Start Listening To: Flooding

Rose Brown on satire, shame, and how pretending to be a “piece of shit male rock idol” led to Flooding’s best songs yet.

Kansas City band Flooding make guitar music that’s moody, heavy, and sharp-edged, but never one-note. At the heart of it is songwriter and frontperson Rose Brown, whose voice cuts through satire, sadness, and fury in equal measure. With their new EP object 1, the band lean into pop structure without losing their bite, pairing hooks with perspective and a cathartic sneer. We caught up with Rose to talk about writing from the antagonist’s point of view, making music on gut instinct, and why Lana Del Rey and Fugazi aren’t such a strange pairing after all.

For those unfamiliar with your music, can you tell us who you are, where you’re from and about the music you make?

My name is Rose Brown, I’m the singer, guitarist, and songwriter of Flooding. We’re a band from Kansas City and we make rock music.

Your new single “your silence is my favorite song” takes aim at a manipulative male figure. What drew you to writing from that kind of character’s perspective?

I’ve been exploring the perspective of the antagonist because I think it’s a much more interesting way to talk about things like abusive relationships and general misogyny than from the point of view of the victim. I don’t want to write bummer songs that retell the same bummer stories we all know too well. I want to write an awesome rock song that holds a mirror up to losers who think they run the world. That’s way more fun to me.

You’ve mentioned it’s fun to pretend to be a “piece of shit male rock idol.” Is there a catharsis in slipping into that role, especially in a genre historically dominated by that persona?

There’s absolutely a catharsis in it and that’s what Flooding is all about. I’ve put on that mask for what I now think are the best Flooding songs because it just felt right, and catharsis is all about doing what feels right I’m pretty sure.

object 1 seems to bring in more melody and pop structure than your earlier work. Was that a conscious shift, or something that evolved naturally in the writing process?

On our first album, I wasn’t really asking myself how I could make the songs effective because I was 19 and didn’t know what I was doing. Those are some of the first songs I had ever written, and I did feel pressured to make them at least a little bit easily digestible. On our second album, everything kind of came crashing down. The disregard for structure, length, and anything that makes a “good song” in Silhouette Machine helped create what became a very emotionally heavy album. It matched the subject matter. On the other hand, object 1 isn’t trying to break your heart and make you cry. The lyrics are satirical and moody and vain, so the songs mirror that with the pop structures and hooks and real choruses. So in a way, the focus on melody and pop structure felt natural to do for this EP, but it was also very much a creative decision. 

You’ve described Flooding as “a gut feeling.” What does that mean for you in terms of how songs are written or arranged?

To me, that means that there are no rules. I’m not writing songs for the sole purpose of them becoming smash hits. The songs I write are just what I want to hear.

“depictions of the female body” is a loaded and evocative title. Can you talk about what that track is exploring, and how it fits into the wider themes of the EP?

That song is about sexual fantasies. They’re generally a shameful topic, but sometimes they can be the innocent little push that gets us to change our situation for the better. A lot of stuff like that is complicated. The EP as a whole, lyrically and sonically, is satirical and contradictory and about complicated stuff.

You’ve been compared to bands like Codeine, True Widow, and Slint. Are there newer or unexpected influences that people might not hear on the surface?

I would really like to make music that sounds like Lana Del Rey mixed with Fugazi. Early Coldplay has also always been incredibly influential for me. We’re also always listening to Bob Marley on the road. 

What do you love right now?

Bossanova and huge trucks

What do you hate right now?

Hopelessness

Name an album you’re still listening to from when you were younger and why it’s still important to you?

When I was probably 11 or 12 years old I heard Born to Die by Lana Del Rey for the first time. It was one of the first albums I ever listened to front to back on my own terms. Listening to that as a child probably changed the trajectory of my life in some way. I trust my 11 year old self’s taste though.

What’s next for Flooding? 

object 2. - out July 11, 2025