriguing, and engrossing.
“It was a really wild couple of years that are really hard to explain because I’ve already changed so much, but I wanted the listener to go on that journey with me, creating something that you could play through without having specific songs that stand out.”
In this way, Alex made sure to formulate an album that was as diverse as possible, with the mechanical elements of the album being as important as the sonic and lyrical moments that made their way onto the record.
“I was really inspired by the way The Beatles would experiment with song styles on one album,” Alex explains, “they didn’t really do concept albums and focussed on writing pop songs that would get stuck in your head. I didn’t spend loads of time on the tracklist, but I wanted to mix it up so that it’s not pigeonholed too much, and so that it doesn’t feel like a folk album with loads of punk at the end.”
This level of thought and dedication to every aspect of the record comes from Alex’s experiences within the music industry, with this his third album under the Malice K moniker, and one that brings with it a hardened perspective on the music industry.
“I’ve got a different idea of what success is,” he candidly states. “It’s not like you make it or you don’t make it. I meet people who have loads of monthly listeners, but nobody goes to their shows, and I also meet others who have loads of fans, but their stream counts are super low. You’ve just got to make music that captures whatever is going on in that room at that moment, and if it blows up, then great.”
In many ways, Malice K represents a pushback against the current order of things, with Alex’s writing style being more akin to the bands that shaped him as a teenager, rather than leaning into trends that might improve his position on algorithmic platforms.
“You can tell when people are trying to make rock music, but the drums have been punched in or re-recorded in a way that you can tell it’s all done on a computer. When I was a kid, I was super into The White Stripes and Black Sabbath, but I also like country music a lot. I guess trying to emulate the way they made music is my way of paying tribute to them.”
With this whole project being a look back at Alex’s formative years, it’s perhaps no surprise that he feels uncomfortable in an environment so focussed on grabbing listeners attention in a social media landscape that’s turned fifteen minutes of fame into a relatively impressive time at the top.
“It’s so crazy, like I’m promoting my album on the same platform that I learned Donald Trump had been shot, and I didn’t find out about that until two days after it happened. It’s hard to not feel existential about it, but it does mean I have less stamina to deal with fluctuating listener numbers or likes on Instagram because I know it doesn’t really represent how the world views stuff.”
Being existential and leaning into those fundamental fears actively excels and propels this album to another level, one that wouldn’t be able to be achieved without Alex’s ability to be blunt about his own misgivings, trepidation, and sometimes even faults. Maybe it’s not always romantic, and it might sometimes break you down to your lowest point, but this emotion is Alex’s biggest strength.
With a big heart, a clear head, and an even clearer sense of who he is, this is Alex’s new dawn, and he’s ready to wake up and seize the day. ■
Malice K’s album ‘AVANTI’ is out now. Follow Dork’s Hype Spotify playlist here.
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