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Shortly
before the release of her eclectic debut album 'Kiria', we catch up with
the little lady herself to find out what makes her tick and who inspires
her music ...
MM
- Thank you for taking the time out to speak today I know you’ve a lot
on with the new album and everything.
Kiria - That’s fine.
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MM
- How long did the album take to put together?
Kiria - Oh god that’s a funny question, it took so long to put the first
one together, that I’ve actually written half the second one, by the
time this one went out. I had quite problems with changes made, I
dropped songs and changed songs, I wrote new songs to fill in the gaps I
thought the album had, and I also separated more of the punk stuff I had
done, because I’m putting all that on a separate album.
This
one's my PopTart effort! (laughs) I got rid of some of the hard
stuff because I wanted that for the second album.
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MM
- The band has been labeled as 'Pop Punk', do you think this best
describes the album?
Kiria - I think it’s a pop record
really. Pop brings about horrible images of people prancing about
to music which sounds like it came out of a tin. Because this one
has guitars on it and it’s a proper band, that’s where the punk
element comes in, and in the live shows we do it much punkier.
I’m not the greatest punk guitarist in the world but live it's hard to
play lead and sing, so we do tough it up live which can be a shock to
the system when they hear us live compared to the record.
MM
- So you have a full time band now?
Kiria
- Yes I have. I had to get all the songs together first and get
something for people to do before putting a band together. It’s
quite difficult calling up strange people and then all go and stand in
the studio and try and write stuff. It's hard to find people
you’re going to get on with. Once the project was up and running
and you’ve got some songs I found it much easier to attract the right
people. I just gave them a few tracks to learn and that gave us
something to work on. It's been great.
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MM
- You set up your own record company Kookie Coo Records for the release
of the album, did you do this to give yourself more control over your
music?
Kiria - Yes definitely. I got called into most
of the major labels in London quite swiftly and soon decided they were a
waste of time. I got some direction ideas from them that I
didn’t like, they were much in the mind that I should tone it down ...
can't you where some jeans? ... can't you marry a footballer? ... that
sort of shit. I wasn’t interested, I thought I’d just do it
myself and see what happens. It's more important to me to have
control of what I do, than it is to do music. Why should I sign my soul
to the devil when I know I wouldn’t be happy?
MM
- You don’t want to be pushed into something that the true you.
Kiria
- No, they already find me difficult, a lot of people do because I write
such varied. I like a lot of different types of music and I
don’t like writing in one style so it suits me being my own boss
really.
MM
- What does having your first album out mean to you as an artist?
Kiria
- Yehh! I’ve got it finished!! I’m just working on the artwork
right now and shooting videos for it. Its really been a lot of
fun. I bought a life sized baby elephant and painted it pink,
which is now holed-up in my kitchen. It's huge, I have a pink
kitchen and I thought it would look great in there. It's not a
baby, it’s a beast! There’s not a lot of room to move my
kitchen any more.
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MM
- How has
the rock media in general responded to the album?
Kiria
- So far its been fantastic, I’m really surprised, I don’t know
why, I think I thought people would like it because it's not what’s
going on the music scene right now, it's quite different. I know
that when I’ve been to labels and those sort of music industry type
people, they’ve been a bit sniffy about the fact I don’t fit in with
what's out there at the moment. I thought the reaction was going
to be pretty mixed, but it’s been brilliant, even one review that
wasn’t exactly glowing was still a nice review. I’m really
happy with things.
MM
- You touched a little on videos. Your new video of 'Sex on Stage'
with Paul “Dennis Pennis” Kaye has been causing quite a stir among
the male population on YouTube I believe ...
Kiria - Yeh, it
certainly has, I don’t know what they were looking for when they found
it and definitely the reaction has been great. Even the ones that
hated it are passionate about that fact which is great. And
unexpected huge amount of comments about my boobs! (laughs)
MM
- Yes I was angling towards that fact but didn’t want to come right
out and say it! (laughs)
Kiria - Yes it's well its
very hard to jump around without those babies being noticed, I’ve
strapped them down for 'Jelly Baby' my PopTart single.
MM
- There’ll be a few negative comments left with that one then ...
(laughs)
Kiria - Yeh, oh dear!
MM
- So how did you get Paul Kaye involved then?
Kiria
- I absolutely love him, he the biggest realist punk I know. He's
punk right down to his core of his soul, he should have been a singer
not an actor. He’s brilliant. He came to a few of my gigs
and now I’m in a band with him as well, in the Mike Strutter Group. We
do quite a few gigs. I’ve always wanted to do a duet with
someone and he was the first person that immediately came to mind.
He calls me his COSMIC PUNK TWIN. We’re so alike, musically we
get along so well. It all just happened very naturally, I just
sent him a track, he came that same week he did some vocals on it and we
just shot a rehearsal, edited it and it was up the next week!
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MM
- What does being a musician mean to you, and if you hadn’t taken this
path where do you think you’d be right now?
Kiria
- Oh god, I don’t think there is another option for me, it just is,
it's just something I do, I don’t think I’ll ever stop. I’ve
been doing since I was a little kid. I’ve got music coming out
of every pore. I don’t think I could really see myself doing
anything else, the only other proper job I had was working in a chippy,
dishing out chips, so I don’t think that was a great career move for
me. And I wasn’t really any good at school, I didn’t do any
exams and I haven’t any qualifications, so getting a job isn’t
really an option, specially when I love music so much.
MM
- Who have been you influences and what impact did they have on your
life?
Kiria
- At the moment, it does change from time to time. I kind of had a
difficult struggle growing up, my experiences of other people, boys and
stuff and growing up, it kind of reflects that, but not all negative
stuff. A lot of the dark times is where I find it my most creative
and that’s when things just come out, doesn’t mean I like being
depressed, I can write songs now when I’m happy, which I’m relieved
about! (laughs) After a while I thought if I sort my life out am
I gonna stop being creative, but it hasn’t worked like that luckily.
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MM
- How would
you best describe your music and who would it appeal to the most? As
regards to just this album?
Kiria
- This album, it's been a really interesting reaction from
people. I gave one of my young nieces a copy of it and her
friends are all between five and ten and they’ve all gone crazy about
it. They’ve all worked out these little dance routines to 'Jelly
Baby', it's quite bizarre. We did this festival gig last week and
there was a really interesting mix of people I managed to get up and
dance, that ranged from five year olds to seventy five years olds
bizarrely, it was quite interesting. I like to think everybody
likes a cheesy song or a good melody.
MM
- It reminds me a little of Transvision Vamp, the pop punk thing they
had.
Kiria
- I used to really like them, that’s great.
MM
- Who's been your influences musically and what impact have they had on
your life?
Kiria - That’s an interesting one, they're all a
bit diverse. l listen to anything with a good hook. I can't listen to
that Progressive stuff that doesn’t really have a strong melody, I
like a strong melody, whether it be Rock-a-Billy, Rock n' Roll, Punk or
Pop that’s all had a massive impact on me, even Prince, his tunes are
just so strong. I guess Punk has had the biggest impact on me, it has an
awful lot of melody and passion. My collection has quite a bit of Punk
in it.
MM
- So would be your ultimate Rock icon?
Kiria
- I would have to say Johnny Rotten, I love him to bits.
MM
- What's
the best advice you've ever received?
Kiria
– “If
it ain't fun don’t do it” ... a thing I got from Glen Matlock, who I
just wrote to because I love him and he wrote some great tunes. I
don’t know why I wrote but I did, just because I thought he was
fabulous and we became friends. So yes that's the best advice I’ve been
given. Which was really a good point at that time in my
life. I was
really struggling, I was in an all female band and things weren’t
really working so when I gave it up. It was a big move for me to decide
to become a front person myself and I realized that I wasn’t enjoying
it, then when I made the move I now find I’m really enjoying myself.
MM
- Do you have any touring plans in the pipeline?
Kiria
- No not yet. I’d love to tour. I’ve never actually on been on a
tour, we’ve only got mainly London gigs at the moment, around October
and November but after that I’d love to tour.
MM
- Where
do you go from here?
Kiria
- Really I have to promote this album and then after that probably around
November I’ll be recording the next record.
MM
- Thanks again Kiria for taking the time out and good look with the new album,
hopefully we will see you live some time.
Kiria
- Thank you, nice to chat to you and hopefully I’ll see you soon.
We'd
like to thank Kiria for taking the time out to chat with us today and
wish her every success with her music.
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