Entertainers
Don't Call Her a Gay Musician: Kaki King
By Bryan Ochalla

Mar 3, 2008

Kaki King Photo by Louis Teran

Ask Kaki King about her upcoming album, Dreaming of Revenge, and she’ll answer excitedly. Ask her how being gay affected the creation of that album, though, and her excitement is sure to be replaced by playful annoyance.  

“Well, sometimes while I’m writing I’ll strum a chord and think ‘Oh, that’s a really gay chord.’ Or I’ll strum another chord and think, ‘That’s not gay enough,’” the 28-year-old performer says in a smart-alecky tone.  

“Sometimes I’ll write a straight, hetero sort of melody, and then I’ll write a really gay melody,” she adds wryly. “I try to find a happy medium.”  

King, whose fret-tapping skills have been featured on three previous albums, isn’t so fond of talking about the “guitar god” label that has been slapped on her by everyone from Foo Fighters front man Dave Grohl to the editors at Rolling Stone, either.  

“No one ever talks about a vocal god, do they?” the diminutive musician—she’s 5'1"—asks. “And you never hear anyone talk about a bass god or a drummer god either, do you? I guess I just picked the right instrument for divinity.”  

Thankfully, those weren’t the only questions King fielded during a recent interview with GayWired.com. The Atlanta native also answered queries about her recent foray into the world of film—her music appeared in two movies last year, August Rush and Into the Wild—her decision to add vocals to her previously instrument-only tunes and her thoughts on being called a ‘gay musician.’  

'Playing With Pink Noise,' from Legs to Make Us Longer  

GayWired.com: You’ve participated in some interesting projects in the past year: Your music was featured in a pair of high-profile films and you appeared as a guest artist on the latest albums by the Foo Fighters and Tegan and Sara. Do you feel like the stakes have been raised for your own upcoming release?  

Kaki King: Not really. I don’t think those projects attracted a ton of new fans, although I guess they may have caused a few people who had heard my name before to sit up and say, ‘Maybe I should give her a closer look.’  

GW: What inspired you to make your own record following those experiences?  

KK: My last album (… Until We Felt Red) was very soundscape-y and I wanted to re-challenge myself as a guitar player. So, I started writing a lot of really complex guitar pieces.  

When I took all of these pieces of rapid-fire guitar playing to the studio, the producer, Malcolm Burn, thought I should lay some very slow and beautiful melodies on top of them. The two went together really well—there’s definitely a marriage between the complex guitar work and the really simple stuff that floats above it.  

GW: Vocals are a pretty recent addition to your music, right?

KK: Well, I’m actually singing less on this record than I did on the last one. This time, though, I’m not singing in such a falsetto voice—I’m singing in a much more natural voice.  

I think it just provides a different color to what I’ve been doing all along.  

GW: Is writing lyrics a challenge for you?  

KK: It’s not a challenge to write lyrics—it’s a challenge to write something I can sing and play at the same time. I tend to cram as much as possible into a song and then I’m left to figure out, ‘How am I going to do this on stage? How is my brain going to think in this many ways?’  

'Gay Sons of Lesbian Mothers,' from ... Until We Felt Red  

GW: Are your lyrics at all influenced by the fact that you’re gay?  

KK: I don’t think so. They’re influenced by the fact that I’m human, though.  

I’ve never really written anything that I consider relevant to gay people or relevant to myself because I’m gay.  

Being gay doesn’t affect my music as much as it affects my life.  

GW: I’ve read that you’re not the biggest fan of being called a ‘gay musician.’ Is that true?  

KK: I just don’t know what one has to do with the other. I’ve worked hard my whole life to become a good musician. I was born gay.  

When people tell me I’m a gay musician, I feel like saying, ‘The gay part was easy! The musician thing was really hard, though.’  

GW: Has the fact that you’re open about your sexuality ever been an issue with your fans or your label?  

KK: I think it’s a non-issue for me. I know it’s a big issue for a lot of other artists, who have been told at various stages in their careers to stay in the closet, but I’ve never had that problem.  

It’s absurd that in this day and age being gay is a big deal for a lot of actors, artists and musicians. It has nothing to do with their art. It’s so depressing.  

For more about Kaki King and Dreaming of Revenge (due on March 11), go to www.kakiking.com  or www.myspace.com/kakiking .