Katie Pruitt Looks for Human Connection in AI World on New Album

Katie Pruitt is one of those rare artists who bravely navigates the world through the songs she writes. Her first two albums were defined by her frank and candid reckoning with her sexuality and Catholic upbringing. Now, on her third, she’s letting listeners in on her broken heart. “All of us, including myself, are just trying to find reasons to keep going and keep hope alive,” she says. “Writing these songs was really cathartic.”

On Friday, the 32-year-old Georgia native released Fools for the Fleeting on Rounder Records, her first studio LP since Mantras in 2024. The 10-track project, which features guest appearances from Nolan Taylor and Sierra Hull, took root as Pruitt processed a modern-day upheaval of American society. When she went through a breakup after a seven-year relationship, it became something more personal.

“It’s about living in the aftermath of both a cultural and personal change,” Pruitt, seated at a coffeeshop in East Nashville, tells Rolling Stone. “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.”

She combines a lot of that in the track “The Aftermath.” “That’s at the front of the record for a reason,” Pruitt says of the song, which starts out as a breakup anthem before taking aim at the political and social climate in the U.S. during the second term of President Trump. “End of the world isn’t this entertaining/never a day when the news isn’t breaking,” she sings, before dropping a lyrical A-bomb: “Handed the wrong man the keys.”

It serves to lay out the context for the rest of the record, as the world imposes itself on Pruitt’s personal turmoil, a subject she returns to time and again. Explicit breakup compositions like “Matching Tattoos” (“All we’ve got in common is our matching tattoos”) and “Fools for the Fleeting” (“Moments are sweetly misleading, and we are just fools for the fleeting”) lay bare the headspace Pruitt was in as she wrote or co-wrote every song on the album. Taylor’s vocals on “Blackout” and Hull’s mandolin on “Orion’s Belt” augment a record that centers Pruitt’s voice over string-and-percussion melodies and bend the whole production toward emo. “Shit is hard right now. This is supposed to sound a little angsty,” she says.

Pruitt doesn’t shy away from the root cause of that angst, either. “Little Boxes” is a lament over the doomscrolling, screen-dominated culture that has taken hold of society. It finds Pruitt concluding that in-person, face-to-face interaction among people can overcome the distance that comes along with a digital lifestyle.

“I want a connection beyond this rectangular box that we’re staring at all the time,” she explains. “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 has a coast-to-coast headlining tour lined up that runs through most of the fall, largely in mid-sized rock rooms. She’ll have support from artists like Next of Kin, Olivia Barton, and Judy Blank. Pruitt, a native of Atlanta who has long since relocated to Nashville, will cap the tour in Music City with a Dec. 2 show at the Basement East.

As for playing Fools for the Fleeting to crowds, Pruitt says she’s just hoping to give fans that connection she preaches about in “Little Boxes.”

“I don’t know what people are going through at any given time,” she says. “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.” 

In early September, after “The Aftermath” had been released as a single, Pruitt made a social media post reflecting on the song and posed the question, “What’s something that’s restored your faith in humanity recently?”

On a hot Wednesday morning on an East Nashville patio — several hours before she and Sadler Vaden would stand onstage at the Ryman Auditorium during the Americana Honors & Awards and present Ken Pomeroy with the Emerging Act of the Year award, Pruitt had that question turned around on her. She had an answer ready.

“Seeing people organize and come together on behalf of marginalized communities,” Pruitt says. “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.”

Josh Crutchmer is a journalist and author whose upcoming book, Sonoran Sounds, is set for release in March 2027 via Back Lounge Publishing.