Knave Talks New EP, Facing Spiritual Doubts

Last week, the @cornellclaritas Instagram streamed a conversation between Zachary Lee and Jack Kubinec (whose stage name is knave) about knave’s new EP titled Everybody Lies. Below are a few of our favorite moments from the conversation. You can watch the entire interview here and listen to Everybody Lies here.

Dialogue has been edited for brevity and clarity.

ZL: For Everybody Lies, I'm curious what's the meaning behind the title?

knave: When I was creating Everybody Lies, there were two streams of thought that I brought together. The first one was, this was the first music I had ever made that was personal and real. The music before that was fun, and it was me, but it was kind of tongue in cheek and ‘joking not joking.’ And it's scary to make music like “Stuck.” I was very afraid to release “Stuck” because it just felt like, what if people judge me? People don't always see this side of me. The other stream of thought that I was having was just thinking about how oftentimes when we face difficult circumstances in life, we tell these little lies to ourselves to make life easier. And when I make music, it's really easy to make a generic love song or a generic kind of brag song, but I wanted to make music that was honest. It was like a liturgy for me, to borrow from the Christian tradition, while I was making music just in my head over and over, I would repeat: “Be honest, be honest, be honest.” And so those two things were happening simultaneously, and I thought it was just a fun title to say everybody lies, and let me push into that. But also, let me try to be honest and talk about the real struggles and life experiences that I have.

ZL: Diving more into the title, I'm just thinking a bit more broadly: how do you find liberation in honesty? Because I think on one hand, it's like, oh, you're being honest, it's very freeing, just name it, but I'm sure there's fear of how that will be received. Or, you know, this façade, this verisimilitude you've crafted for yourself isn't the same as who you really are. But if [your last EP] saw you as kind of fun-loving, versatile, very witty, that's still present here. But you're like, I have doubts. I've struggled. Do you still find honesty liberating? And how so?

knave: I didn't want to release the album while I was at school because I was making these songs and was like, “These are heavy sometimes.” A big thing about being very amateur at music is whenever you tell people you make music, they do this thing where they'll pull up your music and play it in front of you and be like, “Oh, this is really good.” I don't want people playing the second half of “Who’s Knave?” in front of me. I was a little bit afraid of the conversations I would have about it, if people would be like, “Yo, who hurt you?” I kind of just forced myself to do it. Life's too short to worry about this stuff. And none of my fears came true. People really connected with the songs in ways that I didn't expect. “Here I Go Again” is one that when I listen to it, I'm just like, “Man, I don't like this version of me.” It's very simp-y, for lack of a better word. But people really connected with it. I find it liberating to make the songs, and I have some songs that are never going to come out that I just needed to make in a moment to talk about an experience that was not very good. This is my journal. This is how I release creatively these emotions I have based on experiences. But then, in the songs that I did put out, it's incredible to see how people don't think of you differently or look at you weird for talking about stuff you're going through because they're going through the same stuff. And they feel the same way sometimes. And we all need music to drive home at 11pm to.

ZL: Yeah, I was definitely running it back, playing Everybody Lies through my flights, and when I was driving to Syracuse, it's a great listen to go through. I love what you said about how for some songs you need to write it in that moment to get it out. And it's able to lead hopefully to a sense of elation or flourishing. And I feel like, unless we're honest about the doubts or questions that we have, will we ever really be able to move forward to that place of flourishing? I feel like so many people are like, “I want to get there first,” but in their rushed attempts to get there, they're never really honest about, who hurt you? Where do you make mistakes? I think of that line in “Stuck,” “It's not that I feel like I'm losing my faith / I just don't know if I'm staying awake.” And ‘staying awake’ can go so many different directions. How do you feel like doubt or working backwards relates to flourishing in your faith?

knave: A line from Tim Keller that I'm really inspired by is in The Reason for God when he says, “It strikes me that a lot of times, we don't take our doubts as seriously as our beliefs, or we don't look at our doubts as closely as our beliefs.” And that's what I tried to do in making this album through all the doubts I expressed. When I made “Stuck,” that was 2020-2021 winter break, and I was stuck. I was in a really bad place spiritually. My family was in quarantine because of a COVID case, and I spent Christmas alone. I was just really feeling far from God, was feeling stuck. And so this song was my way of dealing with it. Because maybe the most toxic thing you can do, and something that I think can really lead people away from faith is not looking at their doubts, pushing them aside, going to church on Sunday, putting on a happy face, and I think that leads to a slow death in your faith. But this was me just being completely honest, like, “Lately I feel stuck / Daily I'm in a rut / Why don't I just give up?” It was freeing and helped me process those doubts and work through them to actually put them on the page. And the song ends with, “Lead me to the ground / Before I slip under the waves and I die without making a sound.” It ends with this note of trusting God, of saying, “I know that you'll lead me out of this, I know that you'll come through because you have before and I know you'll do it again.” And it's really cool because I can look back on that in periods where I'm doing better in my faith and remember where I was and remember what that doubt felt like but also say, “Look how the Lord led me out of that.” Even if you don't make music, I think journaling is a great example of this—just processing doubt and engaging with it and then being able to look back and see the Lord's faithfulness, and I think that's why those moments of doubt in the album are actually pretty precious to me as I listen back.

ZL: Jack, thanks for sharing your thoughts about this project. We'll do it again soon.

knave: Yes, sir. Thank you, Zach.