Interview with Kimbra

Interview with Kimbra

Undoubtedly one of the biggest names I have ever had the pleasure of interviewing here on View From the Stands. With over half a million likes on Facebook, 145,000 followers on Twitter and a video on Youtube which has just surpassed 700 million views, I think it's fair to say that Kimbra is an international phenomenon.

I recently caught up with the New Zealander, who now resides in the United States to have a chat about what she's been getting up to over the past couple of months, what the music industry is like in her home country and of course, we had to talk about THAT song with Gotye - 'Somebody That I Used to Know', obviously! But first, here's how she got involved in music;

"I was inspired by a lot of the soul and R&B I heard growing up. I also sung in a choir at school that would sing Gershwin songs so I was attracted to very colorful music that challenged me from a young age. 
When I first learn guitar at around 14 I learnt songs from Stevie Wonder but I also loved a lot of heavy rock and prog bands which explains a lot of my attracting to strong rhythms. I first got involved in music as a way of expressing myself. I recorded songs into little dictaphones from about the age of 8 or 9 then moved onto an 8-Track once I was writing on guitar then later, Protools which is when I started producing music in more depth."

And the music that Kimbra has since produced has been of an outstanding quality! But the question that stood out for me is, as an 8 or 9 year old recording music into a dictaphone, did she ever imagine that a few years down the line, she would have achieved the amount of success she has achieved?

"I don’t think I ever had goals for worldwide success or fame, I just wanted to make music that would make people feel some of the things that music had made me feel. I realized it could be a way for me to feel as though Im making a difference in the world and also a place I felt I truly came alive. The fact that it has resonated so deeply with so many different people is amazing to me. The idea of having a lot of followers online is quite intangible to grasp but speaking to people at shows and the experience of having people come to your shows and singing along to your music is a very real thing. I definitely never imagined the things that have happened but I don’t think the future is ever much like what you imagined!"

As I said to Kimbra in the interview, with me being in Ireland and her growing up literally on the opposite side of the world, it is hard to understand what the music industry is like over in New Zealand but she claims her time there had a huge effect on her career - in a positive way!

"My time in New Zealand was a very nurturing time for me musically. Because it is so small the musical community really binds together and you feel a sense of family amongst a lot of the musicians. It is hard being so far away and I felt very drawn to travel from a young age and I think it was important for my musical development but New Zealand is still the place that first evoked me to write music (looking out at the beautiful landscapes as a kid) so it holds a lot of importance to me." 

I want you to look at the picture to the right! Look familiar? What an absolute belter of a song! Former number one not only in Ireland but in numerous countries across the globe and I have to admit, one of my favourite songs in the past decade! One of those songs that just never seems to get old! But what was it like to be involved in such a huge hit?

"I don’t really remember the stages of that song building, I just remember key events, like the recording of the song at my apartment in Melbourne, then suddenly going through customs in London and receiving a call to say it was at Number 1 at the time on the charts. It was very surreal and almost as though it were happening to someone else and I was sort of observing from afar. I was so busy touring at the time that I often didn’t have time to process a lot of it but I remember feeling very excited at what that meant for pop music and how special it was to be a part of a song that meant so much to people."

At the age of 25, something tells me there are exciting things to come from Kimbra, she says she has been working on lots of new music and is looking forward to it's release and seeing how her fans react!

"I am enjoying living in a new city [New York] after being in Los Angeles for the last 2 years. I am working on a lot of new music and excited to share it in the near future. I spent time in Africa this year as well as traveling a lot of America away from the context of touring and I have been collecting a lot of inspiration. I feel myself entering a new creative space and am focused on now channeling all of that into the next body of work."

So as they say, watch this space! You can follow Kimbra's every move on Twitter @kimbramusic, on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/kimbramusic/ or on her website www.kimbramusic.com

Hopefully she'll be back on the road touring very soon, especially over in these parts!

EOIN!