- Kai Straw
The song coming out next Friday is called ‘Bleeding Out in the 415’, and I wrote it one night when I felt like absolute trash. In life, we ebb and flow. If you’re feeling good, no doubt, something eventually will come along and punch you in the face. I wrote this right after I was punched in the face. I was actually in the process of writing a very uplifting song, and then I was suplexed by the universe, essentially, and got so distracted that I couldn’t write the uplifting song anymore. I had to write a song to capture the negativity. It isn’t void of hope, because that’s not who I am, but there’s a ‘darkness’ to it, for sure.
I think we define ourselves by how we respond to that type of thing. I remember once, back when I was in the nightclub business in San Francisco, sitting in my office during my biggest ‘failure’. The event had about 1/4th the amount of people I needed to break even (meaning – cover all my expenses, talent, and so on). I’d paid for the event myself, so this meant I was in the process of losing a small fortune. The bass from the event was rattling my windows. I was looking at my budget on an excel spreadsheet, checking in with Eddie (shout out to Eddie!) seeing if any more guests were walking up (they weren’t). Once I’d realized this was, yes, going to be carved into stone as a massive loss for me, I thought, “What have we learned?” That’s usually the first question I ask myself when going through something like that, a ‘failure’. I saved that excel spreadsheet, and I talk about that memory fondly, because it taught me far more than my victories ever have.
There are times, too, though, when nothing can be ‘learned’ from a negative experience – let’s say, a personal loss. You lose a friend, maybe. A parent. A sibling? My mom’s twin brother was hit by a car in San Francisco and, like that, he was gone. What could she have done then? I think it’s important to allow yourself to grieve. That’s healthy. It satisfies such a deep psychological need, and to be able to guiltlessly do that, with no greater motive or lesson, I think, is a victory. That’s human.
‘Bleeding Out in the 415’ is me doing that. 💀🌕