Kai Straw

First year nomad. Photo dump. 📸

Summit, Mt. Timpanogos. 🗻

I won Best Music Video for Chokin’ at . Huge thank you to all the judges and everyone on the FilmQuest team! And man, there were so many great videos - to be selected out of this bunch is an honor. This is the fourth award I’ve received for the video along with a best director nomination and a bunch of selections across the country. Massive thanks to my buddies from back home for coming together to make this thing happen and everyone who encouraged me along the way.

What’s next for me is likely a short film, new music dropping soon (I’ve got a new song coming out next week and another one in December), and if anyone’s looking for someone to score their film, reach out. I’d love to get into that. Also, what’s up to everyone I met at the festival! It was great meeting each of you. That was a blast.

Congratulations (!!) to my cast and crew:

Luke Cho - .aesthetic.collective
Serra Naiman - .naiman
Kyle McCarthy -
Spencer Schultz -
Mary Kuznetsova - .ontrary
Nina Zepeda - .fx
LFX Visuals -
Zachary Sweet -
Tyler Manzo -
Allen Duncan -
Travis Straw -
My oldest brother Eric, my parents, , and everyone I forgot!

Soli Deo Gloria.

On the red carpet for Chokin’ at HollyShorts in LA along with my lead actors Kyle McCarthy and Serra Naiman, and .naiman. HollyShorts is an Academy Award qualifying film festival; one of the most respected short film festivals in the world. I was hoping Chokin’ would be my first step into the film industry as a director - so to see the video win multiple awards, selected by multiple Academy Award qualifying festivals - has been encouraging. My first feature film may be out there on the horizon. Grateful on every front.

I just dropped my second podcast.

It's part memoir, part meditation. Part interview, part investigation. It's an exploration of addiction, false purpose, and redemption. All from my time in Fargo, North Dakota. Recorded on the road.

Play it like a record, not a single.
Play it on a long walk or with a cup of coffee.

Huge thank you to Jayson, Nic, and Bear for your openness - and to Officer Zach Robinson for your courage. You guys all inspired me, and hopefully through your stories other people will pull their bow across the strings of their violin for the first time and hear their song.

Huge thanks to everyone who decides to dive in. Link in the comments.

🥳! I won the Audience Award for Best Music Video at Dallas International Film Festival. Huge thanks to DIFF for the selection (), and huge thanks to the audience for the award. The theater was full, and to hear such a loud response to the video in-person was such an inspiring thing.

The video has earned two awards, and been honored by seven festivals so far. It’ll be screening at the New York Independent Film Festival and the deadCenter Film Festival in Oklahoma City next month.

My goal with this music video was to start telling stories beyond my songs – to write and direct instead of sing and compose – while maintaining the same level of vulnerability. There tends to be this attitude of, “What can we do in a weekend?”, when it comes to music videos, and I feel, with all art, the stakes should be high, and you should risk everything every time. Make the truest thing you can, as vulnerably as you can, and let the chips fall where they may.

To see such a bizarre idea on screen, and see it get the love it has gotten, reminds me of a longstanding ethos I’ve done my best to follow as an artist and human being. Even when the truth is ugly, or difficult, or strange – honesty is where beauty comes from. If your art tells the truth, it’ll be, to someone, a rising sun.

Massive thanks (and congratulations!) to the cast and crew: Serra Naiman (.naiman), Kyle McCarthy (), Spencer (), Mary Kuznetsova (.ontrary). Luke Cho (.aesthetic.collective). Nina Zepeda (.fx). VFX (). Zachary Sweet (). Tyler Manzo ().

Soli Deo Gloria. ☀️

Just dropped my new song, "All That I Hate in You Is Me".

It's about the moment you see the role you've played in your present darkness; when you stop pointing the finger, when you realize - 'I am ultimately responsible'. The title sounds like self-loathing, but seeing yourself or a difficult situation truthfully, even if it's ugly, is a dramatic first step toward freedom.

Streaming link in the comments!