Katie Alice Greer — Starting Over Solo & Rebuilding Her Sound

Katie Alice Greer released a new album — Barbarism — which emerged after 18 months alone in her room. The solo album is full of surreal language, distorted noise, and disorienting melody.

The Existential Crossroads Katie Alice Greer Was Facing

Katie Alice Greer began making Barbarism in early 2020. She was reeling from the recent breakup of Priests, the infamous band she’d led for the past eight years in DC. It was one of the most essential rock acts of the 2010s throwing up unforgettable shows in crowded basements and clubs that have since closed.

It wasn’t until their second album in 2019, The Seduction of Kansas, that the ties that bound them together started fraying. There was a lot of tension between the members which resulted in group therapy in an attempt to save the band. Greer felt she reached a breaking point and made an agreement with her bandmates to put Priests on indefinite hiatus. The band played a final show in Brooklyn giving their fans a bittersweet moment of closure on December 31, 2019.

Moving to California & Starting Over

Katie Alice Greer said that it felt “too heartbreaking” for her to stay in DC and decide to move to California. It was a very difficult first year that created an even more emotionally intense situation for the artist.

She was working in her “tiny little bedroom” which was the smallest possible room to be recording in. This is where the pop songs “Fake Nostalgia,” “I wanna go outside,” and “Captivated” were born.

The artist releases Barbarism on FourFour Records which was co-founded by Jonathan Galkin who was a longtime Priests fan and has been trying to sign Katie Alice Greer since one of the band’s first releases ever.

Currently, Greer is working on plans to perform Barbarism live in LA and New York and this is definitely something to look forward to.