Katie Pruitt released her third studio album, Fools for the Fleeting, on Friday via Rounder Records — her first full-length project since 2024's Mantras. The 32-year-old Georgia native, now based in Nashville, told Rolling Stone the 10-track record grew out of two overlapping upheavals: the end of a seven-year relationship and her reaction to broader cultural shifts in the country.
"It's about living in the aftermath of both a cultural and personal change," Pruitt said, speaking from a coffeeshop in East Nashville. "It's kind of on the heels of the end of a pretty significant relationship in my 20s, but it's also post-Covid, post-Trump administration, post-AI boom, and social media."
The album features guest contributions from Nolan Taylor, whose vocals appear on "Blackout," and Sierra Hull, who plays mandolin on "Orion's Belt." Pruitt wrote or co-wrote every song on the record, which she said leans into an emo-tinged sound built around her voice, strings and percussion. "Shit is hard right now. This is supposed to sound a little angsty," she said.
The opening track, "The Aftermath," moves from breakup material into commentary on the current political and social climate during President Trump's second term, and Pruitt said its placement at the front of the album was deliberate. Songs like "Matching Tattoos" and the title track "Fools for the Fleeting" dig further into the emotional fallout of her split.
Another song, "Little Boxes," tackles the effects of constant screen use and social media on human connection. "I want a connection beyond this rectangular box that we're staring at all the time," Pruitt explained. "It monetizes our attention in a way that I feel has been ramping up recently — to the point that everybody I talk to tells me about this thing, Brick, that blocks apps. We're getting creative at how to not look at our phones right now, when really, the answer is just, get face-to-face. Have conversations. Real connection takes effort these days. Also, it was a reminder of the way that we box ourselves in. Labels are important to have, but that's not all we are. We're more nuanced than that. I'm not just a lesbian. I'm also a daughter and a girlfriend and a sister, you know?"
Pruitt said the writing process itself was healing. "All of us, including myself, are just trying to find reasons to keep going and keep hope alive," she said. "Writing these songs was really cathartic." She added that she hopes listeners take something similar from the record when she performs it live: "I don't know what people are going through at any given time. I hope this record gives them a reason to say, 'I am going to be more intentional with my moments, and look at people face-to-face, and use the time that I have here wisely.' There is a lot of heartache, for sure, but I hope that there's also a thread of hope."
Pruitt has a coast-to-coast headlining tour booked through most of the fall, playing mostly mid-sized rock venues with support from Next of Kin, Olivia Barton and Judy Blank. The run wraps in Nashville on Dec. 2 with a show at the Basement East.
In early September, after "The Aftermath" was released as a single, Pruitt posted on social media asking, "What's something that's restored your faith in humanity recently?" When the question was turned back on her during the interview — on a hot Wednesday morning on an East Nashville patio, hours before she and Sadler Vaden presented Ken Pomeroy with the Emerging Act of the Year award at the Ryman Auditorium during the Americana Honors & Awards — she had an answer ready. "Seeing people organize and come together on behalf of marginalized communities," Pruitt said. "We've seen it so much. Every time something devastating happens in our country — we saw it Minneapolis earlier this year — people take to the streets, in a positive way! You see positive, peaceful protest, a demonstration of, like, this is how you stick up for people. This is how you can be a human that is kind."
Photo: HenryIngram, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
