With Sam McCarthy, his bandmate in electro-pop duo KidsOf88, Arts has overcome the dreaded sophomore slump with Modern Love, released just a week before our conversation. As a follow-up to their surprisingly successful debut Sugarpills, Modern Love is a forceful, immediate collection of hooky pop that aims to build on the success of their debut album. All 11 tracks on Modern Love contain a playful intensity that can be heard in Arts’ voice, especially when he describes where his and McCarthy’s heads are at now that the album has finally been released.
“Oh man, it’s been a really long process for us,” he says dramatically. “When we did (Sugarpills) nothing was ever planned. There were mistakes, but good mistakes as well. We never had a formula. But with this album, we might have had too much time to think about it. We tried to find the right balance between what we wanted and what propelled us to start making albums in the first place.”
As Arts and McCarthy are relatively young, the idea of time comes up again and again in our conversation.
It’s not as if Arts feels like he’s playing against time so much as he understands he’s fighting an uphill battle against geography as well. The idea that Kids Of 88 might end up as a pop act stranded in New Zealand is prevalent with Arts, a point he notes after being asked about the urge to release their second album as quickly as possible.
“Especially being in New Zealand, it felt like a very long time. Sugarpills was released in Australia nine months after it came out in New Zealand, so we’d been waiting for a long time,” he notes. “We got over the time barrier eventually and we learned to just make sure that with this record, we just made sure the songs sounded great instead of being concerned about how long it might take for the album to get out.”
With the release of Modern Love, the only concern the band now has is moving forward. And while Modern Love is indeed a jovial listen, ripe with the kind of club ready pop that will surely suit the hipsters and young enthusiasts alike, Arts can’t help but look back on the surroundings that brought KidsOf88 to where they are today.
On the strength of the internet and radio sensation My House, KidsOf88 began whirlwind tours around the world. When asked about the last few years and the circumstances surrounding Modern Love, Arts breathes heavily, taking time to collect his thoughts on the band’s catapult into the public conscious.
Sure enough, his desire to stay grounded can be heard on Modern Love, most notably on the lead single Tucan featuring a repeated chorus: “I want to go to a place I know is real/because I need to find a new place for my find to heal”.
Looking back, the success of Sugarpills not only surprised Arts, it led to that very desire to understand the band’s true path.
“Yeah, very much so,” he says, after being asked if he was surprised by the response to Sugarpills. “Sam and I have been mates since we were about 13 and we’ve gone through a bunch of terrible bands in the process.
“We eventually figured out the kind of sound we wanted, though it wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision. We just made this kind of tongue-in-cheek, funny track and the next thing we knew, it’d been picked up by a station in New Zealand. Now we’re just sort of riding the wave, so to speak.”
Where that wave takes KidsOf88 next is anyone’s guess. Arts maintains that the friendship he shares with McCarthy is healthy and strong, and they’re ready for whatever comes next. If it’s success on an even larger scale, Arts insists he’s prepared. And above all, ready for happiness.
“[Success] is always in the back of our minds, though it wasn’t the reason we started writing songs. When you work that hard at something for so long, you’re still surprised when it works out, like Sugarpills did,” he continues. “We had a few songs that worked and the next thing you knew we were being flown around to different countries to meet these expensive people. It was a lot for these two young boys from New Zealand. This process was completely different. But if it does take off, we’ll be happy boys.”
BY JOSHUA KLOKE
