Sam Plascencia

Sara King's second EP Orchid is a dreamy, hyper-pop experience packaged perfectly in six tracks. From beginning to end, King captures floral escapism through personal growth and imaginative recollections. As a rising artist, she cements her artistry from visuals to design through every release. Sara King is a creative mastermind with a knack for building artistic worlds of imagination like Orchid. 

We caught up with the LA-based artist Sara King surrounding the release of her second EP Orchid. Read more about King’s creative processes, goals for the future, and prominent musical influences below!

Bad Wreck: What was your vision behind Orchid and how did you come to conceptualize it?

Sara King: ‘My Flowers Grow’, was actually the first song I wrote from the project, back in the summer of 2020 after just uprooting myself from Texas and moving all the way to California. I had written a handful of floral-inspired demos during that time period, as I was also beginning to venture into learning to create floral arrangements for my new apartment. I ended up putting a lot of those demos aside for a year or two to focus on my previous EP Erotica. Once Erotica was finished, I knew I wanted to keep a storyline going, so I took a look at some of my old demos and brought them into the studio. Cowboy Lansky and I started ‘My Flowers Grow’ in March of 2021 and just from that one session, I knew I was creating a world built around flowers.

BW: When it comes to the visual aspects of your music, what is your creative process?

SK: I typically work backward in a way — there’s usually a very strong visual or music video treatment in my head before I start writing. For instance, when I started writing for Taxi, I told my producer that I wanted to create a song around the word “taxi”. The song flowed pretty naturally from there, as I was subconsciously writing about times where I have felt unsafe in the unwanted presence of a man. Looking for an escape route, hence the line “catching up to speed I’m wondering, where else can I go? I know you’re thinking about my body”.

BW: Orchid involves hyper-pop themes while still driven by soft nostalgic notes. How was finding this balance and development of this sound for the EP?

SK: I had initially planned on keeping the EP completely nostalgic with 80’s undertones, but had hit a couple dead ends during the process. I eventually took a session with my friend Noah Urrea in September of 2022. We hadn’t seen each other in about two years, but we work so well together and I knew we’d have fun creating something. We ended up writing GIRLFRIEND that day and I knew I was opening up a part of me that was more pop influenced, and it felt so natural. We were super jittery and high on adrenaline, it was the perfect session to have before finalizing the EP to recollect my thoughts on the project and open up to the ideas of new pop influences for the project. Creating GIRLFRIEND led me to explore that side of my writing, leading me to create Taxi as the last track we wrote for the EP which touches the hyper pop world.

BW: What intrigued your interest in music? Any prominent musical influences or inspirations?

SK: I grew up listening to my father play guitar and sing every weekend, so from a very early age I at least knew I wanted to learn how to play guitar. It wasn’t until middle school when I started getting more comfortable with people hearing me sing. When I was 12 I saw Taylor Swift live for the first time and for about a year after that show, I would watch the Speak Now Live DVD religiously, taking note of how powerful her performance was and how she was able to connect with the audience. From then on I knew I wanted to be a performer. 

BW: What excites you the most for the future? Any goals you’d like to fulfill as an artist?

SK: I’m excited for all of my music/creative friends to be successful, and to grow together. I’m surrounded by such talented individuals, I’m just looking forward to seeing what we will all accomplish in our careers. I’m excited to keep learning more about music, specifically how to produce for myself.

BW: Lastly, what do you want new listeners to know about you and your music?

SK: I want my listeners to feel hot and empowered when they listen to my music. All of my favorite artists are hot empowering women, so growing up listening to that kind of art inspires me to be the same. Although I am a fully independent artist, I push myself super hard to be able to create what I want to create and do whatever it takes to make something I’m proud of. I hope that that can inspire the next artist to try their hardest to work on their art no matter what kind of support (or lack there-of) they may have.

Listen to Orchid here!