Four Over Four sat down with Kilter, an Australian artist, before his debut New York show at The Studio at Webster Hall.
His debut album is dropping this summer with 14 tracks and ‘lots of Aussie features’. Until his feature album is released, learn a little bit more about what made Kilter the artist he is today in our interview below.
You can read the full transcript below the video.
In past interviews you’ve said you try to stay live during your shows, is that still true?
Yeah, I think the live aspects of performing are something that I really, really enjoy about it. One of my favorite parts about producing as well is working out how to take the song from iTunes and Spotify into like working on stage.
For me, the way that works is live instruments. So I’ve got some synths, some samplers, some drums. and stuff. I actually have no idea how to DJ so that’s kind of the way I do it.
This is your first North American tour, what are you most excited for?
Just a lot of travel, really. Most specifically going to places that I haven’t been before and seeing all the weird and wonderful places of America. New York’s been amazing; I’ve been here for a week already and love it – the exploring has just been great.
What’s your weirdest tour story?
I’ve had a couple of weird ones. I went to Tunisia for some shows earlier last year and what made that weird was that it was just such a crazy day. I started in London and then had to wake up for a 4 AM flight, but then I woke up to all these messages saying that the show had been canceled. So I was getting ready to go back to sleep and then half an hour later got more messages saying, “The show’s back on, go to the airport right now.”
I raced to the airport, flew to Paris, connected to Tunisia, and then suddenly just being in a country I’ve never been in before was insane.
I was getting driven around in armed cars and stuff because there was this horrible terrorist attack like on the place I played like a year before. The security is insane, but it actually ended up being probably one of my favorite shows I’ve ever done. I played in this amazing courtyard in a palace for this festival, and the Tunisian people were just so lovely. It was just like a pretty crazy experience going from like start to end like that.
Do you have a pre-show ritual?
Well, this tour is a bit different,because normally I have a couple of people touring with me. So I’m solo now for this American tour, so I might kind of need to develop a ritual. At the moment, it’s just like being bored in my hotel and I don’t think that’s the best thing to get hyped up for a gig with. So I think like by the end the tour I’ll have something for you.
Post-show?
Just beers. I try not to drink too much before I play and for the entire hour of my set I don’t really have much time to drink either, so you get a bit thirsty.
Say you’re arrested on your tour, who’s the first person you call?
I wouldn’t call my manager; I think he would be kind of useless in those situations. I wouldn’t call my mom. I’d probably call my friend that lives in Bushwick. Just because he’s local, and I’m sure he’s been arrested before as well, so he probably knows what to do. And he’s loaded so he can bail me out.
What do you like to do in your free time when you’re not touring?
I actually haven’t really had much free time in the last six months, but I love to go to the beach. Being Australian, we’re pretty lucky for our environment. I just like surfing with friends and stuff, eating good food, and exploring.
When you were younger, what was your dream job?
I wanted to be a detective really badly. In fact, I wanted to be a detective so badly, I put up posters in my neighborhood with the tear-off numbers saying, “No matter what the problem is you’re trying to solve, I can do it.” My mom made me take them down because she felt it was creepy giving my home number out just like randomly on poles. So yeah, it’s still a dream.
How’d you get into music then?
I’ve been playing instruments for most of my life. I started playing drums when I was maybe eight, and then piano soon after that, so I was playing in jazz bands and stuff in high school.
I started producing electronic stuff as a hobby on the side and then everything happened really quickly. I wanted to go to uni to study sound design, but then by the time I got around to actually doing that, I really didn’t like getting marked for my work. It just felt weird, so I flipped it to a different degree, and then just started doing more shows and more shows and got picked up by a label.
By that point, I was doing so much music that I pretty much just scraped through university, but I finished and here I am.
You have your debut album coming out in June, can you give us any info on that?
It’s 14 songs long and there’s a lot of features. Mostly Australian stuff, but I’m really excited about it. I think it’s shown a much different side to the music that I put out so far. It’s a bit darker, a bit grittier and I’m just really excited about the sounds I made on it and kind of how the whole thing came together really nicely.
Anything else you want to let everyone know?
I would like some food recommendations, some bar recommendations, and yeah, just let me know what’s good.
Catch Kilter on his tour:
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