Kid Congo Powers
With a career creating music with some of the most groundbreaking bands of our time and with his new band the Pink Monkey Birds, Kid Congo Powers is one of the most Important figures in independent music of our time. 2016s La Arana Es La Vida was one of the best LPs of the year and shows he is still at the top of his game. Was very lucky to be granted some time with the great man after his set at the Caravan Club back in August 2016.
Munster: How did your tour of Oz back in 2015 go?
Kid: went really well last time. I wasn’t sure what the reception would be and I saw all these bigger venues they booked us in and I was like I wonder if people are gonna come. I haven’t been here in over 25 years and I had lost all track if people knew about us. All our records are Import but In the Red has good distribution and people were ready. And also the story involves Australia a lot. My story playing with the Bad Seeds so I’m connected to Australia.
Munster: Tonight, Tex Perkins got up for a song and Kim Salmon Mick Harvey and Spencer P Jones all got up for a song over the Melbourne shows so the respect is obviously there.
Kid: Almost all the Beasts of Bourbon (laughs) yeah these are friends I made when I first came with the Gun Club in 1983. Spencer and Billy (Pommer Jr) played in the band as the other members didn’t show up there were some Judases in the band who decided not to show up (laughs). But their loss and our gain was becoming friends with Billy and Spencer and through them I met Kim and also Tex, a teenage Tex Perkins before he made any records I knew him. All these people have remained friends of mine since. I befriended Kim more in London, as the Scientist and the Gun club both moved to London the same time and we didn’t know anyone and Kim wrote me a letter saying I met you in Australia I was in the band the scientist we just moved to London and when you go on tour where coming too. And then he sent me a tape and I said you coming and that was that. They’ve been friends, tour mates and collaborators and just general kindred spirits ever since. For 25-30 we’ve stayed the course and done what we wanted to do music wise and not pander to audience or record labels or trends that’s why we are friends we don’t believe in that kind of thing. Might not be great for business but great for art and where still here and popular and people still come so we were right.
Munster: what process went into making the New Pink Elephants LP?
Kid: we play very much live the last three LPs we’ve recorded at our drummer Ron’s house, he lives in a converted high school it’s in Kansas in a town with a population of 250 so no one’s there. Him and his partner Nicole wanted alternative space but they want to buy a house or be near people. So, they really have this mansion because they have 20 rooms a cafeteria a baseball yard and all this land it’s a mansion that doesn’t look like one. We recorded in the gym as it’s big and echoes and wooden and a great place with no distractions. It’s got weird vibes which is kinda what high school is like who knows what kind of weird adolescent sexual oration energy runs in that place? That’s just funny. We record very live very 8 track we mixed onto a computer but we capture the most live sound. It was very DIY Ron and Mark engineered it so I’m proud it was a real DIY effort.
Munster: In the set you do Gun Club and Cramps songs and i read an interview where you said it’s Important to say hi to your old band mates, how Important is that for you to keep that going?
Kid: I think it’s very Important to me. Me and you and people that see us take it to granted and they were a huge influence on all of us but we assume everyone know them but a lot of people see us don’t know what that is so it’s Important for me to introduce it for real but it’s also my history and there’s no one alive to do that in those bands to play those songs. There are a few but some aren’t in bands. Harry the drummer from the Cramps still plays a lot in LA both none of the guitar plays have gone on to be solo artists. It’s part of the story It’s honouring that music and ties in with what we do as I’m trying to continue in that vein, pure rock n roll that IS sexy funny that kind of stuff. And also I don’t want to forget where I came from.
Munster: Tell us about the gun club tour of Australia in 1982?
Kid: I was so drunk and high out of my head how would I remember (laughs) I was meeting these people that was my greatest memory and realizing it was a great audience and we had to pull it out of our arse to make it and it was great. And I got a phone call in the middle of the night saying can you come to Australia like now. Luckily, I wasn’t doing anything. And it was a good thing as it also was the start of me in the Gun Club. That was a great thing that came out of it. Australia was great we were wild kids and we met other wild kids. It was crazy to meet punks that were sex workers or drug dealers, whatever but they were free and non judgemental we were following some crazy dream in our mind so was great to meet like minded people
Munster: You were in vogue magazine recently, how Important is Image to you?
Kid:( Laughs) pretty Important. I learned from the Cramps and the Bad Seeds presentation goes a long way. In bands people are creating a world to go into. But for me it was exciting as a teenage during the glam rock days I’d see the New Yorks Dolls or the Alex Harvey band and the audience would be as dressed up as the band did and that was great fun and created a party vibe. Going to see the New York Dolls was like going to a New Year’s Eve party and David Johnanson was like the perfect host. I think it helps and make people feel happy and makes you feel included and if you look like everyone else it’s not the same but I like entertainment and part of the communication.
Munster: The onstage banter is brilliant, is it scripted or do you wing it?
Kid: Bit of both but I borrow a bit. The Cramps, Lux was like that they would Segway to things David Johansen too, another master of that was Ray Davies from the Kinks. Again, I like to make it an intImate party, it’s talking with people telling stories and including the story.
Munster: Your band name is a reference to David Bowie, what did he mean to you?
Kid: He was Important to me as a kid as it was the perfect thing at the perfect time as a teenage kid questioning my sexuality, I didn’t know If I was gay I could be weird but also as a teenager your growing in strange ways your legs are too long everything is outta wack and for me I was experimenting with drugs and alcohol as an early teenager the fact Bowie said he was Bisexual that was a big deal and the fact he was an alien and as an adolescent teenage could relate too I don’t know if he figured that out or it was a coincidence that related to so many teenage kids. And the music was great and he was Important to the end.
Munster: Despite being in some ground breaking bands your still coming out with incredible original sounding rock n roll what inspires you after son long?
Kid: I don.t know what else to do (laughs) is the first thing but I also believe in that give me and other hope keep me alive and it’s laminating it’s turning the lights on as opposed to darkness
Munster: where is your autobiography at?
Kid: Yes I think it might be done and will come out. I have a publisher interested we need to talk more but think it’s done.
