Greta Kline has certainly made the most of her considerable creative gifts and the home environment that fostered them. The daughter of Oscar-winning actor Kevin Kline and actress Phoebe Cates, she’s also the younger sister of director/actor Owen Kline. As kids, both had roles in Noah Baumbach’s award-winning 2005 film The Squid And The Whale. A New Yorker through and through, Greta never had any major designs on Hollywood, though—not since picking up a guitar in seventh grade. As the primary force behind Frankie Cosmos, she’s since become a somewhat reluctant torchbearer of K Records-style DIY purity in the indie music world.
Now 31, Kline can rightly attest that she’s put in her time at both ends of the industry spectrum—first as a home-based internet sensation, later as a bandleader and no-frills touring musician. She’s matured and softened some on Different Talking, her sixth album and fourth for Sup Pop. But she still has that wry, self-aware way about her, and her latest batch of songs are as playfully efficient as ever.
MAGNET’s Hobart Rowland recently caught up with Kline, who will be hitting the road with the latest iteration of Frankie Cosmos in September.
How did the current version of Frankie Cosmos come together?
Alex Bailey joined as bassist in 2017. He was in a band from Atlanta called Warehouse that was on our same label at the time, and we took them on tour with us in 2016. He wrote and played some second guitar parts for a couple songs on (2018’s) Vessel before he officially joined the band. Now he switches off between bass and guitar. Katie Von Schleicher joined in 2023. We met her in 2021 when she was brought in by our friend Nate Mendelsohn as his co-engineer on (2022’s) Inner World Peace. When we were starting to tour for that record, she already knew it quite well, so she was the right person to take over on keys, second guitar and backup vocals. She plays bass sometimes now, too. Hugo (Stanley) joined on drums in 2024. He and Alex have been friends for years, through Hugo being in the band Palm.
How have Katie’s contributions helped shape the new music?
All my bandmates bring their unique tastes and styles to the arrangements. Katie has an incredible ear for building synth worlds within each song. She’s also an impressive multi-instrumentalist, which has opened up new possibilities for our live arrangements.
With all the changes, how have you been so effective in maintaining Frankie Cosmos’ band-like feel?
Frankie Cosmos has been a band since 2012. The point of making it a band is to collaborate and have different artists bring their perspectives to it. It’s supposed to be fun and expressive for everyone. My bandmates have always written most of their own parts in the arranging process. Each new member has done a great job respecting the roles of the previous player, acknowledging the style of the band and bringing their own vibes to the project.
What was the recording process like for Different Talking?
We basically built a studio in an untreated house using mostly Katie’s own equipment. We all lived in isolation together—just the four bandmates. We barely saw anyone else. We recorded to a reel-to-reel tape for most of the basics, then did overdubs digitally. From the time we first hit “record,” the whole thing took about 40 days. It was exciting learning how to make it all work together. We were rehearsing the arrangements and fine-tuning them at the same time as recording, which I’d never given myself time for in the past. We were excited about living in our little world we’d created. It brought about a youthful energy from all of us.
Many of the new songs address getting older in a way that doesn’t sound, well, old. What’s the trick to bringing vitality to the concept of aging?
I think of aging as a gift—getting to keep being alive, appreciating it every day and ideally getting wiser as time goes by. Also, we’re all still quite young!
See Frankie Cosmos live.
