Matt and Kim

These two are quite possibly the happiest people alive.  Keys and drums, grins and chuckles, Matt and Kim... Whether you go for their squathouse-pop turned nation-wide rock, or simply Matt's stage banter, you may find yourself all smiles while you and those closest rock out, pushed against Kim's drumset.



Chief Magazine: Tell me and everyone else, where are you two from?

Kim: I am from East Providence, Rhode Island.

Matt: Jacksonville, Vermont.

What kind of stuff were you into as kids?

Kim: I was a jock.  When I started 7th grade I started doing all round sports. In high school I focused on track.  My plans back then were to run throughout college and then compete in the Olympics.  Yeah… didn’t work out as planned.  I made it through one year at Penn State and realized I had other things in mind.  I do miss running though.

Matt: 7th grade was way into wearing at least two flannel shirts at all times.  Then I got really into skateboarding and then political punk and had a sweet Filth butt flap.

What do you two do when you’re not making music that makes the kids shake? What other things do you amuse yourself with?

Kim: Yes, when we are home for longer than a week I am making art.  I recently had my first solo show in Brooklyn at Cinders Gallery. [Read Kim's interview about her solo show.]

Matt: I worked on TV shows and music videos and stuff.  For this one show that had a naked marinette puppet of Matthew McConaughey and I had to blur out his huge wooden penis like in cops.  But these days when I’m not making music I’m hopefully just chillin', hard.

What kind of music were you into? What was the first music that you heard, that you were just like “This, this is what I love. I love THIS music.”

Kim: I grew up listening to a lot of  techno.  Throughout high school I went to a lot of raves,  Oh and I was a straight edge raver.  My brother is a pretty big rave dj (DJ VENOM)  and he introduced me into that scene.  When I did a year at penn state I met a lot of local punks and started listening to pop punk.

Matt: The first tape I ever owned was Fine Young Cannibals and that was right on, then the first CD I ever owned was Cypress Hill and that was right on, I got it from my parents in 5th grade.  But I guess I started getting into music with Nirvana and Metallica, but then when I started getting into punk stuff like the first time I heard The Casualties that was what it was about and when I decided I had to start playing music and living it and all that, soon came the butt flap.

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How did you two meet originally? Walk us down memory lane.

Kim: Actually you are going to find this funny.  Do you remember when you threw a show at your uncle's loft? Matt’s old band, Amanda Noa, played.  Well before that Matt and I had been talking but that is the night the magic happened.  I feel like the Amanda Noa really brought it to a new extreme with almost everyone in the band walked out during the set except for J and some dudes who decided to step in.  Matt and I took off to get some food and do a bit of smooching.  That was the beginning of Kim and Matt… not Matt and Kim

Matt: 'nuff said.

How did you turn whatever you two were, into a band?  How did Kim and Matt become Matt and Kim?

Kim: We were working on films and art projects together.  We work really well together.  Matt was writing some solo stuff at that time.  It was awesome but he wasn’t doing anything with it.  My friend Ian gave me his old drum set so we set them up in our bed room and that is when it started.  We didn’t think it was going to go any farther then us messing around in our apartment.  A few months later Ian forced us to play our first show.  I guess if it wasn’t for him the band would of never made it out like we did.

How do you two keep so damn happy? I know some people, when they get down, they throw on your CD and it just gets them all charged up, happy as sin. Do either of you have any rituals to raise your spirits?

Kim: Wow that is awesome.  Umm… I don’t get bummed out that often.  I don’t know why but it just doesn’t happen.  I do watch America’s Funniest Home Videos to make me laugh.  I mean nothing is funnier than a dude getting hit in the junk.  That shit cracks me up!

Matt: We try to be who we are when we play live, honest you know?  And for the most part we are totally siked and it shows, but if we were totally bummed that would show too.  There too many bands that put on the poker face and the music has to filter through hopefully just acting like they don’t care, unless that actually do, in fact, not care, I think it’s really important to be honest when you perform.  And we just like to write and hear and live to some songs you can party and have fun with.

I think it’s important to acknowledge that the way you two appear on stage (with white-toothed smiles, stretched wider than your heads) is no act. You don’t pretend to be “in love” with life, you two just are. You feel like telling people why? Got any advice for sullen teenagers?

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Kim: You have it wrong… I think I have more of an off-white smile.  I blame it on all the tea I drink We are happy people in general but it is so much fun to play music and that is why we are grinning so much on stage.  Also matt makes an ass of himself which makes me laugh a lot.

Matt: Totally beat you to that question.

How did the Videos come about?  Did you two collaborate at all with the directors? Was there a concrete vision for either of the songs, that you wanted maintained? Or did you just trust in who you brought on to direct?

Matt: Our video for "5k", our man Colin Moore came at us with that idea.  Pitched to us… “so like Matt’s arms start growning really long right, and kim takes out this huge knife and chops them off and then sews them back on.  Them the same thing happens vice versa, and then the crowd gets really into it and starts cutting each other up, and then everyone dies.”  Kim and I sit with just some blinks… “Colin, we’re not Tool,” but the more we talked about it the more it became clear… that is perfect.  We get cornered into the cute category and we’d still be ourselves, just with gallons of fake blood involved just trying to balance.  And as far as "Yea Yeah" goes, we were playing a show in Houston and our drunken friends started thowing pizza at us and then ice and drinks and other stuff and it was super fun, and figured wooop there it is.  Then talking to Nick Chatfield-Taylor about having a twist at the end, he said “banana costume comes in and wrecks everything.”  Genius.

How has the response been?

Matt: Response to both videos has been great, and I'm happy to say that no one, that I know of, has either cut them or someone else at one of our shows, or, thrown food at us.

I heard that the “Yea Yeah” video is going to hit one of the MTV channels?  How did that come about?

Matt: We were contacted a little while back by MTV2 about getting a video from us, but at that point we just had the "5k" video which is too explicit for American TV, but I heard it was being played on MTV2 in the UK which I feel there is something particularly crazy about that 'cause we recorded that song in our bedroom, and the video cost less then 500 bucks. Then after we did "Yea Yeah", we were contacted again and it’s slated to run on MTV2 and MTV-U early 2007 which is still wild, made for less then a thousand bucks, but same as the "5k" video was done, help from awesome friends who were willing to lend time and resources or possibly just get drunk and bloody.    

How do you like Myspace as a whole? Do you like the ability to communicate with the fans?

Kim: The whole myspace thing has been good to us.  I mean on our first tour we were in San Diego, which is about the farthest you can get from New York and still be in mainland U.S., and we had people singing along and dancing to our songs way before we even had an album out.  That was pretty sweet.  Which can only come from MySpace, spreading around online and CD burning or stuff like that. As uncool as it to talk about, technology is really helping independent bands spread the word around the whole world, when it might have been impossible to get distribution to say Africa or somewhere unless you were huge, now… you know, it’s easier.  for talking to people it gets tough especially when we are on the road.  We don’t get a lot of internet time and I feel like people get pissed when they write us and we don’t respond. I start to feel guilty especially because MySpace has that thing when you can tell if someone has read your message.  I hope people understand that it is really tough to respond to all the messages but we love getting them.

As far as what you would want for the band, does MySpace do it right?

Kim: MySpace is OK.  I think the best thing to do is tour.  MySpace is good for letting people know you are coming.

Matt: Yeah a big part of knowing what we sound like is to see us and be part of it.

What are you guys listening to these days?

Kim: Beyonce. T.I., Ludacris, Toys that Kill, Japanther, Best Fwends, Death Set, Flosstradamus, GirlTalk, oh and we listen to a lot of audio books.

Matt: That list works for me.  Anything Timbaland or Dre produces, Ramones, anything that makes you wanna have fun, or think, I don’t know.

Who is out there, just killing it, that you think people should be checking out? Who isn’t getting the exposure they deserve?

Kim: Best Fwends and Dan Deacon.

From years and years of playing Bed-Stuy house parties and now suddenly you’re CMJ’s local band of the year. Does this recognition feel like it happened suddenly?

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Kim: I guess I don’t really notice the recognition… I don’t feel like we have changed at all.  We’re still doing what we’ve always done, last tour played in peoples basements and houses as well as now some bigger spots and when we are home we are always down to play lofts in Brooklyn.

Matt: Yeah we’re totally just doing what we’ve always done but sometimes at a little larger scale.  I mean it is different when we’re in like Arizona and recognized in a grocery store (don't get me wrong, doesn't happen to us too often), but I remember being in a band in high school and thinking it would be crazy to have one person I didn’t know singing along to lyrics I’d written. 

This is what, your fourth massive tour?  What’s the secret?

Kim: I think this is our fourth tour.  The secret… hmm, I guess that because Matt and I can be around each other all the time without getting sick of each other makes it very easy to keep touring.  I also love being on the road.  I think it is because I never went anywhere as a kid.  I mean in Rhode Island if you drive more than a half hour you pack a lunch.

Matt: Yea and Kim smells good. 

Are there any stories from on the road that were just a fantastic series of events? Was there one big, seriously lucky day? Any adventure story that you wouldn’t believe if you weren’t there?  A best/worst day perhaps?

Kim: Well a few tours ago we out ran a tornado… but for this tour... OK, probably the worst day of tour...  We were leaving Flagstaff, Arizona after having a sweet show that luckily enough the cops showed up right after we were done playing.  As we were leaving Flagstaff we realized our brakes were shot.  We found a Midas and slept in the parking lot.  It was below freezing that night so it was an uncomfortable sleep.  We woke up at 7:30 so that we could get the van right in.  We waited in the Midas waiting room from 7:30 am till 4pm.  It sucked.  They had to keep getting parts from other stores.  At 2pm we started calling San Diego where we were suppose load in at 6pm.  We were giving them the heads up that we probably weren’t going to make it.  Then we started to feel bad.  We always have an awesome time in San Diego and we really hate to cancel shows.  We decided that if we were going to make it there in time for the show we had to leave flagstaff by 4:00.  At 3:45 the van was still not done.  We told them to take it off the lift and we were just going to hope that we made it.  After the guy tried to convince us not to drive it he took it down.  We drove non-stop to San Diego… when we were in the middle of nowhere, right above the Mexico boarder, I realized we were about to run out of gas.  Now, if you are familiar with this area there is nothing there.  Absolutely nothing there.  We were searching on the map for towns… nothing for the next 20 miles with the gas gauge on the red…  Well after yelling at each other for a bit we made it to a gas station.  We made it to San Diego with a half hour to spare. It was an awesome show and I am happy we made it.  We then left san diego at 1 in the morning to make our way to LA.  We showed up at 3:30 am and slept in the van so we could again wake up at 7:30 and bring the van to another midas.  It cost us a shit ton of money but we didn’t have to cancel a show.  Yea, I guess that was the worst time on tour! 

What’s next? What’s on the horizon for you two? Any plans on resting back in Brooklyn for little bit?

Kim: We just got a booking agent.  I know I know we are taking away the D.I.Y. effect of it but I have to say that the amount of touring we have been doing makes it really tough to keep booking tours.  I realized that when I was booking a tour while on tour.  Also it takes a lot of time to book the tours and I realized that I haven’t made any art over the past few months which is pretty lame.  So our booking agent now has us booked up till June.  We will be doing a lot of one-week tours throughout the months.  We requested to be in Brooklyn for a bit because we need to start working on our next album.

Matt: Yeah I'm super siked to be working on new songs, super siked to be hanging in brooklyn for a minute, but I'll be super siked to be on the road again. So things are going pretty good and I'll try to hold that down. A 40-year-old dude who looked 20 that my friend met in lock down when asked, "How do you do it?" once said "One: never get an alarm clock," bam I try to sleep 12 hours a day, "Two: eat healthy,"  i ate and apple and chocolate wafers for lunch so I'm half way there, "Three: don't work a job you don't like," and I can't think of one thing I would want to do more than play music and feel so lucky that that is what I get to do.

Videos

"Yea Yeah" original video

"Yea Yeah" Chief Mag exclusive alternate video

Downloads

01 yeayeah.mp3
02 5k.mp3
04 Jesse Jane.mp3
01 silvertiles.mp3

Website

www.mattandkimmusic.com

Photos

Nick Chatfield-Taylor
Tod Seelie
Ed Zipco

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