Inferno interview: Kaki King on Germans, dreams and songs
Published in Chicago Flame 4/7/08
Kaki King is one of the best guitarists you have yet to hear. Her recording career began with “Everybody Loves You” (2003) and featured intense finger-picking and fret-slapping reminiscent of artists like Michael Hedges and Leo Kottke.
King has had enough time in between her incessant touring schedule to release three subsequent albums: “Legs to Make Us Longer” (2004), “…Until We Felt Red” (2006), and her most recent release “Dreaming of Revenge” (2008). She has even found time to collaborate with the Foo Fighters and Tegan & Sara, and contributed songs to the soundtrack for the film “Into the Wild,” which received a Golden Globe nomination.
Supporting her most recent album “Dreaming of Revenge,” which is a departure from her first two albums and features layers upon layers of guitars, drums, bass and vocals rather than solo acoustic guitar, I sat down with Kaki before her performance at the Empty Bottle on Apr. 1 to discuss the tour, the German language, dreams and music in general.
Inferno: How has the tour been going so far?
Kaki King: Really, really great. We have gone like every day is a brand new climate, it’s pretty amazing. We were in L.A. three or four days ago. We are moving across the country pretty rapidly and having a really good time.
I: And you are touring with an entire band. How has that been as opposed to doing it by yourself?
K: You know, I love it. I love being on stage with the guys. They are all so super talented. They are all playing for the most part parts that I wrote and played for my record. All the material is stuff that is mine. It is so nice to sort of sit back and not worry about myself having to cover all the parts or reinterpret the songs or anything. We are certainly not playing them like the way they are on the record but to kind of be my own musical director and tell people what to do and then sit in the back, it’s really nice. And we are all totally different people but we are all having the best time together. We go out every time we stop at a gas station and I’ll get out the soccer ball and kick it around for a while. Various little bonding sessions happen mostly with alcohol involved, too.
I: Do you miss the days of doing it by yourself?
K: No, I don’t. I mean, I feel lucky that those days are not going to be going anywhere, I mean, I’ll be going to Australia right after this tour and I will mostly be playing with myself and my tour manager, who is also my sound engineer, but has been doing synthesized horn, so no, in a way I don’t feel like- I love playing with a band- but I know that I’ll be a solo artist for quite some time as well.
I: So for future records you will still be coming up with most of the material yourself?
K: I would imagine so, that’s just how I am and how I work. I don’t want to say that it’s impossible, but it just seems like unless you are a band with a really, really developed sound, I don’t think I would be able to get into a studio with some guys and create something super unique.
I: So how do you go about choosing a producer? I know you used John McEntire (of Sea and Cake, Tortoise) for “Until We Felt Red;” how did you pick him of all producers?
K: Well I mean God, I had been a great fan of Tortoise- actually I think I knew Sea and Cake before I knew Tortoise- it was kind of one of those things like, what do I want to do, what am I feeling, what are the songs sounding like. So you look at it from an artistic standpoint, like where do we want to be going, and then you also look at it from the standpoint of who’s available and how’s the timing going to work out and stuff like that. But really it was just so easy with John. There wasn’t a lot of back and forth.
I: Did you get to experience Chicago when you were here recording the album then?
K: I did get to live in an apartment in Wicker Park, but I was pretty busy. On days off- and it was winter so it was pretty cold- I visited some friends, and went down to the triangle where all the nightlife is (Damen/North Ave./Milwaukee). I definitely have a lot of love for Chicago having spent ultimately about a month and a half here.
I: There is a noticeable difference between the solo acoustic guitar work on “Legs to Make Us Longer” and “Until We Felt Red.” Was there a triggering point of sorts that caused this?
K: It was [a] jump for sure. I had reached a creative lull with solo acoustic guitar and I just wasn’t writing songs. I just wanted a different sound; I wasn’t feeling it anymore. I didn’t think the third time was going to be as exciting. I didn’t think I was going to be able to go out and creatively tour behind a record that was another solo guitar [record] because that is really a hard genre to sound different in from record to record. I know your follow question would be then, “What’s this next record (“Dreaming of Revenge”) about?” What I actually ended up doing was going, “OK well now that I’ve done ‘Until We Felt Red’ and now that I’ve, you know, had a lot of interesting opportunities and traveled the world a bit more, now what do I do?” So I went and decided to write a solo guitar record, which is basically what “Dreaming of Revenge” fundamentally started off; every single [song] was written just me and a guitar and I had no idea that it would end up sounding the way it was going to sound. I retuned everything, I started using different guitars and just went for stuff, but when you are in the process working with a producer, they are just going, “I’m not here to help you re-record your demos with really expensive microphones, forget that, you are going to get creative” and every day doing creative writing as opposed to just being knob twiddlers. And that’s kind of how all these layered melodies came to be on the new record.
I: I imagine you have moments where you think, “I couldn’t imagine being where I am five years ago.” Do you ever have those moments?
K: Not when you are in Omaha, Nebraska playing for 100 people, half of whom are drunk and have no idea who you are. And they are like gypsy dancing in the front of the stage and you are like, what?- not then. But someone told me this is something you just have to accept: there is always a bad gig around the corner. Always. You can be David Bowie and sell 5,000 tickets somewhere and turn around and go to Denver and play for 400 people for some fluke of whatever. But yeah, I never would have imagined some of the things I have done and seen, the people I have worked with this year, but that’s not really where the reward lies. It’s really more being on stage and playing that one chord that you have been trying to play right every time and you can’t get it and then finally you get it. That’s where I get psyched.
I: So what are some of your interests outside of playing music?
K: I like Australian rules football. It’s basically like an incredibly violent form of rugby. It’s actually a form of rugby but far more intense. I also read a lot. I am learning German.
I: Ah, sprechen sie Deutsch?
K: Ja, I am doing my best. I have a lot of friends in Germany and have been doing the Rosetta Stone stuff and so between that, where I am learning very proper German, versus the crazy shit [my friends] tell me to say. I find that there is a side of your brain as a musician that kind of withers after a certain amount of time that you just- you know it’s very nice to be doing something that is completely the opposite of thinking about the emotional feelings of the song, that is one part of the brain, and memorizing “der Himmel ist blau” is another.
I: So what do you mostly read then?
K: I mostly read books about loners. Right now I am reading “Bomb the Suburbs.”
I: I imagine you have a lot of time driving between cities.
K: Yeah, but I am useless driving, it’s not really motion sickness. I can’t really do anything, so I just sleep a lot. That’s probably the thing I spend the most time doing, sleeping. But I have really amazing dreams so it’s totally worth it. I have this reoccurring dream that I am a German fighter pilot, but I am not a Nazi.
I: Did this come before you started learning German?
K: No. I have had a version of this dream every night for probably about a month now- my name is Gunter von Schiphol, which is weird because that’s the airport in Amsterdam. I know I’m not a Nazi but I am still having to dogfight with RAF (Royal Air Force) but what I’m really trying to do is get home. I am flying so high that I can see all of Western Europe. Then I think, maybe I’ll go to Spain instead, because I can see it there to the left. Then I have to dogfight again. And then I am slowing down or losing altitude and I look behind me and it should be nothing because I am supposed to be in a cockpit, but I look behind me and it’s my van with my trailer and it’s all the gear that we have on the road with us. Then I wake up.
I: Any idea what that signifies?
K: I think it signifies the fact that I hate gear. I hate hauling around gear, it’s heavy, it’s bulky, it’s annoying, and it breaks and gets stolen. I’d rather just pop a guitar on my back sometimes.
After the interview Kaki and her band, which consists of a drummer, a bassist/keyboardist and a guitarist blasted through a set which featured material from her entire catalogue. The evening also included a performance by Kaki on a lap steel guitar for her song “Gay Sons of Lesbian Mothers.”
If you are interested in hearing someone that “Rolling Stone” has called the first and only female “Guitar God,” be sure to give Kaki a try. And remember, if you don’t like the first album you listen to, there are three other unique and distinct albums to choose from.
For more information on Kaki King or to listen to her music, visit www.myspace.com/kakiking.
Tags: German, Kaki King, Music, Omaha
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