Grace Anthony Schmidt.
Los Angeles-raised artist Superfan (Kali Flanagan) signed his first record deal at just 14; almost immediately, he accrued buzz for his cinematic dream pop.
With a background in jazz guitar, violin, and upright bass, Flanagan was gifted with an agile musicality and knack for orchestration. That can be heard clearly on his 2022 EP Maltman and Effie, six tracks of rambunctious, ornately composed chamber pop. It was a feat that could have marked a new chapter of pop ambition, but following its release, Flanagan changed his artist name from KALI (letting go of a healthy and steady listenership on Spotify which still sits above 200 K) and relocated to New York City. He was 18.
“Everyone on my team had left,” Flanagan says of that time from a conference table at The FADER’s office on a sunny October day. “I don't think I necessarily intended to walk away from everything, but it felt like the only natural way for me to proceed.”
The career transformation was not the only metamorphosis Flanagan was undergoing. Alongside his cross-country move, he was transitioning — a process he documented on 2024’s Tow Truck Jesus, his first full-length project released under the new moniker Superfan. That album was recorded chronologically and thus the album tracked his voice’s transformation as he underwent hormone therapy. On it, he sang about the changes happening to his body in unflinching terms, but the project is still bolstered with a poeticism that added new depth to his granular, lyrical diarism.
“I am male-presenting and feel secure in that for the first time in my life,” Flanagan says. “That self-security opened the doors to being able to be receptive to the world in a different way.” Now, he has the spiritual bandwidth to train his musical eye on more universal themes. Cue My Piledriver Heart, released October 16 via AD 93, an album which finds Flanagan digging his heels into a new, murkier art rock sound and documenting young adulthood with a cinematic and roaming disposition.
He recorded it with cellist Omeed Almassi (now a part of the band) and producer/engineer Hudson Pollock in a rehearsal space beneath the Manhattan restaurant Indochine. For this album, Flanagan was keen on exploring the harmonic resonance between the cello and his low, drop-tuned guitar. Prior to this record, Flanagan approached recording albums with the idea that it should sound like “clones” of his had made it. But Almassi helped Superfan unlock a darker, more distinctive sound: brushed drums played by Flanagan, murky guitar, and layers of cello.
Flanagan, whose mother is Indian, says that as they made the album they began to acknowledge his and Almassi’s “perspectives as the children of immigrants” making rock in a “Westernized context.” The meticulously composed songs are inspired by Indian classical music and music from the Middle Eastern diaspora, brought by Almassi’s Iranian heritage.
“It's kind of like a machine,” Flanagan says of what he and his collaborators achieved on the new record. On songs like “Jason Powers of The Underminer,” layers of Flanagan’s rumbling acoustic guitar chug like a train as Almassi’s glissandos surround the periphery. Flanagan writes like a bard, part-riddler, part-prophet, narrating the world: “Are tongues always weapons? / Can the sentence exist without a question.” He wants the album to express feelings of inner conflict: “It's kind of like you're biking and the sun is shining, but you're really sad and you're crying.”
Lyrically, the record is vague and drifty, yet emotionally immediate. It evokes the tension he felt as he settled more into himself post-transition while still feeling torn asunder by a "tumultuous" off-and-on-again relationship. “You're holding onto something and also trying to let go at the same time,” he says of the relationship. “That kind of friction creates this ever-present melancholy which is something I was really insistent upon creating sonically and musically on every single song.”
The album is coming out at a busy time for Flanagan as he expands his world of collaborators. He is the bassist in the rising New York City emo band Holidays in United States, who released their newest full-length How to Count to Five on October 5. Plus, he co-produced the moving opening track of New York City singer Operelly’s lithe and charming EP, *FLUTTERS AWAY*.
Grace Anthony Schmidt.
Of New York City’s eclectic music scene, where Flanagan often attends shows that range from noise and emo to down-the-middle indie, he says, “New York has given me a lot of confidence in trusting my instincts.” Despite starting his arc as a professional musician well over a half-decade ago, when he was 14, he says he still feels like he’s at the beginning. “There's so much for me to explore and so many things for me to continue to do and deepen.”
