Glow Your Own Way

From the outset Kaki King's career has been defined by her virtuoso guitar playing, an unavoidably eye catching technique that's as one of a kind as it is innovative. Through six studio albums and a string of EPs King has evolved her music from its solo instrumental origins to a full band set-up and string sections, all culminating in her latest release Glow. Having found ways to challenge herself with every new recording, King continues to expand her repertoire as both a guitarist and composer. For many though it is still her distinctive guitar work that identifies her.

“There's no way to avoid that,” laments King. “I think that I get pigeonholed into like, 'her technique is so cool', and then people are like 'ah booo she's not that good' and so it's just this argument over how I play the guitar and not how the music I write makes you feel. And the only thing I care about is how the music I write makes you feel. And the only way to describe it is like 'well she does this, she does the hand over the neck', like all physical description that has absolutely no meaning. It has no description of the music. So I mean it's unfortunate, but I also see it constantly and I think people who are trying to write about music are brave souls on a completely hopeless quest because it just can't be done!”

Glow is arguably King's most accomplished release so far. Combining aspects of each release, her latest returns to her instrumental folk roots while shifting through various genres for another ground-breaking recording. King's ability to ring genuine emotion out of little more than six strings and a knack for intricate song structuring is incomparable, and Glow is already being talked about as the highlight of her decade long career. While talk of a premature retirement from music was exaggerated, King does admit to questioning her career not long before recording began.

“It wasn't some kind of rash big decision,” explains King. “I really didn't even tell many people. I didn't even know how I felt honestly, I just sort of went 'okay, I've done this for ten years, what else do I wanna do with my life?' It wasn't like 'oh god, I'm so fucking worn out!' it was just like 'okay, I know what this looks like, I know how this feels, do I wanna do something else?' I just didn't really know what I would do next, and there's so many challenges you can put yourself through musically. The guitar had just become this weird thing that I had all my identity wrapped up in.”

“But I didn't make any sudden moves and I didn't have a press conference about quitting music. I just kept going, I kept playing and I changed how I played and I changed the guitar that I played and I put myself through some really difficult challenges and with really weird guitars. And in the end it's just reinvigorated my love of the instrument. And Glow is a result of that. It sounds a lot more dramatic on paper than it is. I think that Glow is the response. The question was 'do I make music for the rest of my life?' And the answer was Glow. And I think that Glow is a pretty fine answer to that question.”

The upcoming Glow tour sees King again return to Australia. Following the full band set up of her previous tour down under, her latest trip sees her in a solo format once again, giving fans a chance to view the new songs in a perfectly intimate setting. With her number of tours here closing in on double figures, the country clearly holds a special place in her heart. The recently married artist even chose to spend her honeymoon travelling the country, scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef and showing her new wife through the country she almost calls a second home.

“[Australia] was already special to me,” enthuses King. “Australia's really far away from America, and it's one of these places you really have to know what you're doing when you hit the ground. And I'm so fortunate that I've been to Australia so many times that I knew where to go and I knew what cities to hang out in. I kind of felt already at home and so my wife and I could just be really comfortable and have a great time and really enjoy things instead of just sort of remain tourists. So it was cool!”

King remains a thoroughly in demand artist, having worked on albums by the likes of Foo Fighters and Eddie Vedder. Her work with Vedder on the acclaimed Sean Penn film Into The Wild helped garner the soundtrack two Golden Globe nominations, and is just one on a growing list of movies benefiting from her ever imaginative guitar playing. In an impressive resume of guest spots a particular standout for the American was sitting in with The Roots on one episode of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.

“Those guys are musical heroes. Every day they go to the studio in 30 Rock where the Jimmy Fallon studio is, and they hang out there in their room and they write the music for that day's show. They're like 'okay we'll take a little bit of this, a little bit of that, we'll play the intro, we'll play the theme song to this old TV series…' They are geniuses and they don't need any music in front of them, they don't even need to hear this stuff, it's all just in their heads. They rehearse it for a second, and as they're rehearsing it one of the engineers records what they're rehearsing, so before they play, before every queue he feeds it into their ear, so they're like 'oh right, we do that!' And then they just launch in exactly where it's supposed to be. It is so cool how they do it!”

While the collaborations provide yet another outlet for her creativity, King will always be staunchly independent. Her music is almost its own genre, and remains singularly distinctive in whatever setting its placed in. “I am sort of the master of my own world and I am not used to working with other people,” she laughs. “Because if someone says 'hey come play on my record', I just go and play and whatever I play it just is what it is. And if you want to put it on the song or you don't, I don't care. But getting hired to do these things is cool, it's really simple work, it's really easy work for me. I write a piece of music and I think it sounds cool for this particular part of a film or a commercial or whatever it is, and then I get this stream of emails about how it's not this or that. And I'm like 'oh god!' It's easy for me to write it but it's impossible for me to respond to feedback. 'Cause either you like it or you don't, you know?”