West Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Hey it's on pay bill. Check out this QLs classic from November second, two thousand and sixteen. We sit down with recording artist Kimbra. She talks about leading from New Zealand, the world, wildlife, Silver Lake, California, and how she makes records in this episode originally aired on Pandora. Check it out. Kimbra Johnson lazy. Now before we even get started, we gotta know, how
did you get such a black last name as Johnson. Wait, your full.
Name is kim Kimber. That's even that's kind of yeah, yeah, like that.
I feel like you gotta you come from the wrong side of the tracks.
Yeah, I mean I only realized that when I moved over here. I'm from New Zealand obviously, And aren't.
You from Hamilton, New Zealand.
How did you know that?
Because I have a computer, How do I know anything? You're just trying to bring it back to Hamilton. That's funny, that's funny.
Hamilton's not the most well known place in New Zealand.
But I can't say I've been there and or no can I ask, do you get tired of people kind of lumping? I feel like New Zealand is the Jersey to New York or the Baltimore to Washington kind of. I mean, I know it's cool, but.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but people over here, I.
Just tend to think like it's one big giant under Australia.
There's so many, you know, there's four million people in New Zealand. It's tiny, you know, So I understand. And I spent five years in Australia, moved there when I was seventeen before I came to the States, so I understand.
It's you know, how long you been in the States. How long you been here?
Oh, over three years now. I did LA for nearly two years and then I'm about a year into living in New York.
Wow. What's been the biggest adjustment for you so far? Oh?
Man, I'm so happy here. I love walking and getting on the subway and taking like just simple things like that that change your experience of a city so much. You know, I was always in the back of ubers in La. I didn't have a car. So I'm just loving I live like in the East Village, just so much history there as well so many amazing people that have lived in that area.
So, so, wait, you drive You didn't drive in lle I know, right, drive in New York City.
I don't drive in New York.
No.
I had a full driver's license, but I just never got on the car of here. I mean, we drive on the other side of the road, so it would be challenging.
You know. Wait, so you don't drive here?
I had no, I don't drive.
Wait a minute in America. The first time we met, I made you like a four hundred song driving playlist.
Yeah, but that was a friend. That was Yeah, you made a sick playlist for the road trip. But I did that with a friend.
Oh okay, did I make you for no reason whatsoever? I'm just gonna I see. Yeah, So I well, I guess we would all like to know about your humble beginnings. One You're You're, You're. You have a wise soul for someone that is four months younger than a tribe called Quest debut album. Every time I see your birth year, I'm like, I was a freshman in college when you
were born. But you you seem to acquire a lot more knowledge than most people that I know that have a nine in the third year of their birth year as far as music's concerned, and without the really the development of the Internet being in full swing until ten years later. Like what were your first four years? Like that really has you curious about soul music of all things?
Yeah, you know, Stevie Wonder was really big for me. I first started learning guitar when I was about thirteen fourteen. The guitar is my first instrument. That's what I first started writing on. And learning a lot of those and versions and stuff on guitar was super inspiring, you know, for opening my brain harmonically. And I was singing in a little choir at school that were doing a lot of Beach Boys covers, you know, and Sinatra, and this is like trippy stuff for a kid who's been you know.
I also had on my R and B stuff I was listening to on the radio, Destiny's Child and all the Timberland era, you know. But then I was learning about these other styles of music and I first got into a boss A track. That's how I started all
my early recordings, all the first album. So then the kind of producer had started lighting up, you know, and getting excited about listening to records in the sense of dimension, and it's just it's like the same as you man, you know, starting one artist and I mean Prince for example, and it takes you on such a journey and you just get super curious.
It keeps you from being so dismissive, because even I meant, for whatever nerd degree I have of music, I mean, I definitely went through that period where, like you know, when I was six or seven, Marvin Gaye comes on, I'm just thinking, like, that's my aunt's music, right.
Right, right, that's something that I'm impressed by.
Being young, What kept you from being dismissive?
That's right. We're cynical even, you know, because when you hit your teens, you start to be like quite niche with what you like. But I always had quite an openness, which I see as a gift. I guess. I was very intrigued by metal music, for example, like bands from New Jersey like the den'ger escape Plane and Sugar, you know, for the grooves, something about just from a really open standpoint of what at the time, like what what makes me feel so primally engaged to these rhythms, and then
learning that a lot of it comes from Latin. You know, it's like you just become so fascinated with stuff and it didn't ever come cross my mind like, oh, that's that's cool, and that's not cool, and that's what my friends like, that's what they don't. It was just all sound, you know, And I don't think we retain that openness. Sometimes as we get older, we get a bit more, you know, into aesthetics and into taste, and that's great,
all of that's really cool. But as a kid, I really I'm glad I had that openness.
So you started songwriting. I know that you were songwriting by well you said your first.
Instrument was well, I was writing just in you know, singing into cassette tapes and I was like eight or nine, just little silly songs, but they had structure, you know, verses and choruses. I love pop music as a formula for writing.
Did they come from your family or like.
Their doctor and nurses? So, I don't know, man, It's it was a really a who's your.
Who is your who's that older who's the older brother? Figure? That no person?
That well, No, I don't know. I think it was just I really talk about it almost more in a spiritual sense, because it's like something needs to come out, you know, when you have a need to express. And at that time I was asking just I was curious, you know, and this became a language malady was very intriguing. Lyrics were a way of like, yeah, just expression and then learning an instrument, of course, everything changes because you can start to really get deeper with the art form.
Was there ever a moment where you realized that you could write songs like that?
You realized like, I might can pay a bill off of this.
Well, tell you something about New Zealand. It's really specialist. We have this competition. It's a high school band competition called the Rock Quest, and it's not televised or anything. It's not like American Idol or anything like that. It's kids in bands, you know, so kids literally stay in high school to enter this competition. It's super important for
kids to school. And so I entered this competition as a soloist just on guitar, you know, playing songs from my bedroom that I thought were just for me, and I ended up being like the only girl in the finals and coming second in the whole country, which for New Zealand was a big deal. You know. Yeah, so at that point it's probably the same for you. You have those moments you go, hey, this is not only something that makes me really happy in my bedroom, but wow,
people seem to be engaged with it. I'm being acknowledged for it, and maybe I can develop develop it more.
And they were fully realized, fully arranged songs.
Yeah, they were there, they were. I was about fourteen at the time when that happened, and then later got signed at like seventeen. So from those ages, I was developing songs in the studio, learning how to record on an eight track, So the songs moved from being less guitar based and more recording the entire arrangement on vocals, and that was really inspiring to me, you know, fleshing out the drum beat, just beatboxing or just little silly ideas,
but that became settled down. You know a song I wrote when I was sixteen, which is probably the song that broke me first here in America before the Gotya.
Your debut?
That was the debut.
Yeah, So how do you How does your debut album feel in contrast to what you're working on now? As far as I always feel like you're working all your life on your first record.
That's true. That's true.
Artists wound up like separating themselves from their debut record once they grow and that sort of thing.
Yeah, I mean, I'm twenty six now. That record came out when I was twenty one. I started making it when I was about eighteen, you know. And the songs are those ones from your bedroom, you know that you've lived with all your life. And like you said, now it's like it's third album time for me, so you know, new city, new experiences. Everything's changed. The second album, The Golden Echo, for me, was kind of that was a very experimental time for me, you know, moving to LA
and so much. Yeah, you're always drawing from where you're at, but the first You're right, there's something like listening to it now you kind of look at it like it's a young child you had or someone and someone you do. You know, you you you knew, but it's it's a strange connection that you have with your debut. Okay it was.
Yeah, I was actually trying to let the whole entire s Yeah, I mean, does it feel like a burden that you know, do you feel as though that's not a burden but it's sort of like an asterisk. Mainly people might only know you for that.
That's understandable.
I mean, yeah, the full spectrum of your Well, how did that collaboration come to.
Be like so organic? It's it's kind of because I was making Vows and the main producer I worked with on the album was called Francois Titas, and I knew his work because he produced the first Gutia record and I was in love with it, you know. I was like, this is super prog pop. I was so into it, and I was like, I want to work with a guy that made that album. And so he introduced me and Wally, so we just became friends, and we didn't talk for a good year after we met, and then
he just called me up one day. He's like, I've got this song. You know, I'm looking for, you know, the other character in the song, and can I come over this afternoon and show you it and see if you'd be down to singing And just came over or I had a little home bedroom studio, and it's just so organic. The whole thing. The video is like, never any notion that this was going to be what it was.
I was going to say, how long did it take you guys to shoot that?
As far as that that was the longest most grueling video shit I've ever done in my life, no question, that was. I mean it was a full yeah. So we didn't move for you know, it's like we took toilet breaks. But it was a good forteen hours in that position.
Yeah.
Yeah, with you know, sort of strategic breaks and then back in and just being fed nuts while we because it's six you know, six or seven photographs and then a second of you know, sorry, six or se six or seven seconds in a photograph. There's six or seven seconds, then a photograph then you know what I mean, you see the process. Yeah, it was. It was a long day.
That was amazing. Of course, you had no idea that you know that would lead to.
Well would you? I mean, the song is not like what you would hear on the radio, and it's kind of yeah it is right, yeah, well you know more than me. Man, I did not see that coming.
That's amazing.
That's but I'm here.
I'm glad you didn't see that coming. So why why did you leave? I mean, what was the what was the community vibe like in as? Okay? Yes, I'm one of those people that will in New Zealand.
Have been a bunch of times. I get it. But the thing is that you need to understand is different. There's a big difference. Well, first start, we do have very different accents. Mine is all over the place these days. But if you go to New Zealand and Australia, here very significant. Should we do the obvious one? Australian say fish and chips. New Zealanders say fish and chips. There's a lot more blunt, it's a lot more the eyes very different. That's New Zealand one on one Australian.
Word.
Yeah, okay, so that's a good one. It's a good starting place if you give a go back again.
It's like Jersey, New Yorkers and New Jersey's always battle with their turf. In DC and Maryland battle with their turf. Is there a South North Carolina turf war going on? South Carolina North Carolina kind of sort of? I mean North Carolina.
Well, first off, like when people speak of the Carolinas in North Carolina, we really just count ourselves. Like South Carolina is like its own separate thing, you know what I mean. And so in North Carolina, Our leading export other than basketball is racism. So you know, we we pride ourselves on that.
And on the finest show, I mean only the finest.
I mean it has been aged in oak barrels, like man, come on. So so yeah, it is kind of like that North Carolina. South Carolina don't really rock like that. And in North Carolina, Charlotte is like the capitol. Well no, I'm sorry, Charlotte is the biggest city.
That's why all the.
Banks are so Charlotte is like kind of they think they're aggressive. They're well they think they are, but they're really not. Yeah, kind of polity because it's like they kind of want to be Atlanta. So they're like in Atlanta on the cusp, you know what I mean, they trying to get there.
But it's like, you know, it's like Atlanta is the Bentley and Charlotte is like the three hundred cust like it looked like.
A Bentley into a real Bentley.
Is the same with I mean, would who would have the upper hand between New Zealand and Australia culturally as.
The upper hand in terms of now this is what are we talking.
I don't want you to throw.
I'm just saying, oh, look they you know, like the landscape of the two countries are chalk and cheese. Really yeah, I really have to go there and experience it because they've both got so much to offer and they're both being a huge part of my journey. You know. I lived in Melbourne for five years, made vows there, and New Zealand's my home. That's where I grew up. That's where I go home every Christmas to see my family. So they're both important places in America is a really
important place now for me. This is New York's a home for me now, you know, it's amazing here.
Was it hard for you to leave there? Did you have to come to America just so that your music career could.
I think it's it's like, I like the idea of continuing to move forward and having your experiences and form your art, you know. And I've made a record there. I felt like I'd taken a lot of experience from the place, and I just signed to Warner Brothers in LA and it felt like, yeah, let's do it, you know, a new experience, a new record. And then same thing with this one's third album. And I've gotten up and planted in the New City again. Something about that feels natural to me.
I see, so in La you mentioned I know that you've you've crossed paths with the what I called the animaniacs of soul, like whenever the Cat, just like the way that they run that Tasmanian devil like swirl of wind running in that warner by this tower, Like, yeah, that's that's how I think of that movement. I mean talking about no No, I was just thinking.
Of you know, thunder Cat worked a lot on the last album. Yeah he became Yeah, it's and again, man, all of these connections have been so organic. It's even how I kind of met you. It was just a mutual like, you know.
I kind of stalked you.
I don't put it on public, you know.
But look, I wasn't go down.
I wasn't in the I kept it out thought. I kept it out in the open. I saw her this is I first saw her on Lino and usually the music act is the very last segment before the show changes. And we were this this is obviously in the early part of UH Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, because I was still running home to watch the show afterwards. Well, I mean after like a year, then that wore off
and I stopped. But I'm just saying that when she was on like, I was amazed, and you know, then I stalked her in Twitter.
And then I'm glad you did.
Hey, sometimes the stalker wis That is the lesson of today.
I don't never lets keep you from the woman you look that sometimes to stalk her, wimp. I just had to take someone give me. I gotta say, you just spit on your computer. I did computer. Good job, good job. No, I don't love you, Kimber. No, I mean I should have get a direct message. You're taking that ship direct because now now now it's in the world. No, in all, in all seriousness.
So organic relationships, yeah, just friends, you know, people that you meet out or at a gym or you know, the same way we did. And all of a sudden, I was living at a farm in LA It was very weird. Yeah, I'd like eight sheep man, eight sheep in the backyard.
Yeah angels.
Yeah, this is this lady. I found it on Craigslist and she had a little urban city farm at the back of her house in Silver Lake. Three sheet dogs, twenty chickens.
Wow.
So thunder Cat Steve Stephen come over and we would just hang out with the animals and then he'd be like, play me what you're working on. And he'd be like, oh, I've got an idea, you know, press recording. That's just how it started. We're just lying like outside with the animals, listening to tunes that I was working on. Isn't that crazy?
I lived in Silver Lake for you, there was a farm in silver Lake.
No one believes me.
I moved out of silver Lake because the skunk used to chase me home.
Wow.
Wow, No, like if you weren't home at a certain hour, you know, wild animals, that's.
Well, check this out. Coyotes do you say coyotes?
Coyotes?
Coyotes. Coyotes came and ate six of the chickens. So we had to get three sheep dogs. They were like tough, you know, they were the sheep dogs. They kept everyone safe. Yeah.
Wow, you really did live on the farm.
Yeah. So it just started out hanging out of the farm and then all of a sudden he was tracking ideas and then he was like the base, you know, sound of the last record. So it's very cool when things happened like that.
Very creative individual death undercat.
Oh yeah, it's.
So still I'm still stuck on farm animal. Can we talk about the skunk chasing you? Because there's there's more, there's way. I've got a mental image in my head running away from the car. Yeah, okay, So like I would drive, I would drive up a hill if you know California streets, and like some of them are full of hills and it's really dark there, and uh, you know, I drive and then you'd see, you know, their their eyes. There's like three or four of them, maybe in front
of my door. And I didn't know what to do. So I thought, okay, this is a smart idea. Let me get back in the car and I'm going to approach them at like fifty miles per hour. Like I was in a zone of like maybe you should be doing twenty. So I figured if I do fifty, house, you know, they'll run away. But what I didn't know was that in the face of fear they spray you. Yeah, I know that now. And literally I got my entire like my bill for the car rental. They thought I
had a lot. They're like, wait, we know you you don't smoke weed. And I was like this is skunks And I explained and they were like, yeah, you can't scare a skunk because they will spray you. Yeah, my car and me never get sprayed by a skunk, let alone three of them. You have to bathe and tomato sauce. Is that a true? Is that a true? I didn't know about that, like to get well. I tried to dismiss it, but then like, thank god for like we culture because everyone just thought like I had the good ship,
but you always smell like a bakery. No, it was the opposite of a bakery. I smelled like I had that good feel, like somebody that was on his way to it. Yeah. Now that was the worst. Like that was mischief night. I don't know if people still celebrate that. It was like the night before Halloween. Uh, not to mention, I got egged the next night. I got egged in Silver Lake. Oh wow, it was a bad first week
out there. Yeah. So that's my skunk story in Silver Lake. Okay, so right about now, you're working on your your third album and what is your your your vision or your how do you even grow past the level experiments that you've.
Been Yeah, yeah, well I'm excited to do new things. You know. The last record was like a maximalist album. I got to meet all these amazing people and kind of just invited them all down to the studio, you know why not, which was super cool. But I'm really enjoying like trying more of a directness with some of the beats that I'm writing and things that I'm you know, doing as demos. There are a lot more to the point than I've ever been, which is exciting and probably
comes with age and maturity. You kind of start to turn more things off and you don't have to do as many flourishes to get emotion across, you know, I've had more experiences. Yeah, I'm inspired by a lot of records at the moment. I've been spending a lot of time in Ethiopia the last couple of years.
Yeah, I was going to say, your Instagram is kind of off the chain you just came back from.
Yeah, It's just crazy that place. It's gotten so under my skin, Like I'm hoping to go back every year if I can. It's just that powerful. Not only the music and the food and the culture, but the people have really touched me. And that wasn't really doing gigs or anything that was just more doing some kind of work, like more on a spirit to like spending time with the woman over there. A lot of them are HIV positive and kind of being a part of a team
that does work over this. So that's been really cool and I'm really into that balance, you know, of taking time completely off music. Have you ever done that?
Man?
Seventeen projects? But then it's kind of like you no, but it's it is like the you are amazing at that. Actually, you know how you have your finger and all out of differents that are varied.
You know, well, is this your version of you need to recharge before you start creating, so you have to take yourself out of music too.
Yeah, I think that's one way of looking at it for sure, and just fill up with different yeah, ideas, experiences and and and being. It's something very powerful about being completely anonymous in that place and not there to be a musician with all of your that skill set of that what that brings, but just to be a human being you know, and observe and offer your heart
and office. So that's been really powerful and I'm excited to now channel you know, the rawness of some of those experiences into you know, my next body of work.
Do you have, well, any artist, especially on artists on a major label, do you have any thoughts whatsoever about you know, how far to the left you can lean as far as experimentations are concerned, and how yeah, far to the right you should go to make sure that it's easily adjustable. Yeah, there was ongoing wars with your current A and R right now.
I mean, of course, I think I asked that question to my other musician friends as well. It's like the balance is always the same, We're all trying to balance it. I'm lucky at Warner Brothers. We talked about this when we did the Prince panel. Like Lenny Warnaker like has been with me from day one. There he's got amazing music.
He's still there.
He's my main he signed me to Warner Brothers.
Oh my god, that is still there even when we did that. Prince Banel, Yeah, him all the time, Prince Yes. James Taylor, Yeah.
He purchased Randy Newman Records. He did the band like Park's first record. I mean, this guy is an incredibly musical mind. He'll be I'll be showing a special story. I mean, just think of how cool this is. Like I'll be showing him, you know, you're expecting the A and I to tell you to make the chorus bigger, right, and you know it's a classic thing. Make it.
But he'll be like, well, I think, you know, I think in the third bar you could make it a little more harmonically complex Ian what if you put a sound there, you know, just and he will really talk to me in that sense of like, you know, it just needs a different contrast at that point. And this to me is very inspiring, you know, to be able to have those kinds of.
Conversations music in that way.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe lucky.
I wouldn't trust that situation.
But at the same time, I've had my battles, of course, you know, and I continue to and that's kind of I think the tension that kind of needs to be there as well, in a sense that it pushes me to explore both sides. And I have a great love of pop music, but I feel very strongly that what I have to offer is notes is a unique perspective on that.
You know.
So yeah, I think if you look at it the right way, it can be fun. Maybe then it's awful sometimes you know, it is. I mean it is really hard sometimes, of course, if you're really going for a vision and and and people are there to essentially water that down. You know. Wow, you know a lot of heated conversations and you have to fight hard, you do.
And I think we you know, we're just talking about Prince and it's been very inspiring for me to go back into him as an artist and really be so reminded of how he never backed down on things, you know, and and fought hard, but also was super smart and always listened. That's what Lenny always says. Man, he's like Prince would you know, he would never he would never not be listening to you. He would always be taking it in, you know, and he would always go away.
He'd hang up when he'd be like, I'm not changing the record, you know, I'm not, you know. And they thought they didn't have an urban song for Diamonds and Parsons.
I'm not.
You work it out, you know. But then that night he went back to the studio and he he may get off, right. He just came in with it the next day and put it on the desk.
That's right when we first spoke about Prince you told me your favorite record was Diamonds and Pearls.
I've seen any of the for you is probably one of my favorites, right up there with it.
You're really big on vocal arrangements, and.
That's what I'm saying. That's when I got the A Trex started making you know, arrangements with only voice.
So how okay, So you've probably mastered that. I know a lot of people that use that device.
The A t Rex Machineah yeah, but you're probably the one person that I know that will find ways to push it into Okay.
I don't want to say it like it's the C word. I don't want to say commercial, but to least make it more accessible because I know that a lot of artists, uh that use that are far on the left as far as experimenting is concerned.
Right.
What what drew you to that as your weapon of choice?
Yeah? And well, I think it all comes from feeling limitation. So I was doing geeks with just guitar. When I first started playing in New Zealand at little Bass my dad would take me. You know, I was like sixteen, and so I couldn't get in and then I fell I needed to express more color, you know, and get more across in the performances. So when I learned this little boss it was you know, the boss loop pedals,
the classic ones. I never really really really read the manual, but just kind of all right.
Let me break it down just in case people don't know. Okay, so this device is to sing with yourself, yourself over okay, Yeah, yeah.
That's right, that's right. Yeah you can. You can put your instrument down altogether and just.
Form a bed for guitars first, and then people started to sing into the device.
Yeah that's right. I never used it with guitar though, I only used it with vocals, and then eventually found that, you know, my voice has a very different texture when it's layered, and you know, can sound like a different instrument. So I started putting down the guitar and becoming more fascinated with that as a as an instrument and of itself.
You know, do you keep every performance fresh as do you have a go to way for using those effects.
Or here's a funny story for you. When you saw Jay Lenno. Okay, that was I still refused to play to a click track at that point. Okay, So usually when you're doing live television, you probably want to get the loop like sync so it doesn't completely fall out of time. On the live television. I was very stubborn and we had to do it like three times, you know, because I was so nervous. My finger was shaking something.
Because I do. I change it every time, you know, I start up the intro just kind of with a new loop each time to keep it fresh, because I don't want it to get to uh yeah, rehearsed, you know too rehearsed, or feeling like, okay, here we go,
she does this, bud, she does that pod. I really thrived on the danger aspect, but of course live television is different, you know, you camera crew, and so from that point onward, I decided to start, you know, involving Nableton live in the set, and we have aspects now that a're a little more yeah, you know, locked in. But there's something to me that's very important with every live show that there's room for collapse, you know, or
at least the chance of collapse. But you do know what I'm talking about, because living on the edge of that tension is what's so.
Has it ever broken down on you? And concert?
Of course, I mean, you know, and again there's a chance for a very human moment, you know, which, yeah, you know, we always can back it up if things fall out and you ask the audience can we do it again? And it's cool. I think always have to keep that this somehow.
Okay, So I want to know basic things about your your life musically related? What was what was your first concert?
It's a band called silver Chair. Oh yeah, we'll check it out. They that's right, that's right now. They were fourteen, they were twelve. Therefore they were a grund rock band from Australia. But you probably don't know this about Silverchair though. After they had their big blow up with the grunge band, they started making some very wild pop music and Van Dyke Parks himself says that he puts Daniel Jones on the same level as Brian Wilson as a song Yes,
he does. Now check this out. The song we just played, Daniel Jones wrote that with me. We did that together on the piano. He plays the piano on the song on the record Daniel Johns from Silverchair.
Wow, really thought you got.
To get on the later record.
That reminds me of when I found out that dude from Spin Doctors worked with Blal on his demo. Yeah it was wild, that's crazy.
And Butlal is on the last album.
Yeah, it's like ten minutes to really make me comprehend. I was like, wait, who produces no Spin Doctors. I said, no, no, no, no, no, no, wow who produced this? Who produced it? I refused to believe it. That's amazing. So okay, this is the second time that we mentioned h Van Dyke parks like, how did your pass even cross? Because I mean, yeah, he's the god.
Oh he is just he's my fairy godfather. He is the sweetest. He really is like this ethereal magical person in my life. So Lenny, I mean Lenny is very close with Van Dyke, and I had said, what a huge fan I was of the Silver Chair record called Diorama, and Van Dyke arranged the strings for the whole album.
Can you imagine this band that had become a huge, you know success as a grunge, you know, garage rock band, and then they make a record that I swear these songs modulate like ten times within each you know, five minutes, and he gets Van Dyke to arrange all the strings on you know, he learns piano for the album. I just thought it was incredible.
Okay, what's the now Now this is the educational portion of of our.
Radio show Diorama. Yeah, yeah, so I loved.
That exactly why I wanted this show something Yeah, and nerd out. So you're saying that Diorama was their their left turn, their departure album.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and you know it didn't do so well in terms of a commercially you know, but.
I have a theory now, as a person that really doesn't know much about Silver Chair, what was the album that came out before?
Oh, that would have been Neon Ballroom. Yeah, I mean it was soon after the big one was I don't know what the big one was in America, frog Stump or oh wow, they were fourteen Wow, that was something like that school or maybe sixteen or I don't know.
So they were massively large, and you know, these cute kids playing adult music. And I have a theory about uh, what they called the Departure records, which you know, I mean you'll see it as like, oh, spiritual maturity and growing into the thing, and I guess and it's not coming from a cynical place. But for every departure album that there is, there's always the mountain or the shadow of the eclipse of an album or an image that
they can't escape. And they will do anything, sometimes consciously and other times subconsciously, like in the case of the Beastie Boys making Paul's Boutique, they wanted to wash away
the braddy frat boy image. That fight for your right was in the case of there's a ride going on by Sly, you know, having just conquered Woodstock in nineteen sixty nine and you know, had four top ten hits and finally like the dream was realized after like three album attempts to make them slam the family stone such a you know, a household name, and then he kind of turns his back on everything, I mean, making an
innovative funk record while doing it. But still, you know, Prince definitely, I'm reading this manuscript, this book right now of him actually planning Purple Rain and then also planning his exit strategy. Wow, making around the other day even before the Purple Rain.
Tour, and it's just he's sword he had a vision, is that clips.
That's going to get trapped into so Okay, So with that said, would you consider Phrenology to be the roots.
Bunch of record? You know what I'm I will probably say that now, maybe I'll take two twenty five percent credit of it being self sabotage, as in not wanting to follow things fall apart. But if I'm really truly honest tipping point, no no no no no no no no no no no, because I really felt like the departure for me, no, that that was us being normal, that was us trying to be like ground zero normal,
which I know. My point is that I think with Phrenology, with what was happening with Neil Soul, like I shot a Neil Soul coke commercial like half the CALORIESK. Like only one of those commercials came out, but it was like we did a five part commercial. It was like me Amel Angie Stone Music, Soul Child, like we were all playing like you know, categories like you know, like we didn't Wow, it never came out. It never came out like one of them came. It was like aries all.
The Wow Neil Soul game night with Yeah, it was like that basically like real life.
No, but I mean it there was a point where I felt like maybe okay because because of us not knowing that we were gonna win the Grammy, and then Tarik wanted to shoot a movie and I wanted to see Voodoo through through the tour, like we took two thousand off, which should have been the cash in year, you know, and instead we were like, okay, we'll come back January two thousand and one and do it all over again. And then it was just like maybe we
felt like our territorial pissing marks were getting violated. So it's sort of like, okay, well we're gonna show y'all, we're gonna do everything but neo soul. But then everyone had that idea because you know, I mean Stane Cone and definitely Speaker Box had that that we're going to turn our back on this thing. Like everybody was going contrary, including D'Angelo, like you know, when we started Black Messiah, like it was going to be way more radical, way
more wow it. You know, in his mind he wanted to do like fishbones, give a monkey brain give I can't pronounce it, yeah, you know, so I guess I don't know, I mean, but it still worked for us, that's the thing. Though it still worked so I feel like the tipping point wasn't our departure record, but it was just like it was the album that I had the least, and I was just like, Okay, what do I do. I'll take instructions.
Sometimes I look at making albums like an itch you need to scratch, you know. And when you said something about like the eclipse or the vision, that something that's lingering and the subconscious that you need to kind of grab for after you've had a moment with a record or I don't know, there's there's there's something in the back of your mind that you're like, I need to get it this. I need to unveil this something that's there.
And whether that be a highly you know six you don't know whether that's going to Like do you listen.
To someone and that gets you amped? Like last week Common played me like five songs from his new record Wow, and I was feeling some sort of and I'm working on this record, so I'm feeling some sort of way like yo, I gotta come with it, Like I really gotta come with it. So I'll say the first time in ten years I felt like really, you know, I mean, when Dyla died then I was just like, I don't want to do music no more and only like one
record a year, that sort of thing. So maybe between like two thousand and six and twenty sixteen, I had this dark law of not really wanting to put my heart into the record process, like just put all that passion one record in one record. Now, I'm just like, I gotta come with it. So like, is there an artist that you hear that gets your juices flowing? And I don't mean like I could do that. I don't mean that way.
Yeah, but I mean, oh man, there are just there's so many. I will say that as we were talking about New Zealand before, there's some very special things that come out of New Zealand. And there's two brothers and I listened a lot to well, you know, Unknown Mortal oakstro I'm shore. So that's Ruben Nielsen, who I've known for years because he had a punk band when I was a kid, and I used to go to his shows and sneak in underage and be front row. They
were called the mint Chicks. They were so rare, they were great, and the singer of the band huh they were punk, yeah, super post punk, kind of super screamy, but but you know, great kind of melodic guitar lines, very angular rhythms.
It was.
It was fantastic. And the lead singer of that band was Cody Nielsen, which is Ruben's brother. Now he has his own side projects, his on Ricos. I can't start listening to it, and like, they just keep reinventing themselves. You know, I've seen not everyone knows their stories, but they just keep starting these projects. And to me, that's really inspiring. And when you say like I've got to come with it or kind of keep on that, that new energy, I don't know, it's it's cool inspires me.
What was the first record you ever purchased?
Wow? You know what? One of the very first albums I ever bought with my own money was Frank by Amy wine House. We've talked about this before, and I told you what an important artist she was for me for those reasons. I listened to lots of other albums before then, but there was something very special about picking that up. I didn't know anything about her. I was like, just looks sick on the front cover.
Wait, you just did it based on the album cover.
I don't know anything.
You didn't hear anything.
I listened to it in the record store, but I picked it up because you know, you know, when you I love that. I missed that the CD on and I am listening to it and I thought, this sounds great because she she was a guitarist too, and she was playing these jazz and versions that I was learning, but she had beats. And that's what I always felt was, you know, I wanted to explore. I want to get
tougher with my son. I want to be a safe songwriter, you know, just keep it all pretty, and I wanted it to have, you know, like some balls, and she was, man, she just took me to school, you know, and all of these singers. And it's so funny, man, how the world connects people. Isn't that crazy?
Yeah?
It is.
So I'm just like, how do you know about beats? Though? I mean, like the average I'm just saying I'm trying not to be cultural elitist or sexist or any of these things, but normally there is an older figure, trickled down person Like I'm the youngest people of people in my brood, so this was handed down. I mean, what about you guys, Like were you I had an older sister who was really into music. She's the one that got me in the hip hop. She's the one that
pretty much triple Prince. Yeah, yeah, where did you fall? William Bill? I was into jazz and I had really great teachers in high school, and then I went to Africa and when I was in college and that sort of I love how the white people. No, I'm the only one in this room that's not that hasn't been.
I've been to South Africa, but that doesn't you know, Yeah, that's not real Africa apparently not. Yeah, I mean from what from you talk to people from the content, they say that that's like the most westernized country.
I want to it's the most really hard right now Africa.
Yet I'm just saying, but it does bring to mind actually when we're talking about being young and what was inspiring. I love musical theater and always this makes me sound like I was a musical theater but I you know, I was really drawn to the Well, there's such a connotation with that.
Your heads down. Oh no, I'm just listening. I'm just listening. You weren't in musical theater? Hell no, why now?
I know that's what I mean.
It wasn't me say heal like h e no man, like I tried. I tried. I know now, Okay, so we have three theater kids in there before. I did a couple of places before I knew.
Yo. You know what I did?
I did brew. I did hair in high school. I didn't I did hair. I talked about I did like mus school, but I was in music. I forgot about that.
I did hair.
I did like school Christmas places and stuff like that. I was about to say, everyone in this room needs to stop lying. I know y'all was involved with music I did. I was a black Sanna actually really yeah, have the beard back then. I was like thirteen at the time, but I was. I was black Sanna in a really white school in Indiana. So in Indian all
the places, right, they was hanging in Indiana? Yeah, Like, I wait, did you think about the hazy shaded criminals criminal Okay, wait, we're getting off all the roop no period.
Yeah, So I think some of the melodic interests might have come from a love of that. But when you're talking about beats, I know what you mean. I'm trying to think I love Jurassic Five When I was in high school. I listened to them a lot. You know. There were certain acts that got me thinking, why does this make my body move like this? And you see, I started to write vocal lines that were percussive, you know, I wanted to find the bits between to sing it.
So maybe that's what I'm now seeing the Jurassic Five. What happened to Wait, I'm gonna tell you something funny. I love them too. They were great. So imagine it being like nineteen ninety nine, ninety eight, ninety nine, right, and so okay, I'm in my agent's office and we got to offer. And okay, I don't mean it's no sort of way, just understand the logistics of the situation. She's saying that, Okay, you guys are going to open for or Jurassic five and Black Eyed Peas and we
started laughing. He was like, wait what he said? You guys want to open? I was like, open?
Now?
Was ninety nine? This before Fergie came. The Peas and Jurassic five was like the consistential underground group groups that were normally open for the roots, who at this time were in their platinum powers or whatever. But no, the thing was is that hip hop so rarely came down Under to Australia to New Zealand that whoever just went over there was the man and did five days. If you did big day out, the big festival, then suddenly you became. So there was like an inside joke that like, yo,
Jurassic five can play stadiums in Australia. Probably it's like Black Eyed Peas have an audience of ten thousand in Australia. Ben Harper can play stadiums like so all the acts that I mean it was the Roots used to play like we would go to places that no one else would go and then conquered. So I always wondered I was going to ask what was the Jurassic five effect on they were like the Beatles, Yeah, because no one else would go over there.
That's right when New Zealand's interesting. We're talking about the differences, but R and B and soul is very important in New Zealand, more important. I'd say. It's funny because of course you have Highest Coyote and these incredible arm b x coming out of Australia, but it's more of a rock thing, you know, with a lot of the music when you're growing up New Zealand. The Maldi people are very amazing rhythmic music, very melodic, very soulful. You know,
they're playing churches. They have the mutte eyes. So hip hop's very big in New Zealand. Hip hop's really big and soul artists said, yeah, I remember these these head these are artists were headlining huge venues. You know, they were big. And you know, when you live so far away, I mean from New York, it's probably takes me twenty two hours to get home, almost something insane. You know, you're so curious about music from other parts of the world.
It becomes a I don't know, it becomes a little obsession. You know, I've found something on I was around at the start of blogs and everything, obviously, and your friends starts telling you about this thing, you know, and then you take a little rabbit hole with that and you're so far from it that it's so exotic and exciting.
So have you coming back to Australia, I mean after your Grammy success or whatever, like was it the.
Like?
Have you had a homecoming welcome as far as New Zealand?
Right, Yeah, you know it's a big deal. You know, it's a big deal for a country so small when artists get recognized and in America, same for Australia, but especially for New Zealand because yeah, like I said, there's only formally in people there, you know, So it's it is a real trip when we are able to connect and on a sort of global level, so.
You're able to go home and still like be regular. Can you go to the grocery.
Store in Hamilton. Yeah it's different, Yeah, it's definitely different. I lay pretty low, like I'm all about getting back to nature when I'm there, you know, to the ocean. And I didn't have a farm in New Zealand. Don't grow up on a farm. I only had a farm in La.
I'll still never understand that ship. All right, I just moved. Okay, wait, what are your what are your plans for the future?
Oh that old question?
I sound like very white.
Yeah. Well, like I said, I'm writing. I'm writing more than I've ever readen which is exciting, and I'm excited to start sharing some of that. So putting new music out maybe even before the album and then I start the album yeah pretty soon, man, next month, I'm going to start getting into production, writing more writing New York I'm doing a lot of improvised collaborations. The stuff you came to the Space Jam and this new improvisation collective
called Exo Tech. Yeah, man, it's kind of the name kind of came from an interest in like exotica music and kind of Brazilian rhythms and also technology, you know, using gadgets and crazy loopers and industrial sounds. You know. It's like fourteen people in the core ensemble.
From overplaying.
This is the fascinating thing about it is when everyone's tuned in and you're kind of aware of how many people are on stage. Of course, it's it's very easy for it to become lasagnia. You know. It's just layers and layers, but some very special things that happened when you're conscious of that. So everyone is listening intent intently to each other.
So everybody just plays.
Afterwards and then yeah, that's right, and then we have over developed the ideas we perform in the rounds. Everyone one in the audience is quite intimately involved. There's a bit of conducting, a bit of head nods, a bit of hand signals with things, but essentially it's just just going into the unknown, you know, and it's very liberating. It's very liberating for someone who spends a lot of time in studio like I do, and you know, being
very intentional about my recordings and production. This is a time for me to just get back in that space of pure expression improvisation.
It's great. Oh boy, how was your day to day? Those are questions now I'm talking about you a bit like you actually.
Okay, okay, my dad's good, My dad's good.
It was bullets from the matrix.
No, no, I just there's a lot of people in this room.
Yeah.
So with that collective Exo Tech, which is Sophia Bruce, who you just heard, this is our kind of joint little improvisation group and we're starting a Red Bull in Artists residency where we're developing these songs, yeah, for kind of to be kind of releasable or at least just kind of developing them from the improvised context, which has always been interesting to me because live music is such
a particular thing, the process from taking live jams. David Burn's very interesting with this, of course, you know, because so many of the Talking Heads records were kind of developed from live There so many records gosh, of course, yeah, but I've just been watching his documentary Let's Stopped Making Sense one, and that's kind of what we're exploring for this in artist residency at Red Bull, and I've been spending a lot of time preparing lyrics for this and
kind of getting in his zone of yeah, taking them from the stage to the studio.
See. I don't know if you know this by design or if you're just doing this organically, but you know, I've always felt, you know, the idea of community, which is something that record labels kind of discourage. Yeah, they'd rather deal with an artist one on one and not deal with groups or pool families of groups and that sort of thing, because they're harder to control. Yeah, I always felt that, uh, the best music movements and the
most successful music comes from uh cruise and people. If you look at Motown, you know they were a crew and your native tongues. Of course, Prince his own crops. So I mean yeah, So is I mean is that your is that you're end game to gather a community of people and and cultivate them and create this music.
And I encourage it wherever I can. You know, I think I've been very blessed to kind of magnetize the right people wherever I move, and by I mean the right like just the open people that are down to gym, And it always ends up being something that's sound, you know, like something that comes to inform the music. And I work alone, you know, I'm not a band. It's I make these songs in my bedroom and then I bring
in people when I hit walls, you know. And so even the band that you heard when we played Leno, like, they become very close collaborators of mine now because I kind of hit these moments where I reach the limitations of my own skills, you know, and at that point, I really like to play on that as much as possible, be like who can I draw from? Who I can? It's black being a painter, you know, and you have
this pellette all around you all the time. And I'm inspired by the same people you said that weren't afraid to be, like all right, you know, where does this need to go? Who have I got that I know can help me take this even further?
But you also seem very nomadish or gypsy ish, I mean, just constantly moving. And so how do you like when will you? Will you leave New York? Once all your resources.
Are and seasons.
You know.
The farm time was kind of there was a period where I was very isolated there and I didn't leave. I don't leave much, you know. I just stayed inside and did That's right, That's that's right. Because the kitchen was outside as well, so I cooked like outside. But then it was just the bedroom and the bed and side, so it was very it was strange animals, it was weird. But then there would be these seasons where I did like space Jam. I started space Jam in l A, Okay.
It was every Sunday night. I put it on Twitter. I called it space Jam. I thought it was fun. Wait a minute, I don't think I didn't tell Warner Brothers. You know, I just wanted to do this for fun. It's was I had, what was doing a tour with Janelle Monae in Australia and New Zealand and it got canceled because she got very sick, and I came back to America and I was just restless. You know. We were just about to do a tour and so I thought, well, I'm here, let's do something. And you know, or a
thundercap did it most weeks. Miguel came down to jam with me, and this is likes a big guys that you know don't have to do that, but they would just get up and just go into the unknown with me. It was very powerful.
And you're doing in New York for a while. Bring it back.
I'm kind of focused on the exotech thing for a bit now, but I like the idea of bringing space Jam back in cities and on the road if we're all feeling up for it, going to a little venue nearby, and then the spirit of the people we mentioned continuing that conversation. So there's seasons of being very engaged with community and seasons where I really withdraw.
Now, should you leave New York? Do you have any other fantasy destinations that you would you know, would you go to Europe next? See what's up?
And well check this out? No, I just got back from London. I was there like a couple of weeks ago. But Japan, I've never been to.
Japan, even as a professional artist.
Never, I've never been to Japan.
Oh man. Now, Japan has been kind of tough lately, I think, like over for the past couple of years. Why is other Bill laughing at the punchline? Before because it was just like here comes some old man wisdom about Japan.
Here I go, because like they had the earth the earthquake, it was the tsunami. They had like a natural disaster. And then you know it was that and that like like up for real over there because we were trying to get over there for a minute.
Back and you have to go to I've been once in two thousand and four. It was not a really good experience. No, I didn't like it. I didn't. There's a story there, man, It's always a story. Bron So I went to Japan. Never met it was an African American male the PC title. I went, man like No, I went. We went. Okay, we went over there and we went over there.
We was over there under some some false pretenses for one and to this is a little brother edis LB.
This is two thousand and four. So we went over there and we went over there, and I remember the first.
Night we got out there were just out walking around and we was trying to go to a strip club. And so I mean and forever I'm not really the strip club dude like that, because strip clubs are about pageantry and I think just like a lot of you know, it's a lot of Yeah, it's a lot of that, and I'm not really into that. I'm not into the seeing the tricks.
And all that stuff. I just from North Carolina, I know.
But see, but that's another story because it was a strip club we had called fourteen k But you I'm sure you know it was legendary.
So I'm not gonna get into that right now because that's not the family. Yeah, I love you, honey. That was before I became Washington.
The Blood of jus So now so lizal So So now that So japan were trying to go to the joint and so we walk up to the door and as soon as we get to the door, a little dude comes out no no, no, no Japanese.
Only like we didn't even let us in. We was like, oh wor so like that right there was just kind I was like, fuck this fucking place. I mean the first day, I swear to God. First day.
So we left and I think we ended up eating like McDonald's for the rest of the day. And then first of the time we were there, we didn't get some Kobe beef. Though we went to Kobe and we had some Kobe Beef and like I saw one black guy.
In uh in the train, I love each other. We were just so happy. I've never been so happy to see another black man in my life. You see, I'm dead ass man. I ain't making nothing shit up, but.
It was, it was, it was.
It was a very same for a moment.
The crowds are very different, so they're not really like a big like making a lot of noise. They just watch very probably, but after the show, I mean they're really they they get me. But no, I haven't been since oll four. Now I'm really not in a rushback to go, but I hope you go, and I'm sure you'll killed it.
I'm actually kind of weirded out by Man.
I gotta make this right, man, Yeah you do, because no, I'm he's Wow, you.
Might have like of Tokyo despite the fact, no, despite the fact, man, let's go. Their largest shoe size size ten, and you know their Jeane size is thirty four. I mean, I Tokyo is my third favorite place on earth. Wow. Wow. What's the first two? If I had to leave the Tri State area to live somewhere else. Number one is Portland, Oregon. What number two is Austin, Texas. Number three is Tokyo. Number four is the Bay Area. Hopefully I can afford. If I can afford it, I can't afford it on my salary.
Uh.
Number we're like camping out here. Number five is uh London. But uh wow, the fact that you've actually thought about that though, that's the very that you've plotted it out. I base okay. Portland has uh probably some of the probably the best used record store shopping, the best quality of records for cheap, Like when they see me, they won't charge me five hundred dollars for a Gault McDermott record.
Like if I walk into a Connecticut spot, then suddenly it's nine thousand dollars, Like they don't know the true value of like that stuff I really love. There's more strip clubs per capita in Portland, and I've never been to one. Every time I go, I'm in and out. Nike Headquarters been there. Uh yeah. So I mean if you have good record shopping, great strip clubs and don't take much. And the food capital, I mean the food truck capital of the United States to me is Portland.
That's true. Unknown more orchestra and Portland now I mean he's from New Zealand, but he works out of Portland.
Now man, smart man, smart man. Well, Kimber, I really truly appreciate you for taking your time out of your busy schedule. Schedule, it's not as.
Busy as yours. Well, no, you know it's you are insane.
Though.
No, we're not going to We're not gonna.
Okay, but yeah, I say we should have thought, go ahead, go.
In with how many projects it took?
Look, I took a four day vacation last week. Where did you go? I just I did nothing in Los Angeles for four days. That wasn't answered my text messages. I did, yeah, I said, except to answer my text I did, okay, Yeah. I stayed in bed and it was. It was the worst feeling ever made to not do anything. That The only thing I did was I figured out how to get rid of of ten gigs of music. I didn't need my DJ computer Like that was the only work I did. You actually do that for me
because I cannot do that. That's you cant figure out which one is the kill? No, you got it. You only need one. Don't stop to get enough. You don't need seventeen like I'm literally I always I'll have to have like all the different edits and not necessarily, no, I'll keep the individual edits. But I had, like, you know, i'd like for j like heart Knock Life for a billion of them that I didn't need. So yeah, I
mean cleaning out my hard drives my favorite pastime. But no, I took a four day vacation and I hated every I didn't hate.
It, but it was just you need to be doing things that you sleep.
So much that you get tired from sleeping.
Yeah, deaf.
No, I got trapped in that cycle.
That's a thing.
And then I was like, oh, this is what depression feels like. So let me get out of when you vacation's supposed to go.
Out because otherwise that it becomes like social isolated, Like that's can't.
I mean, that's why DJ so much like I don't. I'm not a let's go to the bar. Well, you know, I'm a I'll DJ in the bar and then you know that's me going out for shopping, you know that kind of thing. I mean, I now record shop for other people, like my new ship is now taking what we're doing. I tell you, record shopping before no no,
I'm saying I record shop for you. Well no, no, no, no, no. I like my thing now is whenever the parents, whenever the kids of the past, like you know you my kids in the pet sound like, then I'll be like, let's go to me. But and then I'll buy them like a thousand records like I'm I've started at least thirty record collections. Wow, Because I mean, I'm not doing to be all noble. No, I'm just addicted to going
to a record shop in shopping. Yeah, I'm not going to buy like another led Zeppelin three records, Love Scholarship Foundation for All Musical Can we get out of this, guys, please? Yes, Kimber answer your question.
I yeah, you take that.
I took a four day vacation. In the future, I'm going to take another seven days off. I'm gonna get on a train and and hobo. I'm actually waking because you keep talking about taking my favorite thing on Earth or just taking a Literally, I got a well the best travels in uh Canada. So I'm gonna you.
Should go to New Zealand take a train through New Zealand.
Initially I was going to go to India, but I can't it to travel there and then to do the four day trek and then the comeback I did and a half. Yeah, I would need three three weeks to really recovering. But yeah, I plan on going from New York to San fran then Vancouver back to New York. Vancouver to New York. You can rent your own car,
have old tiny you know. I get to imagine what travel was like in the forties without being discriminated, travel like the best last hears like spens of racism every time. That hilarious.
It is we covered so much, Yes we did.
Okay, okay, So with that said, uh, kimber once again, we thank you very much for greasing us with your presence and your music and your artistry and your stories and your journey. Give it up, lady and gentlemen, for Kimberly Johnson.
Yes, Kimberly, it's onund Look you're saying, Kimberly, Oh it is. I know it's kim bro Like you're saying, were your parents trying to do Kimberly?
I think they're trying to do Kimberly. Okay.
ET Awards celebrates black with Kimberly Johnson going to be lit, it's going to be This smells like that moment, This.
Spells like that moment is Zoolander before waking up, Before you go go where. He's like, I don't think you thought that. I thought you thought that I was repent. Yes, I know it's Kimbra Lee Johnson. That's more. It's more authentic that way, not Kimberly. But I think your parents are trying to name me Kimberly and just didn't know, you know, it could have been one name. All right, Yes, well, kim Bra Lee Johnson. We thank you very much. To
thank you, of course. Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team apt Pandora. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.