Lex, aka killinginthekitchen, is a singer-songwriter on the rise. The emerging artist spoke to NYOTA about Taylor Swift’s influence, writing vulnerable music, and growing up in a creative family.

What first inspired you to begin your musical journey, and do you have any advice for artists who are just starting out?

I grew up doing dance and theater, so I was always surrounded by creativity and art, and my family is super creative. My mom just does everything that’s creative. My grandfather also plays the guitar, and he’s actually great. We worked on a song, or one of my songs, together. That one hasn’t come out yet, but I’m very excited about that. And my uncle plays instruments. Everybody I grew up around is very creative. Doing theater, I was always singing all the time, but it wasn’t until high school that I started doing songwriting. Then when I moved to Orlando, I loved going to live shows and watching live musicians, and I thought I just had to put myself out there as an artist. I was doing open mics and finding my own producer so I could actually release music, and now I’ve been playing shows for the last three years in Orlando. Now, I’m working with my producer that I really enjoy, and being more, in a sense, professional about it than I was when I was just writing songs for fun and doing theater and stuff. So it’s a lot of fun to be like, “Wow, it is possible to pursue something that I loved so much growing up.”

There’s a confidence and ease to your vocals and songwriting throughout your discography. Is your sound reflective of how you feel when writing songs?

I would say yes and no. I think a lot of my, especially my earlier singles, were really experimenting with my sound because I had never released music. I only play acoustic guitar, so everything I write is on the acoustic guitar. Then when I bring it to the studio, I have a very vague idea of what I want the song to sound like. I work a lot with my producer. All of my songs, except for my two recent singles, were with different producers, so that’s why the sound is kind of different, and every song is a little different. I would say the song that probably sounds the most like me and my writing style is one of my recent singles, “All Grown Up,” because I write a lot of slow, acoustic-sounding songs. “Jinx” was different because my producer loves experimenting. He’s very heavy on the guitar, so that was where he really got to put a lot of his ideas into the song. I was like, “Okay, wait, I like this idea.” We experimented a lot with the sound on that song.

Your work feels unified, while still allowing for each song to have its own unique elements. When making music, do you aim to give each song its own moment?

I think because each song I’ve released so far has had months between releases, they all had their own little moment. When I was playing shows, it would just be that song for a while. Then I released one more, and I’m just playing those two. I will say now, because I think my first three singles I released were in 2020, 2023, and 2024, it’s been a while since I felt those feelings that I felt when I wrote those songs. Now I pick and choose which ones I feel like playing because I’ve been playing a lot of unreleased songs at recent shows because I am working on new music. I do pick and choose. Specifically, I will say I don’t really sing “Abandoned Loners” at gigs as much anymore because I wrote that song so long ago, and I don’t really feel as alone and as lonely as I did when I wrote that song. I can sing it if I need a filler song, but I don’t feel those same emotions anymore. 

Your song “biting the hand that feeds you” feels deeply introspective, something that comes through in a lot of your work. Did musicians like Taylor Swift and Gracie Abrams influence your reflective style of songwriting?

A hundred percent, specifically Taylor Swift. I grew up listening to her since I was probably, like, 6 or 7 years old. She was my first concert. I saw her “Speak Now” Tour. I’ve been listening to her since I was a little kid. When I got into songwriting, I was inspired by a lot of her music, and same with Gracie Abrams just because I love her writing style. A lot of my music, I would say, is influenced by artists like that. For “biting the hand that feeds you” specifically, I was inspired by the Boygenius song, “Biting the Hand.” I wrote that song right after going through a really hard friendship breakup, and I was trying to figure out how to navigate feelings of anger and sadness. I listened to that song, and I don’t even think that’s what their song is about. I just loved that phrase, “Bite the hand that feeds you,” and then the song just poured out. It was really helpful to me to be able to grieve those emotions of losing that friendship. So I think that’s also one of my favorite songs of mine.

Your song “abandoned losers only navigate embarrassment” deals with feelings of loneliness and repeated self-reflection, themes that are easy for listeners to connect with. Like Taylor Swift revisiting “All Too Well” with the 10-minute version, it seems there was more of the story left to tell. What does the extended version of this song offer that the original doesn’t?

I will say for that song, the reason that there is an extended version is that the song, when I originally wrote it, was six minutes long. The producer I was working with was like, “Hey, it’s probably not great to release a six-minute song. So we’ll do a cut-down version, and then we’ll have an extended version.” And I was like, “That makes sense.” I probably wouldn’t want to click on a six-minute song unless I’m really invested in the artist. I will listen to the 10-minute version of “All Too Well.” But I wrote that song from a feeling of loneliness. All my friends were in relationships. I was the only one who was single in the friend group. And I was so scared to go do things by myself. I would always want a friend to go with me, but they were always busy with their own thing or their partner or whatever. It came to a point where I was like, “I’m missing out so much on life if I don’t just put myself out there and just go to places alone.” I remember going to watch a friend perform a show by myself, and then I remember walking somewhere by myself and coming up with that phrase, like, “Abandoned Loners Only Navigate Embarrassment.” It is abbreviated to spell A.L.O.N.E so I was trying to be a little creative with the title. But I think the extended version also elaborates more on that feeling and having to navigate it. Having to navigate that feeling and not be missing out so much on life because you’re so scared of feeling alone.

The opening notes of “jinx” seem to blend Nirvana grunge and Fleetwood Mac magic, a rare combination that suits your music well. How has experimenting with genre influenced your recent work?

I think making “Jinx” was some of the most fun I’ve had making a song. I think that’s the first one of the first few songs I worked on. “All Grown Up” and “Jinx” were worked on with my current producer, who I love. We’ve become such good friends, and he’s also so talented instrumentally. He was playing around with guitar chords he had because when I wrote “Jinx,” it was on the acoustic. It was very toned down. It was not like a beat at all. It was a sad song, and then he was like, “How does this guitar rip sound?” I was like, “That’s so fun.” It kind of gave The 1975 vibes. I think just getting to experiment…you don’t have to be stuck in one genre as an artist. There are so many different genres of music that you can navigate, and you can explore, and think it’s so fun getting to work with someone who writes different music because my producer, he’s in a heavy metal band, and then I’m here with my indie sad girl music. So it’s fun to be able to experiment with each other’s styles. So that was a lot of fun to be able to work on that song with him, and he is the best.

“Jinx” is about struggling with OCD and anxiety, something that can be easily misunderstood by those who do not experience it. The lyrics are an insightful look into what life feels like when you live in your head. Was it intimidating to release something so vulnerable?

I think so. I think a lot of the music I’ve been writing recently has been very vulnerable. But specifically that song, I know I wanted to write a song about that feeling, and that’s only one part of it. There are so many different parts of OCD. I wrote it when I was on vacation, and we were trying to fly back home. And there were problems with our plane getting delayed, so the person I was with was like, “Oh my gosh, we’re going to be stuck here forever. Like, we’re never going to go home.” And in my head I’m like, “Oh my God, we’re never going to go home. Oh my God. Like, we’re stuck here forever.” And I’m like, “That’s bad luck. You can’t jinx that. Like, don’t say that. Don’t say that.” And then later I come to realize, like, there is no bad luck. It’s all in my head. You’re not going to jinx anything. But it’s just something where if I don’t do things a certain way, or if I don’t do things at all, it’s going to affect the way that the universe is going to happen; bad things are going to happen. But realistically, that’s not how it works. So, it’s inspired by that experience and that feeling of that part of my OCD. Like, I generally do lift my feet up when I’m driving over railroad tracks, things like that. It was a good release to be able to explain, like, write out those feelings, and understand that part of my OCD. But the fun part was writing into this song because it is such a vulnerable, like, feeling. But then it’s this very upbeat, dance-heavy song. So it was very interesting to write. I made a music video for it as well, which was so much fun. It was my friends and me where we had a sleepover, and the “jinx” was all in my head. I could not be present at the sleepover. Just, like, everything kept happening. And it was so fun, writing that… writing the script for that with my girlfriend and being able to put that together with my friends, who are so supportive of my music and of the song. So it’s definitely a favorite of mine. 

How do you think “jinx” has influenced your songwriting? Do you want to bring this level of vulnerability to future projects?

Yeah, I have this next period of work that I’m working on that I’ll hopefully be releasing soon, within, like, the next few months. With this project, I have definitely been more vulnerable with my songwriting, especially because of the phase of life I’m in. I’m in my early 20s. I generally feel like learning more about myself and feeling different parts of myself that I pushed away for so long growing up. So, a lot of that is coming out in my songwriting. And “jinx” is just the start of it. There are some of my favorites that are on this project that I’m so excited for people to hear. I’m revealing a part of me that I don’t really talk about because you don’t really talk about that stuff with everybody. But when it comes to songwriting, it’s so much easier to put it into a song than to say it to people. So I’m very excited for people to hear what’s beyond “jinx.”