Kath Myers Tackles Social Anxiety on 'Dirty Laundry'

Today Kath Myers shares "Dirty Laundry", the latest single from her forthcoming debut album Sensitive Groups out June 25th. The Los Angeles based musician only began playing music at 31, but Myers approaches her craft with a unique balance of world weary wisdom and the exhilaration of a newfound obsession. "This song is about social anxiety and not knowing how to act at parties," shares Myers of "Dirty Laundry". "It's also about having friendships/relationships with extroverted people," she goes on, "and being very confused about how anyone can possibly be comfortable talking to groups of strangers." It's a sentiment many may feel acutely as people start gathering together in groups again this summer and fall. "Dirty Laundry" follows debut single "According To The Law" which Buzzband.LA lauded as "confessional indie rock" with musical touchstones including Aimee Mann and Jenny Lewis.

The songs on Sensitive Groups were written over the past five years, but Myers started recording them at the beginning of the weird strange glow of 2020 with Aaron Stern in his Glassell Park garage studio. Most of the album was recorded there, in an untreated garage, with just a few simple mics and some good players - primarily Michael Villiers on drums, Dillon Casey on guitar/pedal steel/keys, Juan Salzano, Matt LaRocca and Jason Roberts on more guitars, SieSie Benhoff on BVs, and Aaron Stern on bass, keys, co-production, and even more guitar. The production feels like a heavy nod to Richard Swift, but there's a vibrance, a simplicity and precision that reminds of a Faye Webster or Aldous Harding record.

Myers' journey to becoming a songwriter and performing musician came about on an unconventional timeline. Born and raised in Ohio, after college she'd make a brief stop in Chicago, and then an extended stay in New York City where she held a well paying but unfulfilling job in corporate America. Eventually, wanderlust and a desire for something more took hold, and after close to a decade in NYC and Brooklyn she took her life's savings and traveled for 6 months before finally landing in LA. It was then, already into her 30s, that she first picked up a guitar and began to play and sing.

Myers had finally found her calling, but she had another battle to fight before Sensitive Groups could become a reality. "I really don't think that this record would have been made if I didn't get sober," Myers relates. "I was so crippled with fear and self doubt that I just didn't think it would have happened." Conversely, it was making the album that has kept her going. "Keeping busy for me is crucial as I can't be trusted with my own thoughts," she reveals, a sentiment most people living in the current times can probably relate to. Sobriety has been a crucial step for her to take in relation to her rebirth as an artist. "I feel like a newborn baby," says Myers. "I'm well into my 30s and I feel like I'm just getting started with things that I have always wanted to do, and with decades of pent up experiences to draw from when writing."

Most of the songs were written when Myers was still drinking and riddled with anxiety and fear, but they come off as the vibrant, calm, and fearlessly funny work of an understated rock & roll singer, digging her heels into what it means to take honest songs and make an honest record. There's a deadpan vulnerability to the nine songs on Sensitive Groups; there's also a pop hook in almost every one of them. Myers' verses skirt around the edge of confessional 90s rock & roll, think Aimee Mann and Liz Phair, but the choruses hit early and hit hard, weaving back and forth across that gauzy median of contemporary indie-rock and pop. There is a deep, dark vein of humor throughout this record, but also such a nonchalant, zero fs to give delivery that feels sexy, messy, brave, and brilliantly alive.

Listen here: