sound palette that she has just on MPCs and on turntables is so wide anyway. We could maybe tap into some pretty advanced concepts of a duo playing stuff. But we’ve got a few more shows this summer … Are we coming to Denver? We're not. In July it’s mainly East Coast … Denver … I think we’re going to be there with Deltron [3030], actually. At Fiddler's [Green]. September 8th. We’re going to be opening for Wu-Tang Clan and Run the Jewels. Deltron is kind of reactivating for that show. Maybe a couple more in that area around there. Krysti: Oh my god! That’s going to be so fun! It’s so wild how multifaceted, multidimensional … I don't even know how to describe you … all the art that you’re constantly doing. How do you balance all those projects? What’s the day in the life of Eric? Are you hyperfocusing on one thing at a time? How do you do it all? Kid Koala: I mean, you guys know what it’s like. It’s like putting a magazine out every month. You give yourself that deadline, right? And then you set up a certain context for the stuff that you want to be putting out there. And you put it together. Some things go on the super hot front burner. That would be what I’m hyperfocused on. When you’re talking about crunch time delivery, that date, I live for that, personally. I don’t sleep that week. I’m pretty much just like, let’s go! As you can tell, I’ve lost my voice. I’m still kind of dealing from this whole launch leading up to April 14th til now or like a month after, and we’re about to do our last board game event in Montreal on Saturday, and then I think I get a break. But my breaks will entail recapping or debriefing, trying to figure out how do we refine, or how do we keep pushing that idea forward, or what did we learn? I’m always really trying stuff. To give you an example, we’ve only done three board game events. We did Toronto, we did Chicago, we did Montreal last week, and we’re going to do Montreal this weekend. And I would hope that every time we did it, I learned something so that we figured out how to make that event better, or how to present it better, or to make it more comfortable for people. Just from touring, I’ve always learned that you have your show, you try it out, and then things happen and you remember what that is and you add it to the next set. And that’s when I find the real progress kind of happens, at least for the live experiences. So what did we learn from the board game event? What I learned last week between Chicago was people need a break. It’s about an hour to play the game and then maybe 15 minutes to introduce a little kind of bumper on each side. But somewhere in the middle there, the energy in the room, you actually need to break it up with something. It’s almost like you’re on a two hour flight. You would expect a bag of pretzels or something. And it was something that simple where something flatlined when we didn’t do that. So the last time I was like let’s bring a tray out of little snacks. Why didn’t I think of that the first day? But I had never been to a board game event. But then I think about if we had people for board games at our house, there’d be snacks all over the place. So it was one of those things where once you're there, you’re like, oh, duh, let’s do that. A day in the life … my night times are usually in the studio making music. When everything’s quiet. My daytimes … right now, we’re working on a feature film. It’s a CG animated feature film based on Space Cadet, which is my second graphic novel. And that’s actually my full on day job now. And then whenever I get a chance, I just try to do a little bit of everything, but not with any real oh, I have to get this done. Except for the thing that has to get done next week. But then on an average day, a little bit of playing in the studio, recording stuff, learning how the equipment works, or trying a new signal chain with some guitar pedals. Just trying to see if I can understand what the palette can be. Because sometimes it’s creating a new type of sound or tone and be like, oh, I don’t know what I can use that for right now, I don’t have any open sessions where that would make sense. But it’s good to know that this device does that sound on it for later. And then the visual art part, I try to either do a little scratchboarding or drawing or painting. I mean, a lot more during the pandemic, but that’s always been a recentering thing for me. And then just hanging out with the kids, going for bike rides. I found to have more than one project going at a time is actually healthier for me. It keeps me from getting too obsessive about one thing and just spiraling into a feedback loop about it. If I feel that coming on I recognize it pretty quickly now. It’s like, okay, I’m not making the sort of fun, quick, intuitive decisions. It’s not that I don’t like the struggle of wrestling with the track, but I do know at some point if it’s really kicking my ass that I just need to take a break from it and do something completely on the other spectrum of creativity. It could be cooking or drawing where I'm literally not even using my ears right now. And then when I go back to listen to that track, I can objectively and almost intuitively just react to it. If you think about it like a stovetop. There’s always three or four things cooking here at our workshop and in our studio. Which burner we focus on just depends on what the deadlines are mostly. But then at the same time, you know what you’re genuinely just inspired to work on at the moment. Stay tuned for Part 2 with Kid Koala next month in August's Issue 116. CREATURES OF THE LATE AFTERNOON IS AVAILABLE AT KIDKOALA.COM 2023 TOUR TICKETS & INFO: KIDKOALA.COM/TOUR FRI, SEPT 8 — FIDLER’S GREEN AMPHITHEATER, CO: KID KOALA X LEALANI W/ WU-TANG CLAN, RUN THE JEWELS & DELETION 3030 SAT, SEPT 9 — DILLION AMPHITHEATER, CO: KID KOALA X LEALANI W/ WUTANG CLAN & DELETION 3030
20 Publizr Home