How Grand
by Rebecca S. Rea
When a musical duo forms in the lofts and parks of Brooklyn, playing to
audiences of friends and family, it has to accept a few bumps (amplifiers precariously balanced on sofas) and not-so-ideal situations (recording an album in an unheated Vermont farmhouse) along the way.
So, Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino have learned to smile. A lot.
They take their music seriously, but themselves? Not at all.
Since forming their band — called simply “Matt & Kim” — in 2004, the pair has stormed the New York music scene, released a self-titled debut album, joined the F Yeah tour on a veggie-oil-powered school bus, played Lollapalooza, and appeared on MTV2 and MTV Europe. Their sophomore album, Grand, released in January.
In five years, the band’s audience has grown exponentially, and not just because of its danceable, clever music. Matt & Kim bring to the stage a cheery exuberance unrivaled at any level of musical success. Their self-deprecation and willingness to laugh at mistakes or silliness make these two just damn enjoyable to watch. You know they care most about the audience having a good time.
Whether playing for thousands or dozens, Matt & Kim make anywhere feel like home.
I spoke with Matt Johnson before their recent visit to Hollywood for a gig at the Henry Fonda Theatre.
RedFence: Tell me about how you got started — how did you know that you wanted to make music together?
Matt Johnson: We almost didn’t know. Kim was trying to learn drums on a hand-me-down drum set, I was trying to learn the keyboard; I had played bass and guitar in other bands, but it was more fun to do it together, than to be, like, practicing scales alone. We were still just messing around, playing in our bedroom, when a friend of mine, who was in a band said, “You’re playing this show.” We pulled together three songs, and couldn’t think of a name, so we went with our names instead.
RF: What makes the two of you such effective partners?
Matt: I realized that as far as playing music with folks goes, it’s less about finding someone who is proficient, and more about finding someone you work well with together. Kim and I silk-screened T-shirts, put together art installations for a while before we began playing together. I was a film major, went to art school, and if I am lucky enough to play music for the rest of my life, I would be more than happy to have gone to school there. It’s the learning of whether or not something works, no matter the discipline. Some of my favorite filmmakers were illustrators, Terry Gilliam, Tim Burton, traditional training applied to a different area can enable a freshness to your process.
RF: What is your general process as a team? Who writes the lyrics, or who writes the melodies, or do you just leg wrestle for it?
Matt: It’s totally collaborative. We start with a beat, when it comes to figuring out a melody, I take the reins. Lyrically, it’s difficult, so we both throw ideas into the mix, use word association, let the song write itself, tell us what it’s going to be about. The biggest problem with two people writing music together is that there are no tiebreakers. So if Kim thinks a song should be faster, and I think it should be slower, then we have to resort to arm wrestling. And she usually wins.
RF: The first thing I loved about you as a group was your unbounded enthusiasm — how do you both keep that up?
Matt: I think you have to be smart about what you choose to do — whatever small success Kim and I are at right now, we have to be choosy; you don’t want to be worn-out, you want to remember why you did this in the first place. When I started playing at 14, it was just a fun and expensive habit, and now we don’t forget that we’re lucky, and it’s fun, it’s why we started doing it, that’s why we continue doing it.
RF: Another element of your style that I appreciate is your sense of blending audience with performer, the way you interact with crowds — it’s really very lovely. Was this a conscious choice as artists? As your audience continues to grow (and already has!), how do you plan to continue this?
Matt: We started in loft parties, warehouses, art spaces in Brooklyn, touring in areas where we’d be on the floor, in the mix of all the people there. A fun show is about a group effort. The more fun the crowd is having, the more fun I have — it’s a chain reaction. In playing bigger and bigger places, in soundcheck, looking at the lighting setup, we say, can you light the crowd? I want to look everyone in the eye, make people a little uncomfortable. Even when we play really well, if for some reason, we were in a bad mood, then it’s not a good show. Sometimes, when I’ve had a little too much to drink, I’ll have a little too much fun, and that’s not a good show, either. Kim’s got me on a strict limit of before-show drinks.
RF: Was it ever difficult to convince your parents that what you do is a ‘real’ job? (i.e. freelance vs. 9-to-5)?
Matt: My parents have always been so supportive — not that they came out and saw my high school punk bands, but they always supported it. My parents made me go to college, but said I could go for whatever I wanted. They totally support what Kim and I are doing now. My parents moved to Vermont after being hippies in the ’60s, Kim’s mom wanted to be a fine artist, she still does fine arts, and Kim’s dad is super proud of us. He’ll tell us stories of finding us in a magazine, showing it to the cashier, saying, “This is my daughter!” My mom told me, she was at some store in the mall, and “Daylight” started playing over the speakers; she was wearing these Converse we had designed, and she just had to tell someone that it was her son playing, and his shoes that she was wearing.
RF: And speaking of real jobs, tell me about recording Grand — did its manner of recording affect the songs? Would you choose to record this way again? Would a studio recording appeal to you more now?
Matt: Our first six weeks of recording was in Vermont; our first album was recorded in about a week, and our record label at the time didn’t have much money, so the whole process was “move on, move on.” When it came to this album, six weeks came and went, and we were nowhere close to being done, so we came back to our apartment, worked 18 hours a day there, every chance we got between shows and touring. My neighbors and I have an unspoken agreement about being as loud as we want, so they didn’t care if I was hollering lyrics out the window at 2 in the morning.
We needed to prove what we were, what we could be [with Grand]. The first recording, we didn’t really know what to go for, and having no one breathing down our neck during this round, to tell us whether or not it was good or done — I mean, it was a superlong process, but it was self-discovery, trying stuff out, and more or less what we wanted to do from square one. The next time we go into recording, I’m sure we’ll have more help. I never ever want to do it like that again. And, I say that now, having planned out the whole year of touring, enough to about November; we’ve scheduled time to record, but it’s one of those things, like when a woman gives birth, it’s so horribly painful, she says, never again! But a year later . . .
Sometimes the issue with studios is that it comes down to working with the right person, but you can’t exactly stick mics in the washing machine down the hall in that situation. You have more freedom when you pull yourself out of the studio. Everything isn’t how it’s supposed to be to begin with.
RF: Was the video of “Daylight” an homage to recording in a drafty house in Vermont?
Matt: It was similar to all of the really difficult situations we had when we first started. Like, we once played in this kitchen where my amp was on a couch; it was a mix of that, and loosely the video plays out like a day in our life, it’s all this band, all the time for us. Happily, it’s our life. [The video] hits a lot of those notes.
We’ve always had a policy of bands being honest when they play. I like it when a band is completely pissed off and totally furious, instead of choosing what they’ll look like the morning of their performance. We want to show how it is. We don’t want to force pretending to be happy when a show is crashing and burning. We’ll be honest, no matter what. Even when you’re touring, the show is only an hour out of the day, so it’s usually a positive experience.
RF: What is your favorite part of being a musician?
Matt: It’s important that there are so many parts that aren’t even connected, I think of myself as a songwriter and a performer, rather than an instrumentalist, jack of many trades, master of none. I think that’s another beauty of not being conventionally trained, I really enjoy writing songs, and I really enjoy performing, the two really have nothing to do with each other, and getting to do both is great.
RF: So . . . keytar?
Matt: Kim won’t let me! We’ve taken votes, and the crowd wants me to get one, but she says it would ruin our band. It’s a slippery slope, you know, you get the keytar, and out come the leather pants. On the other hand, she wants a headset mic, but I just can’t allow that — it’s too, you know, Britney Spears!
RF: Who influences you?
Matt: Kim and I listen to Top 40 hip-hop, listen to stuff that we find fun, without any genre being placed on it, whether it’s some obscure Brooklyn noise band, or Justin Timberlake. I was very close-minded about what I listened to when I was young, there was no such thing as a guilty pleasure. But there’s no guilt now. Kim gives me a hard time now for listening to total teenage pop music, but they have some good songs!
RF: What is the most difficult part of being a musician?
Matt: Sometimes I get a little overwhelmed, and I do have bad anxiety. With so many things in the works, with so many people, radio shows, interviews, some things get screwed up, slip through the cracks; I just really hate pissing people off. But it just happens. It gets under my skin. Sometimes I feel like it’s sort of a weakness, and I need to toughen up. We were in this one situation where I felt if I just had one job, that if I just had to do this one thing, I had a second of thinking, man, is this worth it? Got me bummed for a second, but everything’s better now.
RF: What are you looking forward to in this upcoming year?
Matt: We are touring up until November. While it’s important to be smart about which gigs you perform, we just confirmed to be in four continents in the next few months. We do have extra help on the road, which takes some pressure off of us.
I can’t choose one thing that I’m looking forward to the most. At the moment, I am most looking forward to the show tonight!
RF: What’s next for Matt & Kim?
Matt: Our year is totally planned out right now, this is the most in advance my life has ever been planned out. We’re going to keep touring, and our next recording will be collaborative; we have a lot of friends who are doing really cool things right now, and we feel like collaboration doesn’t happen enough in our genre. Keep these wheels turnin’.
Photos by RedFence Guest Photographer Cherry Box
For more photos of Matt & Kim’s Hollywood show visit her Photo Essay.
RedFence also featured one of Matt & Kim’s videos as a Movie of the Moment.
