G-U Interviews Kid Koala

G-U INTERVIEWS: KID KOALA

Kid Koala, Picture by Corinne Merrell

Jack: What inspired you to start making music?

Who are your inspirations/influences?

Kid Koala: When I was growing up my parents would play a lot of classical and jazz music; Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday and mainly symphonic music. I studied classical music when I was 4, but when I was around 12, I discovered the turntable scene and was introduced to scratching and hip hop. That was the first time I remember making a conscious decision that I had to learn more about how to make this stuff, the process of music production.

The three records that shaped me were De La Soul’s “3 Feet High And Rising”, Public Enemy’s “It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back” and Coldcut’s “What’s That Noise?” Those 3 records all came on to my radar at the same time and I was forever changed after that. Coldcut actually started the Ninja Tunes label which I got on later.

Jack: Oh wow! So, how did you end up becoming the character of Kid Koala? You even wear a koala costume sometimes which is pretty cool.

Kid Koala: The koala suit is just because of a tour for “Yo Gabba Gabba!” which I guess was about a decade ago. At the time, it was my 2 year old daughter’s favorite show. So, we got a call from “Yo Gabba Gabba!” and they said, “Hey, do you want to come join our “Super Music Friends” tour?” They basically proposed a tour of sold out arenas for 2 year olds and their parents. I’ve been on many tours before, but this one sounded too insane to not check out. So, I asked my daughter if she wanted her Dad to go on tour with “Yo Gabba Gabba!”? and she said, “Yea!”

So, it was the night before I had to fly out to join the tour and my wife asked me what I was gonna wear on stage. And I thought, well, I’ve been touring for 15 years at this point, so I would wear what I always wear, baseball cap, t shirt, jeans. And she said, “No, you can’t go on that show looking like a human! Nobody goes on that show looking like a human!” I didn’t know what she meant until she started pulling up YouTube clips of all these people like Mos Def, Jack Black and my friends Money Mark and Mix Master Mike in these weird costumes. So, I didn’t know what I was gonna do, but my wife stayed up all night and made me this koala suit based on a hoodie of mine. I wore this suit the whole tour, and shortly after that, I lost a bet and had to wear it for 100 more concerts.

It’s funny because 15 years prior to that and 10 years after that, I never wore this suit, but that era I lost the bet was the same time that YouTube was sorta popping off. So, now I read articles saying I always wore the Koala suit, but this is totally new for me.

Kid Koala playing on his koala costume

“Yo Gabba Gabba” live show, Picture by Tyler Golden

Jack: Well, I love the costume, and I can imagine being on a tour for “Yo Gabba Gabba!” was something else, that show is really trippy.

Kid Koala: It was insane! I’ve tagged along as the support for other arena tours with Arcade Fire and Radiohead, really big shows, so when you have that many people in an arena, its loud when they cheer.

But on the “Yo Gabba Gabba!” tour, it was the same volume, but the pitch was much higher cause they are all so little. Just imagine the cheer just 2 or 3 octaves higher, its ear piercing, 120 decibels! It was an amazing tour, a lot of joy to be around. It was a fun time, in this lifetime, it was a memorable run of shows.

Jack: What drew you to the turntables as your instrument of choice?

Kid Koala: I was deep in the classical piano scene, from 4 to 12 I was mainly playing piano. My idea of musical performance was only on the piano, it was through the conservatory, a lot of public performances of music would be at competitions or recitals. If it’s a very strict kind of school, the practice regimen comes to be kind of stressful. There wasn’t room for improvisation or adding your own twist to the music, you just had to play it a certain away, unless you wanted to lose points or embarrass your teacher or fail your exam. The turntable scene was a lot younger, instead of having to play music

in a specific way, this scene was all about trying something fresh every time. The whole goal was that you had your influences, but when it was your turn to get on the turntables, you had to make something that no one had heard that night. There was an encouragement in the music to keep pushing it, and that was very attractive to me, in terms of its concepts. It was like, “Oh wow! In this music you’re supposed to twist your own ideas into it and make it surprising!” That pretty much sealed the deal for me, and that ethos is pretty much indebted into all of the projects I work on.

Jack: That’s a good ethos to have.

It’s a good energy to have around.

Kid Koala: It’s all about sonic exploration. Trying to find the new sounds, even if they are made from withered pieces of old vinyl, trying to bend it into something new that someone hasn’t heard yet. What I like about it, is it’s still very tactile. In terms of manipulating the pitch to the rhythm and the sound, the more time you put into it, the more you realize you have to learn. I still got decades of work to do to get it to this almost jazz level. I watch an old Thelonious Monk or Louis Armstrong video, and I realize there’s still tons of work in the overall scope I need to do to get to where I want to be.

Kid Koala playing, Picture by Aj Korkidakis

Jack: Coming from a lot of different music scenes myself, I get the idea that a lot of what’s new comes from what’s old, and that’s what I love about the art of turntabling. You literally are taking what’s old and making it into something that’s new.

It’s an art form.

Kid Koala: Yea, any instrument in my experience just helps you to inform your angle on how to approach another instrument. For me, I’m a very naïve guitarist and string player. But even learning the basics on another instrument, I try to bring what I learn back to the turntables. Some of what makes those other instruments special, can be brought into how to better your scratching.

Jack: That actually transitions really well into my next question. How do you find your samples?

Is there a method you use in your crate digging?

Kid Koala: Well, these days, it’s really more about production. The first few records with Ninja, it was a lot of private press record; spoken word and educational stuff. This stuff wasn’t meant for commercial use, sometimes it would be stuff that universities put out and it would just be seminars that the professors would record and give it to their students. They would just record themselves doing a round table discussion about venereal disease, send it to their alumni and then decades later, you find it in a bin at the Salvation Army and you go, “What is this?”.

Nufonia live show, Picture by Brian Liu

I have some records that are not meant for human ears, one is designed to teach your bird to talk. You just play it for your bird, and you aren’t supposed to listen to it. You turn the turntable on, and it just repeats sentences for like 10 minutes at a time. It’s enough to torture any being in existence, so I would never play it for a bird. But the fact that this vinyl even exists is strange, and in a way, I always enjoyed the concept of these records and what committee decided in what board meeting that this was a good idea to release.

Obviously, it worked at the time, cause I have seen a few of these types of records. It’s funny that there was a niche in the market for these kind of records.

There’s one that’s supposed to help plants grow too.

Imagine being the voice over artist who had to record this, I think about this and it makes my brain go into different kind of realities. What does that guy do? What does that guy tell his family when he gets home from work? These are the type of things I’ve always been drawn to. More recently however, I’ve been more interested in the process of recording and production. Playing something on guitar, bass or pots and pans or field recordings and then cut it into vinyl myself and then scratch it and send it into other realms. Still love analog and vinyl, but now I wanna produce my own cool records to scratch with using instruments and microphones and amps and tapes.

I love that process. It’s super fun cause if you record drums for four minutes, it’s just a normal record. But if you record this, and cut it into three different vinyls,

then you can juggle the sounds. It’s kind of blending both worlds, you have control over the drum sound and feel, and you can also scratch and mix it on the vinyl. That’s the method I’m using on my next album which is where all these universes collide.

The Storyville Mosquito live show, Picture by Mikael Theimer

Jack: Oh, when’s that record coming out?

What’s the name?

Kid Koala: The next album is called, “Creatures Of The Late Afternoon”, and it is my next turntable album.

Right now, I am in the process of mixing it, and then we are going to release a series of 7 inch singles to lead up to the release of a double vinyl album. The album cover will also work as a board game. You’ll be able to needle drop on to certain parts of the record to interact with the game, so I’m trying to figure out how to cut the vinyl to make the board game aspect work, cause it’s separate from the music of the album itself. This record will be all my favorite things colliding.

Picture from Kid Koala’s twitter

Jack: That’s really exciting! So let’s talk about Gorillaz, the self titled album is almost 20 years old!

How did you end up getting on this record?

Kid Koala: The first Gorillaz album was produced

by Dan The Automator, who is my friend and music mentor. I worked with him on Handsome Boy Modeling School and Deltron 3030 before this.

With Gorillaz, my session was one day. I was on tour in London supporting my first turntable album on Ninja Tunes, “Carpel Tunnel Syndrome”, and I got a call from Dan saying that he heard I was in London and that he was in Damon Albarn’s studio working on this thing called Gorillaz. So, I asked

him what Gorillaz was and he said, “It’s this sort of cartoon band that’s scored by Damon.” I thought it sounded cool, so I asked who was doing the artwork, and he said it was Jamie Hewlett. I’m a huge “Tank Girl” fan, so I went in for the day and threw down some cuts and that was that.

Dan The Automator

Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett in the Gorillaz movie “Charts of Darkness�

Jack: What was it like recording parts for the album?

Do you have any memorable anecdotes about songs or moments in the studio that you wish to share?

Kid Koala: I loved Damon’s studio, I was geeking out over all the stuff they have set up there. The most memorable part of that day though was seeing Jamie Hewlett’s studio and seeing not only all the stuff he was working on for Gorillaz, but also just seeing all the other stuff that he had. Being in someone else’s creative space just blew my mind, I have absolute love for his art, so I was really tripping over the early “Tank Girl” drawings I saw.

Gorillaz promo picture

Jack: In terms of the samples used on the album, did you choose all of them or did Dan or Damon hand pick some of them for you?

Kid Koala: A lot of the sounds were some of the tones that I had made for Deltron 3030. It was a lot of sound effects that was good for turntables. Dan pretty much knew where he wanted the turntables when I came in for the session.

Jack: To a lot of fans, your two stand out moments on the albums are “New Genious (Brother)” and particularly “Sound Check (Gravity)”. A lot of fans are curious as to what the sample you are scratching in “Sound Check” actually says, can you tell us what it’s saying and where it’s from?

Kid Koala: I actually don’t remember, Dan did a lot of scratching on the record too, I don’t know the song off the top of my head. It was one of those things where I went in and scratched on a bunch of stuff, I don’t even know if all of it made on the album.

I wasn’t there for much of the concept planning or the writing, it was a session musician kind of gig.

I was in between sound check and my show and I just took a cab to Damon’s studio between then. We had to knock it out very quick, Dan would pull up different ProTools sessions and would go, “You need to cut it right here for this many bars.” Sometimes, I didn’t even hear the song in its entirety. I would only really hear the grooves and look for a sound to use. It was the fastest session you can imagine.

“Clint Eastwood” really stuck out from the sessions though, it was a catchy tune and the omnichord loop was cool. Also, we play it live in Deltron all the time. Had I ended up touring with Gorillaz live, I would be much more familiar with the songs.

Gorillaz live at the Scala, 2001

Jack: Were you ever asked to tour with the band?

Kid Koala: No, I was not. I know Del has done some shows with them, but at the time my first record just came out, so I was busy touring for that for a long time. Just having that one day with them in my life, is amazing, it was a really fun day. It was really fast.

Kid Koala, Del The Funky Homosapien and Dan The Automator

Jack: “Deltron 3030” and its sequel “Event II” are well loved albums that are literally before their time. Do you have any interesting stories from the production of these two albums?

Kid Koala: I remember being at a Tibet Freedom Concert, and we were playing as Handsome Boy Modeling School. That was the first time I met Del, he did his feature on the track “Magnetizing”. At the time, Del had this idea of a character he wanted to write as, Deltron Zero. We were hanging out in the tent backstage and we were talking about this Deltron Zero character, I was there the first day we all conceived it. So, we made some beats for a collab with this character, it was so dope, there was so much incredible imagery in this post-apocalyptic

“Mad Max” world he painted through his rhymes.

It was a lot of fun to just try and find sounds that harmonized with this futuristic, dystopian world he was going for. Dan was so much fun to work with on that, he was approaching it like he was directing an audio film. He would say “Hey, for this section we need a turntable solo but maybe we need it more like rocks skipping over water or something like, scraping against ice.” That’s enough for me to go, “Oh, I got just the thing for that.” The impression and feeling Dan was going for was much better than him asking me to just scratch this over that, ya know? I had fun making the records and going on tour with them. I remember we had this mini orchestra we toured with and when we went

on David Letterman he introduced us with the joke, “Quite the turn out!” After the song, he went up to me and said, “Cut that out! You’re gonna ruin those records!” That was amazing.

Deltron 3030 live at David Letterman

Jack: You probably get this next question all the time, so I apologize for this. “Lonely Man” is an unheard track from the unreleased Dan The Automator solo album, “Omakase”. The track supposedly featured a duet between Damon Albarn and Mos Def, and we would have no idea how any parts of its sound without your beloved “Routine” remix. How did the song catch your eye to remix, and were you involved with the album?

Kid Koala: I don’t even know if “Lonely Man” is the name of the song. That was a track I did some turntable work on and it featured Damon on it. I always liked the track, so I asked Dan if he minded if I cut some dub

plates on it for my DJ sets. So, for now, you can only hear the song at my live sets. I don’t know what the deal with the album is, it’s been shelved for a while.

I think its delayed release schedule had something to do with all the labels merging. The catalogue got absorbed into a record label that didn’t know what to do with it, so they either shelved it or Dan didn’t wanna put it out, I don’t know. I have three records of three stems from the record, not all the components though. At the time Mos Def hadn’t recorded his part yet, so I don’t have his rap. The version I play is just a remix I assemble on three turntables live, it’s a routine. A lot of people always request, for a while people went, “Play “Gorillaz Routine”!” And I would go, “What are you talking about?” But then I looked

it up and saw somebody had uploaded a bootleg of me doing it on YouTube and called it that. So, for all practical purposes, I guess it’s a title, but none of us who worked on it called it that. I should ask Dan what the actual title of that track is. I think John Medeski plays mellotron on the track, but I’m not sure. We’ve crossed paths a few times, I’ve played turntable grand piano shows with him and opened for him, he’s incredible. But yea, Dan had a lot of features on that record, I think there’s a Beck song on there. It’s really great, I look forward to officially hearing it someday, and not just out of ProTools sessions off Dan’s computer. At this point the more time that goes by, it’s just getting more ridiculous. But yea, I don’t know why that’s not out yet, Dan would know.

Gorillaz promo picture

Jack: Would you work with Gorillaz again if you had the chance?

Kid Koala: Absolutely, I loved meeting Damon and I’ve loved all the subsequent records they have put out. I mean De La Soul is on a few of their records, and they are one of my favorite groups of all time!

If they ever need a live DJ, I’m here.

Nufonia live show, Picture by Pierre Borasci

Jack: Well aside from working on your new album, “Creatures Of The Late Afternoon”. What’s next for you? What are you currently working on right now?

Kid Koala: I have some multimedia stuff I’ve been working on and touring. The first one is “Nufonia Must Fall”, which is based off a silent graphic novel I did in 2003.

It’s a film that I created on stage with a crew of 15 people with puppets, string quartets, keyboards, turntable and a professional film crew and lighting. We have 20 minature sets and 75 puppets and it’s

Nufonia promo picture,

by Aj Korkidakis

based on my first graphic novel about a robot trying to learn how to sing. So, we bring the book to live in one take on the stage. You’re watching the movie on the screen and at any moment, you can look down and see it being made in real time. We have been touring this project for 6 years.

The Storyville Mosquito live show, Picture by Mikhael Theimer

Jack: Wow! Kid Koala: The next project is “The Storyville Mosquito” and it’s about a mosquito who moves to the big city and tries to join a band. So, we’re using the same team and the same format, but it’s a different story, set design and music.

The Storyville Mosquito poster

We started that last year, and we had a bunch of shows booked for this year, but obviously we are postponing them. Once, we are allowed to get back into the world, the performances will be back up again. In the meantime, I’ve been doing music here and I started a Patreon. Helps now that touring isn’t an option, and it’s nice to establish a community of people to engage with. Now that I’m back at home, I shifted to working more on my album which is something I’ve always wanted to do but was busy with the tours.

Kid Koala’s first release

Jack: I didn’t know you did all this stuff outside of purely music.

Kid Koala: Yeah, even with my first album, I included a 36 page comic, which is how I got the publishing deal for “Nufonia” in the first place. I also helped make a video game for Nintendo recently called “Floor Kids”. It’s a b-boy, b-girl animated breakdance

Floor Kids gameplay

battle game which I made music for. There’s about 42 tracks in it, a double album’s worth of material. We are still working on the project right now, expanding the universe of it through storybooks based on the characters and new music and records for it as well.

I’m kind of restless with my work ethic, but these are the main projects I’m working on right now.

Kid Koala playing, Picture by Corinne Merrel

Jack: You do so much man. For those of our readers who aren’t familiar with your work outside of Gorillaz, what do you wish to tell them? Any specific highlights you want to share? What do you want the world to know about Kid Koala?

Kid Koala: The stuff that I work on is kind of left field. I grew up watching “The Muppet Show” and “Monty Python”. I listened to De La Soul, Public Enemy and jazz music. I scratch most of my adult life and have done some scoring for movies and video games like “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” and “Baby Driver”. Somewhere within all this, there’s a dot that connects all the stuff I do.

In general, I kind of gravitate to smile making things that are creative. I enjoy the creative aspects of where a turntable can take you. I’m a bit of a turntable troubadour that way. I don’t know how I ended up making music for video games, I don’t know how I ended up on tour with “Yo Gabba Gabba!” or Radiohead, I don’t know how I ended up in Jamie Hewlett’s studio. I legitimately have no idea how I get on certain people’s radars, but I feel very lucky whenever I meet anybody, and I’m very grateful for the career I have.

It’s a very unique one. What I’m trying to do with the Kid Koala team is to create art for every generation, it’s not about a time in your life, it’s about something that can kinda resonate no matter how old you are and no matter how young you are. It’s the dichotomy

of touring with “Yo Gabba Gabba!” and then touring with Radiohead, no matter what I do, I wanna bring people together in these music related experiences.

I want it to resonate. Anyone is welcome to join me in what I’m working on, I hope it will bring them joy.

Kid Koala, Picture by Corinne Merrel

Jack: I hope the whole world checks everything you do out, it sounds so amazing.

Kid Koala: Yeah and working with Gorillaz is something I’ll always hold with me. After the record went platinum they actually sent me a Gold record. I hung it up in my studio in Montreal because it’s designed

by Jamie Hewlett, it has all the characters on it, and it’s the most interesting record plaque I’ve ever seen. It’s so rad!

You can find Kid Koala online @ • patreon.com/kidkoala • IG: @realkidkoala • facebook.com/kidkoala

• Twitter: @kidkoala • kidkoala.com

Gorillaz record plaque

Graphic Design: Ana de Barcelos Cover Art: Myles “Smog” Sherman Interview: “Super Jack” Seda-Schreiber