Caelin Tralongo sits slouched in the corner of a booth at Cafe Java in North Austin. The small strip mall eatery is packed for Saturday brunch, but the artist, known mononymously as Caelin, is absorbed in a book as she waits for her bandmates to arrive.
Mind Magic is about the neuroscience behind manifestation, she explains, taking a scientific approach to how we can alter our brain patterns to help us realize our potential and the selves we want to be.
The idea is not unrelated to where she and her bandmates, Lili Hickman and Madison Baker, find themselves with Next of Kin. In just the past year, before they had even released any music, the trio of songwriters inspired a fervent local following and garnered more attention than any of them had gained individually over the past decade – including landing a spot headlining the Kerrville Folk Festival and on the just-announced 2025 ACL Festival lineup.
Now as they prepare to release their debut EP, Homemaker, with two sold-out shows at the Continental Club this weekend, the artists don’t feel surprised by their sudden success; they see it as a natural manifestation of their hard work. Though known for their work in other projects, they gel surprisingly naturally together as a group, with a power and confidence that emanates from the stage.
As Hickman and Baker arrive and join Caelin at the table, their deep connection is instantly apparent. They fall into the excited chatter of close friends, building upon and finishing each other’s thoughts amid spurts of laughter that can turn quickly to personal feelings and shared support.
“I think we’re all three pretty fiercely independent,” laughs Baker. “We like to do our own thing, and have always kind of done our own thing. So to get together in a collaborative sense and agree we’re going to do this and all three lead the band was pretty huge for us.”
“And we all come from really different places musically,” adds Hickman. “So I was just not sure how that was going to go.”
“But all three of us, our whole lives, have been wanting this, and there’s all this energy that we have been building up,” says Caelin. “It’s all working because of all this pent-up work that we’ve done individually as artists. And it just so happened that the timing of it all happens to be right now, together.”
“There’s something to be said, too, about being crazy enough to think that you can succeed,” returns Baker. “Sometimes that can feel like a really isolating experience when it’s just you having that belief. So when I met Lili and Caelin, and I saw that fire in both of them, I was like, ‘Oh, okay, so they’re crazy, too. They think that they can succeed, just like I think I can succeed.’ And so [after] we kind of married that together, it’s just been insane.”
Musically, Next of Kin works because of the three artists’ tight harmonies and ability to craft country songs with a strong pop polish, bold and sincere lyrics, and a defiant charisma. But personally, the band works because of the three’s connection. Caelin, Hickman, and Baker share a relationship at a moment of discovery, independence, and evolution in their lives, as they each close out their 20s.
Their music, like their friendship, builds from exploring who they want to be, finding confidence in a shared community – and the struggles of that journey – and laying claim to their identities. Hickman and Baker, who are both nonbinary and identify as trans, and Caelin, who is gay, all share a support that allows them to more fully translate those realities into their art. And at a time when Texas and the country are politically and socially attacking the LGBTQIA community, the band’s uncompromising embrace of their individual identities as a queer country trio has helped catalyze a community of fans to turn anxiety and fear into resolve and joy.
To strike that independence in a traditionally conservative genre, with radio-ready songs laden with big hooks and catchy melodies, may be an even bolder endeavor. In 2025 America, Next of Kin could be considered the epitome of outlaw country. And while the supergroup might rightly draw comparisons as a Texan boygenius, sonically they hearken to more of the Chicks’ country anthems and outspoken independence.
“We’re like the Chicks, but as gay as Natalie Maines’ haircuts,” Hickman quips, as all three break into laughter.
Good as Gone
When the three songwriters first came together in the studio, they had no intention of starting a project together. Hickman, beginning to look beyond their band Flora & Fawna, was working on songs for a solo project in early 2023, so they called upon Caelin and Baker to add vocals to a track. All of them instantly recognized how well they clicked in the studio, but forming a band was an altogether different proposition.
“Logistically it made zero sense,” admits Baker. “And I think we also all were just not quite there yet with one another in terms of the trust that it takes to start a project like that. We all loved each other as friends, but this was like starting a business together.”
Hickman had more experience being a part of bands, so they held a clearer sense for what they might achieve together. As the child of renowned local songwriter Sara Hickman, Lili grew up in the Austin music scene.
“My mom and I are so much alike,” Hickman muses. “She has always supported me, and I think she’s also really understanding of how extremely difficult it is and how low you can get. But I think I’ve always really wanted to prove something, so when I started Flora & Fawna, I was like, ‘I don’t want to be compared to you in this small town.’ So I made a band and didn’t have my name anywhere on it.”
Flora & Fawna’s sultry electropop sound struck a chord locally behind the combination of Hickman’s breathy vocals and their partner Mason Ables’ production, and even earned the band a 2022 Austin Music Award for Best Pop Act. But when the two broke up romantically, much of the inspiration for the band began to dwindle.
“I’m so grateful for Flora & Fawna,” Hickman attests. “I feel like I found myself as a musician, and a large part of that is thanks to my ex and our building that band together. We have great love and support for one another, but I think I just needed to prove I could do something without him. I needed to refind myself.”
The end of Hickman’s relationship coincided with a breakup of Baker’s own, and the two bonded in their support of each other. Baker had also reached a point of equal restlessness in their music career. Their 2021 EP Boundary showcased a compelling combination of art pop beats and danceable grooves cut by their piercingly smart and personal lyrics, but they weren’t sure how to move forward in the aftermath.
For Baker, making music was an integral part of their journey to understand themselves. Raised in a small town in East Texas, it wasn’t until they moved to Austin to attend UT that they began to gain confidence in truly exploring their identity. Baker wrote their first song, “Champagne Shine,” in 2018, and inherent throughout the music that followed is the angst and freedom of discovering oneself.
“I came out as nonbinary in 2021, but it was a weird experience,” Baker recalls. “I was putting out music and being perceived actively, but I felt like I still had so many personal breakthroughs and discoveries that I had not afforded myself the time or space to have. It was just a really interesting struggle where I felt like I was seen, but it was still not exactly the vision yet, because coming out is a process.”
As Baker and Hickman warmed to the idea of forming the band, the biggest hurdle became recruiting Caelin to return to Texas. The songwriter had left Austin in 2022 after seven years here, and was living and performing nomadically as she figured out her next career move.
Raised in California, Caelin was writing music by her teens and made her first EP at 17. That project ended up in the hands of Jimmy LaFave, and the beloved local tunesmith convinced her to move to Austin. She enrolled at St. Edward’s and music began to take a backseat to college.
“We had lost contact a little bit, but then I found out he was sick,” she says of LaFave, who passed away in 2017. “I got to see him one more time before he passed away, and it was just a huge wake-up call for me where this person was the reason I came to Austin, and now he’s gone. And I felt like I couldn’t keep pushing this off, and had to fall back into the reason I came here, which was music.”
By the end of 2023, the three songwriters decided to convene at a writer’s retreat in Leander to explore whether forming a band together was actually feasible. The chemistry was undeniable, and Caelin moved back to town as Next of Kin began to take shape. The inspiration in their collaboration extended beyond just the music, though, as each realized they could achieve a new level of openness and visibility together.
“I grew up very Catholic and there’s a lot of that internalized,” reflects Caelin. “As supportive as my family is, I think just being around two beautiful queer people and spending most of my time with them, I realized how freeing it is.”
“Being able to speak outwardly and present outwardly in this project and feel supported and visible in a new way has been extremely special,” adds Baker. “Especially being with two other queer people. We have our unique experiences, but we share that commonality where we’re all queer and we’re all seeking and all exploring ourselves in our own right and together, and supporting each other through that process.”
Homemaker
The five songs on Next of Kin’s debut EP construct a song cycle of breakup and rejuvenation. “Jekyll & Hyde” opens in the mire of a bad relationship, with the trio’s voices melding in a crescendo of resigned recognition of its flawed compromises. The subsequent “Mean Streak” trades lines between the three as it attempts to build the confidence to break free, while the title track swells with a beautifully sad realization and embrace of a new sense of self and its consequences.
“Cruel” tumbles in the uncertainty between stubborn independence and lingering longing, but closer “Good as Gone” provides the payoff, capturing the dizzying moment of discovering yourself and the possibilities of a new love: “Just a glimpse of her, and suddenly I’m known.”
Yet the song cycle could just as easily be read as the process of coming out, of internal struggle and self-realization reaching a point of new uncertain possibilities and freedom.
“I feel like it’s a rebirth album, a realization EP,” offers Hickman. “I think the whole EP is just saying, I won’t settle. And I love that it ends with, like, a really gay song. I’m going to get back out there and see what I like and what happens. It’s really an admiration song, to feel seen if only for a moment.”
“I think that’s something that we’ve three, collectively, really had breakthroughs with over the last two years: just giving the love that we have all looked for in other people, places, and things to ourselves. Allowing ourselves to access it because it already exists within ourselves,” adds Baker. “It’s really, really lonely sometimes, and really difficult, and it feels like you’re getting split into a million pieces. But it’s been, for me, and I feel like they can agree, the most gratifying journey of my life, because I don’t have to look anymore. It’s just there.”
That self-acceptance and visibility for each of the members comes at a fraught time for LGBTQIA rights, though. This summer, Baker is planning to have top surgery, but is already worried about maintaining access to the HRT they need and the logistical hurdles that Texas continues to implement in receiving care.
“I grew up in Texas, and I love this state, but it’s extremely difficult,” says Baker. “It’s saddening and fills me with a lot of rage and complicated feelings. But to choose myself and to be authentically me whatever the cost will always be the most gratifying decision I’ve ever made in my life.
“I feel really fortunate in Next of Kin because our music is written and performed by three queer people,” they continue. “And that’s authentic to us and that shows up in our music and in our ethos as a band. It feels so good to be seen and know that our music has reached an audience that resonates with that, especially other queer people in the South.”
“We’ve definitely gotten some hateful messages,” chimes Hickman. “But for every message we get like that, we have so many other people commenting back, defending us, supporting us, and people messaging us saying, ‘I found this song, and it has helped me.’ We don’t necessarily have to be super open about who we are outside of the band, but we choose to be, and that people see that and it’s helping somebody out there is incredible.”
The support the three found for themselves with the band has blossomed into a community behind their music. And the trio recognizes both the need and the power in extending that deep connection that they’ve formed to others. It’s inherent in the band’s name.
“We don’t know what events may come, and there’s always going to be something that sucks,” opines Baker. “But our joy is something that no one can ever fucking take away. Queer joy, trans joy, joy of any form. That is all I feel whenever I’m playing a show with Next of Kin: this unbridled sense of joy. And in a way it is a political act to hold that close to your chest, and invite other people into it.”
This article appears in May 9 • 2025.