Kaki King interview

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An intimate crowd, dotted around the University of London Union, is gathered in a trance, bewitched by a petite figure standing centre stage. Fully focused on the blue acoustic guitar slung around her neck, her small, long-nailed fingers pick at the steel strings like butterflies dancing on a surface. Far from fragile, and despite her diminutive stature, she fills the room with layer upon layer of reverberating metal and wood: percussive finger tapping driving beneath a languid melody that flirts with the beat.

Cut to a few hours earlier and that tiny woman is commanding my attention in a different way. Post-sound check, pre-show, we're sitting in a grand gastro pub in London's Holborn. She's munching through a plate of fish and chips, gesturing animatedly with fork in hand. Those casually sipping their beers have no idea their boozer’s anonymous guest is the astonishingly talented guitarist Kaki King.

Born Katherine Elizabeth King in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1979, she started playing guitar at age five. "I watched a video of me playing at a recital as a tiny kid, and I had thirteen different songs that I had to learn by heart,” she remembers. “It's a hard instrument, so I started playing drums, even though I was better at guitar."

After high school, Kaki moved to New York to study and rediscovered her love for guitar, busking and playing intimate shows. She released her first record, 'Everybody Loves You' (2003), but music was just a side project: "I thought this is fun, but I got to get to Grad School."

Kaki's second album, ‘Legs to Make Us Longer’ (2004), may have been another experimental hit, but something felt stifling: "The niche I found myself in had all these unwritten rules on how to make a solo record. By the time I went to make my third record I was like, ‘I don't think I've got a solo guitar record in me right now.’”

Such anxiety proved unfounded when, following 2006’s ‘Until We Felt Red’ Kaki found herself earning a fan in the form of Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl. "He sent me an email, and was like, 'Hey, you're a guitarist-drummer and so am I!' I was like, 'This is the craziest thing I've ever heard,' but he was so nice, enthusiastic and such a music freak - passionate about everything. We were in touch for a long time, and so coming into the studio and playing with him was almost an afterthought."

The pair collaborated on the song ‘The Ballad of the Beaconsfield Miners’ on the Foos' sixth album Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace. "It was so easy,” she says. “He had this great bluegrass song, all I did was sit there and jam with a friend. He started playing the song to me, I picked up my guitar then joined in, working out a harmony – it was super chill and not a big deal."

Despite claiming one of the world’s biggest rock stars as a fan, Kaki is humble. Angelic? Maybe not, after last night’s late-night drinking session with some random rich Russians. But, when given a guitar, she becomes something truly divine.

Kaki King’s fourth album, Dreaming of Revenge, is out now on Velour Recordings.