Rock-King
Kaki King
Dreaming of Revenge
On The Sofa
Kaki
The music industry is a fickle beast.
From Pop Idol to Britain’s Got Talent, everyone wants to be a star and they seem to want it to happen as quickly as possible, with the minimum amount of work necessary.
It’s a symptom of today’s society. When you ask the average TV obsessed child what they want to be when they are older, it is alarming to discover a high percentage of them responding with “famous”.
Long gone are the days when an artist or band builds themselves up slowly with gradual chart success and growing audience recognition.
Today you can have a hit in week one, top the charts on week two and then disappear into obscurity by week four.
So it was quite refreshing for me to recently meet up with the guitar legend Kaki King, soon after the launch of her latest album, Dreaming of Revenge.
Unassuming but clearly focused, the 5’1” musician has been involved with music for almost all of her 29 years, although guitar was not her first serious instrument since she was a drummer to begin with.
I began by asking her how long she had been professionally tied into the music industry.
“It’s been 6 years, 4 albums and more gigs than I can remember,” she says with a smile. “Whatever they tell you, the road to the top is a tough one and I’m still some way off the peak of the mountain!”
Assuming that music had always been her first love I was surprised to discover that she had in fact originally harboured intentions for the bar.
“When I was younger I had my head set on being a lawyer and for some time this was the primary employment route I had in mind. I’m not sure what changed it for me but I like to think that my heart got the better of me and guided me to somewhere I could be a little more creative. I don’t think drums and a guitar would have won me many cases in the court room!
“The thing was that as a child I wasn’t very ambitious. In fact I tried very hard to be invisible for most of my younger years so I guess another reason I never went into law was that I didn’t have the personality for it. “Still, one of my family at least made it into the legal profession – my sister is in law school but interestingly enough she also sings part time in a choir in Atlanta, GA!”I then asked her who she most looked up to in the field of music and she gave me another mischievous smile.
“Everyone. Everyone is taller than me. Erin McKeown is a bit shorter, and perhaps Muriel Anderson. Paul Simon is really short too! But just about everyone else towers over me! But seriously, I have such a diverse interest and taste in music it would be impossible for me to single out any one artist or band.”
Kaki’s latest album was released to critical acclaim and she is pleased with the reaction to her work.
“No one admits to it but if you get a little critical acclaim it can never hurt. As far as my latest album – Dreaming of Revenge – is concerned, I see it as a logical extension of all the music I’ve made thus far and I’m sure there are many different influences from my past that have filtered their way into the mix.
“The music scene in the UK and the US are still quite different. People in England are more obsessive about music and I read somewhere that the UK buys more music per capita than any other country in the world.”Included in her many accolades Kaki was named “Guitar God” by Rolling Stone Magazine, becoming the first ever female to make this list in the history of the publication.
Just over a year later in December 2007 she was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Original Score for the music she played in the film Into the Wild.
So what do you do in your spare time?
“I like listening to music. A German band called Bubonix are really high on my list at the moment and their new album “Capsaicin” is full of songs I wish I had written. I also spend a lot of time fussing around with my iphoto and of course call my mother quite a lot. The two of us have a very close relationship. I can be quite an obsessive about things; it’s the perfectionist in me that is probably influenced by my star sign. We Virgos can be a fussy breed!”
Kaki’s new album is available to buy now and also download from iTunes. If you would like some more info on her work then check out her website on www.kakiking.com.
It’s also worth noting that she will be returning to the UK on the 03rd October for a one-off gig at the ICA in The Mall.
George R Vaughan
Thu, 07/17/2008 - 15:51 — George Vaughan