Why Koi Child Made Kevin Parker Sleep In A Bed Of Rat Poo

If you asked vocalist Shannon Patterson about Koi Child a couple or so years ago, you wouldn't have gotten much of a response, as the band didn't exist. Since their formation (Koi Child is a joint venture of local Perth electronic hip hop crew Childs Play and jazzy quartet Kashikoi) after being asked to play a double-header at Fremantle's X-Wray Cafe and joining forces for the event, Koi Child have sold out headline shows across the country and supported the likes of Tame Impala and Fat Freddy's Drop. Oh, and Tame Impala's Kevin Parker offered to mix "whatever" the band wanted. "We played that gig [at X-Wray] and I just remember someone coming up and saying that Kevin Parker was there," Patterson recalls. "I think Kev went home with Blake [drummer, Koi Child] and they had a party there and Kev offered for us to support them on their tour at Rottnest Island at the time, which was insane."

"Kev offered for us to support them on their tour at Rottnest Island at the time, which was insane."

Parker then mixed Koi Child's tune Slow One and it was all history from there. "He did that and it sounded amazing and he ended up offering to mix whatever else we wanted," he says. "Now we have an album. It was like a huge, happy accident." Indeed, Parker has mixed the band's debut, self-titled LP and they are thrilled with the results of their ten-day recording stint in Yunderup at a place nick-named "Mangebong" by a friend of the band's drummer Blake Hart ("I think it has something to do with bongs"). "Mangebong was amazing," he says.

"There were a lot of spiders. There was one bed, like, one big bed, and we let Kev sleep in there and we only found out like a year later that there was so much rat shit in that bed. He had to sleep in the poo bed. We were trying to be nice to him and we made him sleep in the poo bed. I'm sorry Kev. He didn't complain or anything."

The lads will be celebrating the album release with their forthcoming national tour. They're looking forward to playing alongside a whole bunch of talented bands and DJs that they've handpicked as supports for the tour — a couple of whom they will meet and see play live for the first time on this tour. "I haven't seen the Astro Travellers yet and that's really weird because one of my best friends is an MC in the Astro Travellers, so I'm super excited to see them play," Patterson says. "I'm excited to see Ben Witt again. I saw him for the first time a few weeks ago in Freo and he was amazing. I'm looking forward to seeing him with his whole band. I've seen him just with his guitar. And Kirin J Callinan. He's a crazy dude. There's like, pictures of him naked on Facebook."

Aside from working on a cover that remains a "surprise" and rehearsing for the tour, Patterson says the crew are pretty pumped for the coming months. "We're really excited," he says. "In a way we've been expecting it for so long so our excitement has died down a little bit, but I think once it [the album] comes out, it's just going to be mental. We're going to have a big party; it hasn't been decided yet but I know we're going to have a big party."