Interview : Kid Koala

12th December 2003, a story had already started in Reading’s campus, England. That night, Kid Koala is in a bar, grooves of love and reason and syncopated jazz are coming in spurts from his decks, and a Bavarian woman stands at his side, sometimes stomping around the room in her traditional costume.

The night has now almost become a decade and the blues from the jazz from Basin Street Blues swam the stream of chance, trout-fashion, to return to the blues. The animal is bare, stripped as it should always live. One String Sam had only one string, a baby, and needed a hundred dollars. The space Cadet has a guardian robot and a 12 bit blues. This is Kid Koala’s interview.

 1. Your first musical memories?
Playing piano when I was 4.

2. The best record you received as a present? / The worse one?
Best: The Muppet Show Album.
Worst:  Calculus. A How To Record.

3. The first record that you lost?
Monty Python's Instant Record Collection.

4. The name of your imaginary band?
Cougar Piggy.

5. In which environment do you like to record music?
60% humidity.

6. What will music sound like in 50 years / 5000 years?
50 years: disco.
5000 years: a single sine wave

7. Who changed your life?
My high school French teacher Madame Lynch. She said to me, "Promise me you'll do something creative as an adult."

8. Taking Erik Satie’s Furniture music as a motif, would you consider your Melancholy/Cinematic series to be closer to Tapisserie en Fer Forge (Tapestry in forged iron) or Carrelage phonique (Phonic tiling)?
I'm not familiar with those jams. I will look them up.

9. Your dream collaboration?
I'd love it if Karen O would do an album with Tom Waits.

10. The record that freaks you out?
Cheech and Chong's Greatest Hit

11. Your favourite album to have «One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer »?
Been sober for 987 days.  I'm looking forward, not back.

12. The music library you haven’t yet collected?
Coughs and Sneezes of the World

13. The little-known track that everyone should have heard of?
'Electric' by Adira Amram

14. An album you wouldn’t want to be?
'BAD'

15. The cover version you would love to do?
I would do a cover version of Sid Vicious' cover version of 'My Way'

16. The text you would like to produce a soundtrack for?
ROFL LOL :)

17. “Imagine waking up tomorrow morning and all music has disappeared. All musical instruments and all forms of recorded music, gone. A world without music.”. What will you do ?
Open a diner.

18. Have you ever had auditory hallucinations?
What?

19. Would Music find love in an old record store any more?
It's never too late for love!

20. How would you like to die?
Have you seen the end of 'The Notebook' by Nick Cassavetes?

His new album 12bit Blues is out now. Kid Koala is also working on Space Cadet "a 132-page graphic novel drawn entirely on etchboards, accompanied by a "still picture score" composed and recorded by Kid Koala. This charming story of an adventurous space cadet and her guardian robot touches on the relationship between technology and isolation, celebrating the idea of connectivity through family and the cycles that build generations". You could listen to the still picture score on his soundcloud.




For more informations on Kid Koala's ongoing projects or for Tour dates, go to Kid Koala's website.