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Kinski: Bursts of Lightning!Kinski's second album, Be Gentle With the Warm Turtle, may be the best album of 2001, mixing minimal drone, space rock, and hard psychedelic rock to create chugging, tireless riffs and monolithic explosions in sound. But let's get things straight; Kinski doesn't sound like any other band. Well, okay, that's not the whole story. With all those styles, maybe they sound like a lot of other bands, so many bands that maybe its unfair to say such and such a song sounds like such and such a pre-existing band. However, give a couple songs on their stellar Be Gentle With the Warm Turtle dubious, esoteric titles that appear to be call-outs to prominent style figureheads, and suddenly it becomes natural to play "Guess the Reference" with each and every song. Makes you wonder that if they called a song "Hysteria," someone might try comparing them to Def Leopard! It's all kind of silly, especially considering how great and noteworthy the music on Be Gentle With the Warm Turtle is. Luckily, Kinski are good natured folks, so when I asked them about those certain dubious, esoteric titles, they didn't bite my head off but rather respond that the titles are maybe a little more esoteric than I or others may have guessed. We talked about other stuff, too, like the band's history, their favorite performances, and their upcoming tour of the Midwest and East coast. So, check it out.
fakejazz:So how does it feel to have released the best record of the year so far? chris:Uhhh... lucy:Aww... fakejazz:So what happened with that tour with 2/3rds of the Spacemen 3? How did you get asked to be a part of it? Why didn't it happen? Is it really going to be postponed, and if it is will you still be a part of it? chris:Sonic Boom just cancelled the whole tour. I guess they're rescheduling in November, but we'll be on our own month long tour, so I doubt we'll be able to hook up to do any shows. fakejazz:Do you ever take drugs to make music to take drugs to? lucy:I teach Kindergarten. fakejazz:Do your students and their parents know you are a rocker and roller? How do they react to it? lucy:For the first couple of years I didn't tell many people. I didn't know how they would react. Rock and roll = bad vices to some people. Bad vices and kindergarten don't go well together. But when we went on tour for a month I had to tell everyone. Most think it's cool. They say, "Oh, I love music." I say we are primarily an instrumental band and they say, "So, are you the singer?" One girl gave me "rock and roll" stick-on tattoos for Christmas. fakejazz:How are you going to get away with touring for a month during the school year? Do any of you find it hard to mix showing up for work with your rock and roll lifestyle? lucy:Last year I took a month long leave of absence; some parents didn't like that too much. This year I'm job-sharing with someone who will work full time when I'm gone. It's only hard for me if we have or go to a mid-week show. But that's the same for lots of people who go out to see music on a regular basis. fakejazz:How's the preparation for the East Coast tour going? Has it been hard getting dates set up, or do people know who you are now and are eager to help? Will this be your first tour outside of the West Coast? chris:This will be our 2nd tour of the country. Hovercraft asked us to go out last October. It's been hard setting up shows in the sense that it's hard setting up shows without a booking agent. Other bands who have heard of us have helped us set it up quite a bit. fakejazz:I heard the band got started in a bar. Care to share the story on that? chris:Lucy and I used to hang out at a place called the Pacific Inn. Dave, our drummer, bartended there and overheard us talking about buying some recording gear. He added his opinion, and we just took it from there. dave:Chris and Lucy were discussing the pros and cons of analog versus digital, and I happen to have some of the best ears this side of the Mississippi, and I overheard the debate. I chimed in with my 3 cents, and they asked if I played music. I said well I'm a drummer, so no I don't, but if your ever need one let me know. They came in with a demo a month or so later and that is the story of how we came to be.
fakejazz:Which side won the analog vs. digital debate? lucy:Nobody won. We still can't decide. chris:Next record we're going to record in analog and mix in digital. fakejazz:Back then and on the first album, the band was only a three piece; what were the circumstances under which Matthew was added? chris:Lucy and I have known Matthew for a long time. He has played in bands around town, and we'd become good friends with he and his girlfriend (now wife). We needed someone to add more texture to the sound, and he seemed like the obvious choice. He's a really good guitar player and keyboardist... and flautist! dave:Chris was often coming up with multiple parts, and we realized that there weren't enough pedals on the market to simulate what he was hearing. fakejazz:What can someone expect from a Kinski live show? Do you often mix in improvisational segments? Do you often mix in covers? If so, what are some examples? Are visual aspects incorporated? chris:Most of the songs are pretty set, but there is a song or two where we only know the basic structure, and we try to fool around with it live. We haven't done covers for a long time. We did four covers at our record release party but none since then. That night we did songs by Teenage Fanclub, Husker Du, Guided By Voices, and My Bloody Valentine. (We all kind of have hard pop roots.) lucy:We try to orchestrate sets into 40 minutes of music rather than just a bunch of songs. We connect each song with different samples we've put together. A successful set flows from beginning to end. A goal is to include more improv pieces... we're working on it. Visually, we like blue. fakejazz:I've heard about some interesting shows you've done, teaming with Voyager One for extended noise-fests, doing a set of My Bloody Valentine covers, etc. What are some of your most memorable live shows? chris:I would say the most memorable show so far was our Terrastock set. I was really nervous to play in front of so many great musicians, but it went pretty well, and the vibe the whole weekend was amazing. We had a show in Cleveland with Hovercraft and Speaker Cranker that sticks out as well. The club was crowded and it was snowing outside with bursts of lightning! Everytime someone opened the door to come in you'd see a flash of lightning. The My Bloody Valentine show was fun but really weird. Certainly the loudest we've ever been. We went on really late and were sort of pissed off for various reasons so we just kind of went berserk. (Well in our heads we went berserk, at least.) lucy:In addition to the Terrastock set our EMP (Experience Music Project) improvisational set with Climax Golden Twins was unforgettable. It's a huge museum-like room with lots of lighting tricks and video fluff... very unlike a club. It even had air conditioning. And people with headsets directing other people. And then we played improv for an hour. dave:For me the 2 most memorable would be the improvisational sets that we did with the Climax Golden Twins here in Seattle and our show with the band Speaker Cranker in Cleveland at the Grog shop, if for no other reason than it was a great club with great people and there was an inch and a half of snow on the ground at 2 am in early October--nothing but rock and roll. fakejazz:When so many bands in their insecurity refuse to acknowledge that they have been influenced by other musicians even though almost all art, especially rock music, is a recycling of ideas, you are so blatant about who your influences are. Do you perceive yourselves, as a band, as a distinct entity or as part of a larger fabric of musicians contributing to an ever evolving set of pre-existing musics? chris:I'd say we see ourselves as a distinct entity, but we've certainly been influenced by pre-existing music. I think there are niches that we fit into but I don't see us being that blatant about it. But we will never use references in titles like that again let me tell you! We've been knocked for that right and left. We never have titles for our songs until we have to name them for the record, and we usually just refer to them by who they remind us of in rehearsal. The "Daydream Intonation" title just came as a joke because we have many different tunings. I don't really think that song sounds like Sonic Youth at all. I do think we have things that sound like Sonic Youth but I think everyone jumps on that one because of the title. It was called "E-Jam" for 2 years. lucy:I just thought it was a funny title. dave:We work really hard not to make our influences an obvious part of our compositions and often times it can be a bit difficult. It's like you said, rock music is a recycling of ideas, and everything has been done a 1000 times before. I would like to think that we are trying to do something a bit different, but if the folks who write about music continuously pigeonhole us with this band and that band than I guess they know more than we do. fakejazz:Was there a point in the early-to-mid 90s where you thought Sonic Youth had just gotten too old and really had started to suck? Do you ever worry, being in a band that has made a couple great records, that even one of the best bands ever like Sonic Youth had a stretch of several years where they couldn't make anything better than a half-decent one? chris:I worry that we have started to suck just about every day. You never think you'll be able to write decent songs for the next record but they usually start popping up. (Thankfully we have a bunch of material ready for the next record.) But obviously when you put out a lot of records some are going to be better than others. I'd rather not put out a record at all than to put out one that we're not happy with. But who knows what it's like when you're in the position of a band like Sonic Youth. I think they've seemed to hit another creative high point. There's great things on all their records. fakejazz:Recalling a wide variety of bands from art rock like Sonic Youth to Brit pop like the Verve to minimal drone like Roy Montgomery to shoegaze fuzz like My Bloody Valentine to Sabbath-esque fuzz like Bardo Pond, do you worry about not giving the audience one, pure "sound" to identify the band with? How do audiences react when you go from something minimal like "Spacelaunch for Frenchie" into the noisy bombast of "New India" and then into the chugging pop of "Newport?" chris:I think it all ends up sounding like Kinski. Which is one of the most cliched answers of all time. We throw out a lot of the poppier sounding songs. The dronier ones are a bit harder in a way because it's more difficult to be interesting and still just hold on one chord. But those songs normally end up being our favorites. We also have structured our records much differently than we do our live sets. There will always be a song or two on our albums that we can't really play live. fakejazz:Has "sound" become too important in underground music, outweighing the importance of the "song," i.e., writing a melody, riff, or combinations thereof that sound good no matter what the context? How does your music fit into that notion? You throw out different styles and contexts, but it always seems to work out. chris:I've never thought about that question actually. We definitely write some things that would sound dumb without the "sound". A lot of our songs wouldn't work on an acoustic. fakejazz:How'd you get that didgeridoo-like guitar feedback/distortion sound about halfway into "One Ear in the Sun?" chris:That's just the Microsynth with some echo. We probably tracked it a couple of times. fakejazz:Any (other) favorite pedals or effects? chris:I love the Microsynth, and I love my Digitech Multi Play. fakejazz:The drumming on the Warm Turtle album is great. It is very restrained, but still interesting, like the stutters towards the end of "Newport" and the syncopation in the middle of "One Ear in the Sun." How do you go about adding the drums to music that is very guitar-based? It seems if it were any busier, it would get in the way, but it still manages to add both backbone and subtlety. dave:When we first started playing together I wanted to play between every crack, but as we learned more about the type of music we wanted to create I realized that it would be better if I kept it simple. We tend to keep things on the minimal side when arranging new material, and if the song calls for it then we'll add schutzpah later. fakejazz:How do you guys write songs? chris:Normally I bring a skeleton of a song into rehearsal, and the bands just starts fooling around with it. After a couple of rehearsals, I listen to the practice tapes and restructure the song around what the whole band has done with it. Lately, I've been keeping the things that I initially bring into rehearsal way more open ended which has made the whole songwriting process a lot slower. fakejazz:Almost all your songs on Be Gentle With the Warm Turtle are either loud or soft, or start off soft and shift to being loud, or start off loud and shift to being soft. Was it a conscious choice to leave out the middle ground? chris:No, it wasn't really a conscious decision at all. We've talked about the fact recently that a lot of our songs start quiet and then explode. But it's so fun to do! Someday we'll make a record full of quiet explosions. fakejazz:How does the lesser use of vocals--which are used more often on the first album--affect this use of dynamics that's more focused on the extremes? chris:I'll bet that the next record doesn't have any vocals at all. They just don't seem to fit right now. It seems like we'd just be adding vocals to add vocals. Most of the music I listen to doesn't have vocals so I hardly ever think about it. fakejazz:These abrupt changes in intensity are like a big bang instead of the standard gradual build. Is "the build" totally played out in 2001, thanks to all those slowcore and post-rock bands of the 1990s, from Bedhead to Godspeed You Black Emperor? How do you feel about "the build?" chris:I've never thought about the build issue either. In some ways everything is played out so that it makes coming up with an interesting song harder and harder. Isn't people singing sort of played out? fakejazz:Tell me about the differences between the first album and the second album. chris:The first album was recorded, by John Randolph, in our rehearsal space, which was about as big as a bedroom, on an Otari 8 track 1/2" machine with no isolation whatsoever. It was then mixed by Karl Rogers, on his Cool Edit Pro system. It was made over the course of a many weekends. It was really fun. We just made it with a couple of friends with equipment that we all had. I like some of the material on the 1st record a lot. The ones with vocals kind of bug me though. The second record was recorded at a "real" studio with Kip Beelman who has done a lot of great sounding records. It was recorded on a 2 inch 24 track machine at Robert Lang Studios. We did it in 10 days and then remixed 3 of the songs in one 24 hour session. Kip is really great to work with. We're starting the next record with him in November. fakejazz:Who is Frenchie and why does he deserve a space launch? lucy:It's a secret. fakejazz:Who is Helmut Poe and what makes him so weird? lucy:See above. fakejazz:Where is the nearest "beach house" to your house or apartment? Isn't annoying when people call you when you're on vacation? It's like, "Why do you think I'm on VACATION?" chris:The nearest beach house is probably about 3 hours away on the Olympic Penninsula. It would take about 5 days to drive from here to Newport. lucy:One of our friends thought this song was about a drug deal gone wrong. But it's not. fakejazz:Why is "Montgomery" separated from the other songs on the layout of the back cover? chris:There's a 20 or so second gap after "Helmut Poe." It was an accident on the original print layout, and it fit with the 20 second silence on the cd. We just decided to keep it that way. It gives a little breathing room before "Montgomery" which is so different from the rest of the album. fakejazz:Did you ever worry, "What if Roy hears 'Montgomery' and says, 'This doesn't sound like me'?" chris:I don't think it sounds like Roy Montgomery at all. I called it "Montgomery" cause I thought it went well with the title "Newport." I do really like Roy Montgomery though. lucy:I used to live in Montgomery County. fakejazz:How was the cover art put together? Where did the image of the tree pullers come from, and is there a reason behind the digitization of the font and patches of the image? chris:The artwork was done by Jason Faulkner. I took the cover photo on a trip to Germany a long time ago. I think the photo itself was from Switzerland. They're actually pulling hay/grass down a mountain. The digitization was Jason's idea. We all liked the idea of using the same photo for all the panels. The only photo that is different is the inside photo of the beach chairs that Lucy took on a different trip to Germany. fakejazz:With yourselves and Voyager One, is there a burgeoning space rock scene in the greater, greater Seattle metropolitan area? Who else should we know about? chris:There is no space rock "scene" whatsoever. Jeramy from Voyager 1 and I laugh everytime this comes up. (No offence.) fakejazz:Quick! What's your favorite movie? chris:Well I'd like to say it's something by Theo Angelopolous or whatever, but the only thing I can think of that I would go rent again tonight would be Office Space. fakejazz:If that movie has something to do with Klaus Kinski, is this movie a big reason as to why you chose the name or was it more the sum total of work he did? If that movie doesn't have anything to do with Klaus Kinski, what were the other reasons behind choosing him as a namesake? chris:We just like it because you could file us between Kinks and Kraftwerk. lucy:Chris' friend was disappointed he was moving away from pop to "prog" (his words) so he gave us the name in jest. We liked it. fakejazz:I see you're touring Japan later this year with Acid Mothers Temple and you thank Mainliner in the liner notes. Is this your first trip as a band overseas? How'd that relationship form? chris:We toured with Mainliner down the west coast 2 years ago. No one knew who we were then at all and only a few more knew who Mainliner was. But it was our first tour and it was really fun. Mainliner were amazing to watch every night. Kawabata, Acid Mothers Temple's leader, plays guitar in Mainliner. We just hit it off with him on the tour and became friends. He set up the shows in Japan so we'll be playing with Acid Mothers at all the dates in Japan except for the Tokyo show where we play with High Rise. We're all really excited about it. We haven't been overseas as a band before. We're trying to figure out how to set up shows up in Europe. fakejazz:Who is that other John Fail you thank in the notes of your first album (as opposed to fakejazz's John Fail)? Isn't John Fail about the worst made-up name a person could have? chris:That is actually a typo on the first record. It's supposed to say John Frail who is really John Randoph, the guy who recorded the record, who was in a band called Frail, who wanted to be thanked as John Frail. fakejazz:Have you ever eaten cooter stew? Does your album title have anything to do with care needed in handling the turtle meat which is the key ingredient in cooter stew? chris:The band pretty much subsists on cooter stew. It's hard to find on tour though. We normally bring a bunch of turtles with us and make it in a crock pot in the van which we plug into the cigarette lighter. fakejazz:Are you guys working on any other projects, releases, tours, or anything else we should know about? What's next for the Kinskis? chris:I'm trying to finish a solo record that is kind of an ambient, electronic, whooshy thing. Kinski just had a Sup Pop singles club 7 inch come out, and there is an unreleased track from the "Be Gentle with the Warm Turtle" sessions that is coming out in the November edition of the "Ptolemic Terrascope". We'll be touring the U.S. for all of October and the first week of November and then Japan in December. Our next record should be finished in March or so but who knows when it will actually come out. fakejazz:Does the solo project have a name yet or any plans for release? chris:No name yet and no plans yet for release. But it's almost done. fakejazz:Anything else? chris:Here's the tentative tour dates:
Oct. 9 - Bozeman, MT at Zebra Club with Donovan's Brain
Dec. 8 - Tokyo at Doors with High Rise (Dates updated 9 oct 01.) Check out www.kinski.net for any additions or corrections.
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