Interview: Kid Koala Talks About “Space Cadet” – New Graphic Novel & CD

Click here to let Kid Koala know where you think the next Headphones Concert should be – he’s taking suggestions.

SD: How would you describe your target audience for this? It is a children’s book but it has some pretty mature themes.
Kid Koala: I think the show is child-friendly. To give you an idea, at the show, I don’t actually read the book. So I don’t give away the story or anything. It is really about creating this universe and inviting people to mess around with the sound design in the room and we have little AB turntables so kids can scratch their own voices and get a chance to actually work with some of this technology that is kind of obsolete. It is almost like a museum at this point so they have a lot of fun. The point was to try to have an interactive show although everyone is still wearing headphones. There are many points in the show where I can invite people up to actually help perform some of the music whether it is playing a music box or hitting a bell.

SD: How much of you is in this storyline?
Kid Koala: I definitely can relate to both characters on some level being someone who travels a lot I have had that experience of feeling like you are kind of like floating in the abyss and you don’t really know when or where you are going to land. But on the other hand I’ve also had…winters here in Montreal are quite isolating. People don’t leave their houses at all. So you do have this cabin fever sort of feeling that I feel the robot has to go through at some places.
My daughter was born 3 years ago but I think that had a lot to do with the inspiration behind this book. Especially the music. I wrote most of the music when she was 6 months to a year old and it was on my watch for the most part. I would have to hold her in one arm and sort of quietly tip toe around the studio and record and write music without waking her up.

SD: Where does this fit into your career as Kid Koala and what do you see yourself doing next?
Kid Koala: Philosophically, I was drawn to turntables, which is what most people know me for. It is an instrument that has a crazy range. If you are really excited and spazzy, you can do some really funky aggressive music and scratch that way and make that kind of funky music but at the same time if you are feeling down and a little low that will adjust how you play. It is just how I work in the studio in the winter. So it is really about exploring that whole range of the turntable and in life. If you said I had nine tours to do over the course of a career, would I do the exact same tour where I release the same kind of records over and over again? I’d hope not. It would be quite boring.
For me, this is kind of the exact opposite of the last album and that tour, breaking turntables on stage and ridiculously loud, mosh-pit experiences. I felt like “ok well there has to be more to life than this,” even though I had a great time but at the same time I was thinking where else can I go. So I tried to conjure up the antithesis of that type of show. Can we do a quiet show where kids can come? [Where] it’s not scaring them and they can dial the headphones to the volume of their comfort, and it’s more of a family-oriented environment.

SD: Aside from turntables, what other instruments are we going to hear on Space Cadet?
Kid Koala: Well we used about almost every instrument in my studio so there is keyboard and bells. I have a record cutter so I would often cut plain instrument and then scratch it to vinyl and then rescratch it back in so it still has the turntable feel to it. There are some live strings by my friend Marika [Anthony-Shaw] who also plays in Arcade Fire and she luckily had some time between tours to come play with me. Mainly the tracks were written on piano often in the dead of night while my daughter was asleep and sometimes in my arms. That’s pretty much it. There is upright bass, piano, bells, keyboards, various synths, a lot of tape delays and autocan delays and a lot of analog.

SD: Do you expect to do more shows in museum settings?
Kid Koala: Yeah we are in touch with a bunch of presenters and it is really just about finding the right thing. We don’t need to play in a club at all. There have been some pretty interesting offers for rooms so right now we are just trying to figure out the best choices. It is quite a setup for us. It takes longer to set up than just cutting up records. We intend to spend about a week in each city and I think we are starting in Europe and the UK.
I think since I’ve become a father, at one point I said “it’s been fun cutting up records at a music festival” but when you have a toddler with you, the last place you want them to be is the front row in a rowdy crowd of people. Again, this came quite naturally. It goes back to my teaching roots because I actually studied to become an elementary school teacher.

SD: So before you traveled the world as a DJ you studied to be a teacher?
Kid Koala: Yup – 6th grade for about 6 months in my last year of college, and then I taught 1st grade. Most of the 6th graders were taller than me so there were some authority issues. They were like “Mr. San, my brother could totally kick your butt” and I’d say “you know I don’t doubt that” because he was taller than me.