I first came across King Krule at a gig when I was sixteen. The boy I liked was in a band. My best friend and I were front row, expecting shitty vocals and the sound of guitar pedals droning in our ears. The first song they played was ‘Stoned Again’ by King Krule. I didn’t know who he was, didn’t know the song. Despite this, I was completely enamoured by the song, that moment will forever be entrenched in my mind. Whenever I listen to that particular song it reminds me of that time. Me, my best friend and the dim lighting of Thistle Hall, feeling something I couldn’t name. Before everything happened, before I truly understood what I was listening to, what was going to happen to me after that night. I guess it was a good song for foreshadowing the devastation I’d be feeling in the next year.

King Krule (Archy Marshalls) first rose to fame in the early 2010s, he released his hit ‘Out Getting Ribs’ under the alias Zoo Kid, which garnered attention due to its unique sound and introspective lyrics. He adopted the name King Krule, from (supposedly) the 1958 Elvis Presley film King Creole. Although many believe it’s actually from the Nintendo character King K. Rool. His first album, Six Feet Beneath The Moon, showcased his unique blend of indie rock, hip hop elements, post-punt and a jazz fusion. Which is what ultimately what made him rise to stardom.

Now, I don’t claim to know anything about the technical side of music, but I do know one thing, and that’s writing. His lyrics and deep description is what I love the most about his music and what made me completely obsessed with him and his music. The themes of loneliness, hopelessness and the profound amount of anger he had inside of him is what drew me to him. For the first time in my life, I felt seen and understood. He changed the way I listened to music and drove me to pick up writing again.

He gave me a way to push through my alienation, in a generation that was ultimately brought up in a world that was ever moving and ever lonely. I felt, at 16, filled with existential dread, I felt lonely and lost, in a way I couldn’t even understand. During those two, dark and scary years, I didn’t feel that I was even alive, I felt that I was just existing. Going through the motions, without actually processing it. I was depressed, to put it bluntly. Full of anguish and anger with no one to place blame on. King Krule’s music didn’t try to pull me out of that feeling, it embraced me. It echoed all of the pent up rage inside of me. There was an unidentifiable ache inside of me that gnawed for something more, this music eased that ache. I now have a score for that ache, one that I felt, was just for me, all mine.

When I first listened to Six Feet Beneath The Moon, it was after a party. I had embarrassed myself, and I blacked out. It was my lowest moment. When I think of that night now I just cringe and laugh, but during that time I saw it as a symbol of everything wrong with me, my last downward spiral. I felt that I was born broken, that maybe my life was made up of self-destructive fragments that never seemed to end. I think about that now and laugh, because by that point I was only seventeen, there was no need to be so dramatic.

So the next day, I was in the car, I put my headphones on and listened to Six Feet Beneath The Moon. I sprawled myself along the car seats, closed my eyes and listened. Something shifted inside of me that day, I felt that it gave me permission to fuck up. To let me be imperfect. The self-loathing, the numbness, the anger, King Krule didn’t offer solutions, instead he soothed it. He offered me comfort in a way that no other person can give me. Almost overnight, I became extremely attached to his music, holding it close to me as if it were a piece of ice about to melt.

This disjointed view of myself, obviously got better with time but King Krule offered me solace, a relief. I think he did this for a lot of people in the ‘lonely generation’. We were all raised on overstimulation, disconnection and exceptionally high standards. We were taught that the biggest form of weakness was vulnerability, that any type of emotion that didn’t fall under the umbrella of happiness, was wrong. And with this toxic view, we isolated ourselves, becoming anti-social, feeling misunderstood. Being surrounded by constant noise, but yet no one heard us. What fucking bullshit.

That’s what King Krule did for me, he helped me find the words that I couldn’t find within me. His music, at the end of the day, is about the human condition. The deep existential sorrow we feel late at night that we can’t quite find the language for. It forced me to take a look at myself, to stop putting myself through this torture of obsessing over everything I felt was wrong with me. To just be. Reenter society and give myself some grace.

I think he speaks to people in ways others are not capable of, that’s his beauty. It never felt performative or false. He told the bleak truth; that sometimes you will feel like this. Sometimes you’ll feel like you’re drowning, and sometimes you’ll feel like you’re floating. Krule meets you where you are and for a quiet moment, you feel seen, in your own world.

I’ll leave it here, with my current favourite Kruleee song.