A classically trained singer with a fondness for rock, country and German theater songs, Hayley Thompson-King certainly draws from a diverse palette on her second album, Sororicide. And she came up with a concept that allowed her to explore all of it — including the Country & Western weeper “Drink Her Away,” premiering exclusively on Billboard today (Feb. 27).
The Massachusetts-based songstress tells Billboard the 11-song album, out May 29, is steeped in The Seven Deadly Sins ballet by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, with of course her own spin on where the story leads. “It’s about the two sides of someone’s personality — that’s an idea that’s always inspired me,” Thompson-King says. “The story is about this woman who has an inner voice that’s like a twin she absorbed in utero. It’s so loud she kind of goes crazy and can’t really function, so she decides she needs to kill it but then mourns for it. It really felt like it was a sister to her, and really important. It’s sort of operatic in that it’s really tragic.”
The metaphor, of course, reflects Thompson-King’s relationship with her own diverse music — except she has no inclination to rid herself of any of it. “I feel like I have times [that] my voice can sound very classical, very trained, then times when it can sound more rock ‘n’ roll,” she explains. “But instead of getting rid of one of those sides I think it’s really truthful for me, about that inner voice, which is very loud and can be destructive, but also this other part of you that develops. And I’m trying to use all of that on [the album].”
Sororicide, produced by Sean Slade (Hole, Radiohead, Lou Reed) certainly takes a wild stylistic ride. Thompson-King runs a gamut from the hard rocking “Mid-nite Convenient” and “All the Boys Love You” to the classically stepped “Must the Winter Come So Soon,” “Toi, le coeur de la rose” and the torchy “Elijah.” She gets her twang on for “Drink Her Away” and “Whiskey Dick,” and Thompson-King feels the former ties together a lot of the story threads just in front of the death “scene.”
“I think it’s sort of the cornerstone of the story,” says Thompson-King, who wrote “Drink Her Away” five years ago. “What the song is really about is trying to kill that part of yourself that’s the most tender — and in my case, the most important. It’s that core element of yourself that you really love but it’s very delicate, so sometimes you turn on it. It’s right before everything falls apart in the story, kind of the low point before the death, if you will.”
Thompson-King has worked with some visual artists to create projections for live performances of Sororicide, and she hopes to create some videos to accompany the project as well. And she acknowledges a feeling of accomplishment in realizing a somewhat abstract ambition.
“It does feel good,” she says. “As an artist you work hard at making whatever’s in your brain come out and feel right. This is the closest I’ve come to that. So I’m proud of the work I’ve done, and it really feels like what I was trying to say is really what I got to say.”
Listen to “Drink Her Away” below.