Charlene Kaye spent her childhood all over the globe. Absorbing both the old soul records of her parents and the 90s grunge on the radio, she quickly became a full-fledged music obsessive, beginning with piano but soon abandoning it to teach herself punk songs on her mother’s nylon guitar. 
 After college, Kaye moved to New York to pursue music. She played bass and guitar in several Brooklyn bands (including shredding as Slash in an all-girl Guns N’ Roses cover band called ‘Guns N’ Hoses’). In 2014, a mutual friend connected her with San Fermin’s Ellis Ludwig-Leone. Impressed with her voice, he asked her to be San Fermin’s new lead vocalist. This led to five years of collaboration and touring with San Fermin, with Kaye’s blistering frontwoman energy propelling their albums Jackrabbit and Belong (Interscope) to international audiences and festivals worldwide. This included tours supporting alt-J, The National, and St. Vincent. 
 She released the critically acclaimed album Conscious Control, her first full-length in four years, in November 2020. 
 “There are a lot of narratives in music about women expressing their longing for commitment and relationships, but I had a specific experience where that wasn’t the case. I think women especially are sold this idea that if they’re not giving constantly, they’re innately bad—giving to others, giving to a partner, giving to a family. This record is about a time when I didn’t want to give to anybody except myself.”