Kaki King

As I sit having an easy, informal chat to American guitar genius Kaki King, it occurs to me that I’m in a privileged position. Not only because I get to talk to her (which is cool enough), but because of how easy it is. King, you see, has a reputation for being somewhat tight-lipped in interviews; a reputation I can understand, given our awkward first encounter a few years ago. But over subsequent interviews, she has apparently grown comfortable with me… comfortable enough that she’s not only willing to talk, but sing.

King is just explaining that the reason for the many ‘get well’ messages posted on her website is that she was the victim of a mugging three weeks previously. “I could go into it,” she sighs, “but there’s really no point. I was quite freaked out for a while there, but I’m fine now.” When I ask if she is going to write a song about the incident (regretting the tactlessness of the question as soon as it escapes my mouth) she unexpectedly obliges with an impromptu verse: “Oh sure… ‘I got mugged / In a dark street / By a thug / It wasn’t neat…’ There you go.”

This is something King has been doing a bit more often lately (singing, not getting mugged), with her latest album Junior strongly favouring vocal-driven selections. Fans might see this as part of a steady shift away from the purely-instrumental arrangements of her debut Everybody Loves You… Does this reflect Kaki’s increased confidence as a vocalist? “Well, there’s certainly that,” she replies, “but I think as I was writing these songs, they just seemed to call for vocals.

“They seemed a bit limited in instrumental form,” she continues, “but as soon as I started singing over them, they livened up, and became full pieces of music. The record really chose its own path… I didn’t choose it.”

King gives a similar explanation for the more collaborative approach she took to recording the album; in lieu of her usual practice of cumulatively layering her own playing, she assumes the role of frontwoman in what you might call a surprisingly traditional rock power trio. “I think, once again, it’s circumstance…” King says.

“What happened was, our old drummer Matt parted ways with us. We found (new drummer) Jordan, and knew we were going to do some touring, so we started teaching him the old material. As we were teaching Jordan the old songs, I’d come in with new song ideas, and we’d flesh them out together. From there it only made sense to record it as we’d written it – as a band. I think the result was really good.”

At least one deliberate move on King’s part was to reunite with Malcolm Burn, the producer of her previous album Dreaming Of Revenge. “Ultimately, drawing out the best music means working with someone who isn’t just telling you you’re great,” King explains. “You need a real old-fashioned producer, who’ll tell you something you did wasn’t good, that you need to do better. (But) this was definitely a different style of working with Malcolm… He was more producing at the end of the process; really letting me do my thing, and then putting it together.”

For all her creative differences with Burn, however, I’m even more surprised to learn of Kaki’s recent session work for famed pop producer Timbaland. King, after all, has always claimed she has ‘no idea’ how to make albums for commercial appeal… so what’s it like for her to work with a producer where this is the ultimate goal? Kaki seems compelled to stick up for the producer’s artistic vision. “Some of the stuff he’s done with Justin Timberlake, Missy Elliot, Bjork… it can be really out there! The guy’s got some really fucking funky ideas about beats.

“I didn’t even ‘technically’ work with him. What he often does is book time in a studio, get his engineers down there – who may not even know what’s happening on any given day – and say: ‘Do your thing; make some sounds.’ He doesn’t want to keep grabbing the same samples from a computer – he wants real stuff he’s heard and got excited by. So all I did was sit there for a few days and add to his arsenal as he wanted. And he’s already ended up using one part I made in a Miley Cyrus record.”

So… was Kaki entirely happy about that? “I didn’t think the song itself was exactly high art…” she chuckles, “but it’s one of many interesting experiences I’ve had in this industry. It’s kind of hilarious that, of all people, people think I made a track with Miley Cyrus. I like the fact there’s enough versatility in my music that ideas I come up with can be used in cutesy pop songs.”

Personally I’m more excited by a recent blog that reveals King has been hanging out with a certain ‘Tal W’… whom I correctly assume to be young Australian bass virtuoso Tal Wilkenfeld.

(In the blog, Wilkenfeld is the unwitting instigator of a blush-inducing exchange between King and 70-year-old Jazz fusion legend Herbie Hancock. When King replies to comments from Wilkenfeld about how ‘small and cute’ she is, by saying that there is ‘only five inches between cute and super-hot’, the also-present Hancock interjects: ‘I’ve got your five inches right here.’)

Putting Hancock’s dubious wit aside for a moment, King confirms she’s been hanging out with Wilkenfeld… but just as quickly dashes any hope of seeing the two perform together. “Fuck yeah, she’s a killer player…” King enthuses, “but we’re just friends. We actually talked about (playing together) and said: ‘This would be just ridiculous. We’d just be playing over the top of each other…’“

And given that both King and Wilkenfeld have come to prominence in areas of the music industry heavily dominated by older men, it isn’t surprising they’ve had a few war stories to share. “It wasn’t so much what we bonded over, but we did have that in common,” King relates. “She was like: ‘Dude, it’s crazy what we have to deal with sometimes, just because we have breasts.’ I had just sort of brushed this stuff off for years… but then, thinking about it again, I realised there are a lot of little, subtle ways that people will cut you, bring you down, because you’re a woman and they can. It really is frustrating and demeaning. There’s just this constant slew of accusations against you, which you know no man would ever get. She made me think: ‘Wow, this hasn’t been as easy a ride as I remember it being.’“

So things like that episode with Herbie Hancock – which, by the way, continued with King’s riposte ‘so five inches is all you’ve got down there?’ and Hancock’s comeback ‘baby, that’s just my tongue’ – are part of the burden of being a female guitar virtuoso? “Yeah, but I loved that!” King replies with unexpected enthusiasm. “Everyone who read that thought I was pissed off, but it was really the most hilarious, awesome thing that ever happened to me! I want to be just like that when I’m 70, being really gross to these young girls…”

KAKI KING plays The Corner Hotel on Friday November 26 (tickets from the Corner box office, 9427 9198 or cornerhotel.com) and at the QUEENSCLIFF MUSIC FESTIVAL November 27 (tickets and info at qmf.net.au). Junior is out now through Top Shelf/MGM.