A Conversation with Kaki King – HuffPost 11.5.12

Mike Ragogna: Kaki, how are you?

Kaki King: I’m good. How are you?

MR: I’m good, thanks. Your new album, Glow, takes a kind of a different approach than the last one, which had kind of a band sound. Tell me how you came to the solo guitar approach again.

KK: Well, solo guitar is the root of every record that I make, believe it or not. It all begins on the guitar. I think with this record, I wanted to be closer to my beginnings as a solo guitar player, but I didn’t want to do the same things as before. The first step was just to write songs on guitars. Some of them were six-strings, some of them were tiny twelve-string guitars, and some of them were lap steel type guitars. It was just going back to doing all the arranging and the setting up of all the songs on guitar.

MR: Did you discover anything new in this project, getting back to the solo guitar feel after the more fully arranged albums?

KK: It’s funny because I think Glow is a highly arranged album, but the mix doesn’t have a drum set or a bass guitar sound–it just doesn’t have that typical band sound, but it’s certainly highly developed. Every time I go back to guitar I have to try to figure out how to do the same thing again better, or interesting or different. One of the things I do is change my tunings. I probably have over forty tunings that I’ve played in now, which is just crazy, but it works. It creates a new environment for my fingers to travel around in. My favorite, I think, was open D minor, which is kind of a tuning I played around with when I was a kid. Sometimes, it’s a little esoteric for non-guitar playing people, but essentially, I changed some of the factors that I was accustomed to, and it brought out a whole new sound.

MR: Is there something unique about this album that you’d like to share?

KK: One of the most interesting things to me was that it was done in an unbelievable small amount of time. This album has string quartet arrangements that had to be worked out, it has bagpipes, it has other players, it really has a lot of me just being in the studio tracking extra guitar parts, bass, and fill parts. The entire period of time–this includes moving around from different studios–was about three weeks. That was from recording to mastering, in fact. A lot of things worked out rather serendipitously, but for everything you’re hearing, it was a lot of work. We were able to do it all in three weeks, and my new goal is to do something better in two weeks.

MR: I love how on the credits you’re listed as playing “Guitar, Percussion, and Things.” You also have D. James Goodwin with “Additional Sounds.”

KK: That’s what it was. He’s an amazing sound maker. Liner notes are important, I think, because it’s really good to know who played on stuff. I get a record on iTunes and I don’t know who’s on it, and it drives me crazy. At the same time, it’s less important on this record that you know which sound is being played by whom and at what time. It’s just that we did it, and it sounds great.

MR: How do you go about your creative process?

KK: Usually, I’m on the guitar and hearing it in my head. I haven’t ever been able to figure out what my formula is. If I have a guitar in my hands, and I’m not trying too hard, something eventually comes out. I don’t know why. I can’t predict it, I can’t bottle it and sell it, but it begins to happen. Just the taking the guitar under my fingers is the root of all this stuff. So that’s where I begin, I just hold the guitar. Then I’ll play something that stays in my mind and I’m like, “What if I did it that way?’ And then I’ll figure out how to do it. It’s a circuitous relationship.

MR: Me and my guitar.

KK: Yeah, it’s true. I can’t just make it up in my head, but I can’t do it if I’m only playing something that I’ve played before. I need to have both.

MR: Some artists really agonize over each step of their career, but you don’t seem to be one of those artists.

KK: Gosh, with the music industry in 2012, who is able to predict anything? Certainly people say that this is the right career move for me to do right now, but I don’t know any of those people. I don’t think anyone really knows what a proper career move is. Music is changing, technology is changing, culture is changing, and it’s good to just be part of that. So I never have made a good career move because that sort of thing doesn’t exist for me. Playing solo guitar was not a good career move in the beginning–I had no idea that it would take me this far–but I did it because that’s what I do. I don’t know how not to do this at this point.

MR: Where do you find inspiration? For instance, are you on your own when you’re coming up with new tunings?

KK: Not really. “Coming up” is a relative term. You may feel like something is new to you, but someone has used it before, and maybe you’ve heard it, maybe not. “Bone Chaos In The Castle” is an old song with the same tuning as a new song on Glow called “Holding The Severed Self.” After writing those two songs I realized that it was the same tuning as one of my favorite solo guitar pieces of all time, written by Alex De Grassi, and I had no idea. The tuning thing is more of a personal inspiration. You’re not a genius if you come up with a brand new tuning, I hate to say.

MR: Who are some of you musical inspirations? I know you’ve mentioned Philip Glass.

KK: Glass, Reiken and John cage all had a very philosophical approach to their music, and that’s an inspiration. I will say as far as inspiration goes, I feel kinship with anyone who considers themselves to be genre agnostic. That’s always the way it was with the people I came up with. People just loved music all of a sudden, and it wasn’t about who you were, or what group you sat with at lunch in high school. I’ve drawn so much inspiration from non-guitar influence places that I feel like every time I mention the top guitar players I love, it does a disservice to the fact that I just love music, and I listen to a ton of it. It all influences and inspires me in some way.

MR: You play Ovations, right? And you also have your own signature guitar?

KK: Right.

MR: Would you go into that? I’ve never had a signature guitar.

KK: (laughs) Let me just put out there–not everyone plays a guitar that is made of plastic, and it is definitely unorthodox. Ovation has a very interesting history. The guy who designs Ovation guitars was actually an engineer that designs helicopters. He knew all about acoustics and how something can be vibrating everywhere and not fall apart. He built guitars because he knew what acoustics were, and he knew how to work with plastics. So, it wasn’t just someone trying to make a cheap, unbreakable guitar. At any rate, I played on an Ovation very early on in my life, and I found that I’m very attracted to low tunings–the lower the better–and Ovations were able to carry those tunings without having to change my strings. So it was very playable and yet the low sounds came out beautifully. It was just something I was attracted to. The company was very friendly and helpful to me, especially being a young guitar player with really no clue. I just kept playing Ovations. I mean, I had no reason to stop. I played other things, and I’ve always got multiple guitars on stage, but that was always my workhorse. They said, “Hey, would you like to have your own model?’ And I thought, “Yes.” So we went through some different wood options and color options, and there were some cosmetic things that I wanted changed, and now I have my own signature model. At the same time, I need that guitar. I would use that guitar if it didn’t have my name on it. It’s great and it’s an honor, but it’s my tool. If I had to go anywhere in the world with one guitar, it would be that one, one hundred percent, for sure.

MR: I had an Ovation and it was always a great, durable guitar, and it sounded good when you plugged it in.

KK: Yeah, the Ovation can be plugged in without too many issues with feedback. Look, they’re not for everyone, but they’re definitely for certain people–definitely for me. It sucks when people go, “That sucks. She’s playing a piece of crap, plastic guitar.” I’m like, “Well, listen to how well I’m playing it.”

MR: Have you ever thought about expanding elements of what you do into more areas? More lyrics for instance?

KK: Well, I did. I’ve written a lot of lyrics. For this record I hadn’t really worked with a string quartet, for example. I’ve had strings on my records before, but I hadn’t worked directly with people. So, I collaborated with this string quartet named Ethel, and that was amazing. I also had a bagpipe player, which was a first. As far as different types of media, whether that be more lyrics or writing a book, I’ve found that the best art comes from me not trying to manipulate everything. If one day someone was like, “You’ve written all these cool journals. Do you want to put them together into a book?” I’d be like, “Sure,” but I don’t need to do that. I need to play guitar–I need it badly–I need it for me. I don’t need to write. I find that people that need to write do, and I need to play guitar, so I do. I feel like I’m sticking to what I need to, not what I want to.

MR: How was that Picasso Guitar painting exhibit at The Museum Of Modern Art?

KK: Oh, that was awesome. I had used one of the paintings on an early ticket stub that I printed out at Kinko’s for one of my very first shows. It was really nice to suddenly be co-billing with Picasso’s guitars.

MR: And you’re kind of pals with Tegan and Sara, right?

KK: I played on one of their records, then we toured together in Australia and it was great.

MR: Which do you prefer, touring or recording?

KK: They’re both great. They’re a relationship, especially now, because I do want to make records that I can tour. I’m thinking about touring while I’m recording now, and it’s fun to think, “Oh, this is going to be so fun on stage.”

MR: And you may also experience something arrangement-wise while touring that you can bring back to a record.

KK: Oh, yeah. Sound check is one of my favorite times to write music. You’re alone with only a couple of people in this big room with a giant sound system. It really is inspiring to write music that way.

MR: What advice do you have for new artists?

KK: Do what you need to do. I’ve found that, like anything else that is sold in this world, word of mouth is the best advertisement. If you make really good music and share it with some good people–and there are so many ways to share music–it has a life of its own. So it’s not about making it, getting famous, or being able to not have a day job. There are plenty of people in really good bands that you might not believe have a day job, but they do. It’s really about being an artist, taking what you do really seriously, loving it, and focusing on that, and not worrying about a lot of the other stuff like how cool your shoes are. Anyone can get a haircut or buy nice shoes, but making real art is the hard part.

MR: Nice. Would you consider yourself a good improv artist?

KK: I have been known to turn my show into a little bit–not like comedy–but I’m just talking. Sometimes it’s hilarious, and sometimes, I say something that I think is brilliant and all I get are crickets. As far as improv or just being me on stage, yeah I kind of get a kick out of it. I don’t know if anyone else does, but I do. On guitar, I’ve found that the better prepared I am to play any song and the less my mind has to think about it, the better improvisational guitar player I become. On the first week of this tour, I was playing all new material, and I was really focused on making sure every note was right, the songs were correct, and I wasn’t screwing up too much. Now, I’m able to play around and change some things, and I’m able to make the songs brighter and push the boundaries. Over the years, I used to hate improvisational guitar because I thought it was just doodling. I was basically not interested in it at all. Now I think that if I can trick people into thinking that I wrote this, but I’m actually making it up on the spot, that’s pretty cool.

MR: Kaki, all the best with the new album, and take care.

KK: Thank you.

Transcribed by Ryan Gaffney