Kaki King talks Jan. 16 show at NYC Jazzfest, Foo Fighters, New York, latest album and more

by | Jan 15, 2016 | Coming Up, Culture, Music

A little over 10 years ago, Kaki King was on the “New Guitar Gods” list from Rolling Stone. Not only was it impressive to be labeled as such, but Kaki was the youngest artist selected beyond being the only female guitarist on that list. Not bad for an NYU graduate that truly got her start as a performer by busking within our lovely subway system.

While Kaki has released eight full-length albums – including 2015’s multimedia production The Neck Is A Bridge To The Body – she has become an in-demand collaborator for a wide variety of artists. Beyond contributing guitar work to one of the Twilight movies, she worked with Eddie Vedder on the Into The Wild soundtrack, played on a song by Foo Fighters, contributed to a Timbaland track that featured Miley Cyrus, and scored the movie How I Got Lost. In turn, it is not surprising that Kaki also has her own custom-designed guitar, the Adamas 1581-KK from the Ovation Guitar Company.

In advance of her Jan. 16 performance at The Greene Space, as part of NYC Jazzfest – in which she performs The Neck Is A Bridge To The Body — Kaki kindly tackled some Q&A for Downtown. Within such I learned how health insurance has played a factor into her career, but more importantly, what SSAS stands for. For all things Kaki-related in the meantime, click on over to www.kakiking.com.

Photo: Randy Gunter

Photo: Randy Gunter

Your upcoming show at The Greene Space is part of NYC Jazzfest. Has anyone ever described you as a jazz artist in any part of your career?

Kaki King: Many times. “Jazz” is often used as a catchall term for music that can’t be easily described or requires a certain degree of technical skill. I always take it as a compliment, even though I don’t feel I deserve it. I am neither talented enough, nor poverty-stricken enough, to qualify as a jazz artist.

At the Greene Space gig, you will be performing The Neck Is A Bridge To The Body. Being a multimedia project, how would you describe it to someone who is unfamiliar?

K: I’m playing a guitar suspended in mid-air that is a projection screen for an entire storyline of videos and images that unfolds over time. Sometimes I am using the guitar to actually control the video, sometimes the video is influenced by the guitar, and more often than not the guitar is controlling me. It is beautiful, I love performing it, and there is nothing else like it.

Where was the first gig you ever played in New York City?

 K: Probably something at some small club room at NYU. I played at Sidewalk Cafe for a while, but I really got my start busking in the subway.

The first time I saw you live was as part of a Who tribute at Carnegie Hall, at which you played “Pinball Wizard.” Do you remember the first cover you learned to play on guitar?

K: I played lots of “Twinkle Twinkle” and “Frere Jacques” when I was five years old. I can remember learning “Stairway To Heaven” when I was about nine and taking it very, very seriously.

At what point in your career did you realize that you were a virtuoso guitarist — my opinion, at least — and not just a singer/songwriter?

 K: At some point I was able to get cheap health insurance because I was signed to a major label. I was 24, I had insurance, I had finally quit my job — playing in the band at Blue Man Group, which is a really cool job and not one you give up on a whim — and playing music paid all my bills, which weren’t much since I lived with 56 people in a loft in Bushwick in 2004. So I thought that I could have health insurance for a year, and then 18 months of COBRA after that, and then after all that time surely my career would be over and I would go about my life. So it was after all that time passed, and I had to pay for COBRA, and I still paid my bills, and I made a third record, and lost my insurance finally, that I had an epiphany that I should go to grad school.

But then I ended up getting a commercial gig as an actor — totally random, a girl I once dated was the casting director, hooray! I was able to get insurance through SAG, which meant another two and a half years of insurance. And by that time I had made another album and was working on yet another one, Obama had been elected and had promised healthcare reform…

Do you have plans to do another singer/songwriter album in the future?

K: I definitely have plans to add my voice to albums again. Will that look normal or look like something I’ve done in the past? Probably not.

How did the opportunity to play on a Foo Fighters track come your way?

K: Someone turned Dave Grohl onto me and he got my e-mail and wrote me – drunk — and said he wanted to start a band with me. We were going to be called the Star Spangled Ass Shredders. He was just being funny, but I took it seriously and went ahead and got a web domain and the T-shirts made. No I did not.

But I did fly out to L.A. and hang out at the studio where they were mixing Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace. He said he had a song that he wanted me to hear, and I thought he’d put on a track or something. It turns out that he actually had to play it for me on guitar, so as he was playing I picked up a nearby guitar and just played along, and a few days later we recorded it. I still think Star Spangled Ass Shredders – SSAS — is a great idea for a band. Anytime, Dave.

What do you view as your biggest accomplishment so far in you career? Your Academy Award nomination?

K: I wish! I was nominated for a Golden Globe, but that was the year that the ceremony was cancelled because of the…writer’s strike? I was really, really looking forward to going to because Juno came out that year and Ellen Page was going to be there. My goals were to either meet Ellen Page and make her marry me, or to be mistaken for Ellen Page so many times that people just gave me awards and money and clothes. Neither of those things happened, so my biggest accomplishment is still yet to come.

When you’re not busy with your career, how do you like to spend your free time?

K: I have a toddler who only wants do dance to Michael Jackson. The opening phrase of “Beat It” makes her scream, drop everything, and run to the stereo. So that’s pretty much all I do at the moment and my moonwalk is getting so good. She is also very attached to her bellybutton, and mine by association, so she spends a lot of time shrieking “BEWEBUDO” and trying to lift up my shirt. Parenting is a form of insanity.

What was your favorite album of 2015?

K: To Pimp A Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar.

Finally, Kaki, any last words for the kids?

K: Obamacare is life changing and you should all be so grateful — you little farts. Love, Dad.

-by Darren Paltrowitz

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