During The BPM Festival 2017, we were luckily enough to catch up with Kidnap Kid. Between releasing his Brokenhearted EP earlier this year, a collaboration with Lane8 a few weeks ago and continuing to push the envelope with via his imprint, Birds That Fly, 2017 is always shaping up to be a huge year for him. Read below to find out the insider’s scoop on what’s next on the agenda:
SR:What does playing at the 10th Anniversary of BPM mean to you?
KK: It’s an amazing festival and I feel fortunate to have played there for the past few years.
SR: How did you approach designing your set for the festival?
KK: As it was a daytime party by the ocean I thought best to keep it good vibes & low tempos. As a festival, it certainly isn’t short of banging music so I tried to provide an alternative.
SR: What was your BPM highlight and BPM lowlight?
KK: My BPM highlight was the food, I love Mexican food so that tends to be the focus for me whilst out there. The lowlight for me was the travel. I got caught in the Fort Lauderdale airport shooting on my way to the festival and had a very stressful 24 hours trying get out of there. Fortunately I made it to BPM just in my time for my first set and had a great time down there.
SR: Did you manage to catch any other impressive sets? If not (due to flight schedule), who would you have liked to have seen?
KK: I really enjoyed watching Kenny Glasgow whilst he played after me at Lee’s party. There was also a Giegling label event that I would have loved to attend but didn’t have time with my schedule.
SR: How has launching your own label been? What was the reasoning behind launching it?
KK: Releasing music through my own label has been a gratifying process that I’m glad I undertook. Working with other labels can be a tricky process so I launched BTF to regain creative control over how and when my music is released.
SR: Who can we expect to see joining the Bird That Fly roster in 2017? or if you can’t share, what direction stylistically is it heading?
KK: We released an amazing EP from a new act called Jynx in February. Apart from that the plan for 2017 is actually to strip it back and focus on just my own music for the label.
SR: What are your 2017 goals?
KK: Releasing much more music than in previous years. I’ve never been satisfied with my work rate so my goal is to increase it significantly in 2017.
SR: What music are you working on currently?
KK: I’m working on the follow up single to my collab with Lane8.
SR: How do you enjoy yourself when you’re not making music?
KK: Mainly cooking and riding my bike. Little makes me happier than those two activities.
SR: Whats your single best digital tool to connect with fans?
KK: Instagram. They’ve won the battle for me just by keeping it simple. Facebook is an unpredictable algorithm monster and I find twitter quite annoying.
SR: Do you still rely on soundcloud or have you put all your eggs into Spotify’s metaphorical basket?
KK: I’m 100% team Spotify now. It’s a shame as Soundcloud was the centre of my musical world so for so long but it has deteriorated almost irreparably now. Engagement numbers of dwindling quickly and I find the website to be extremely buggy.
SR: Whats the process like for finding the right designer or artwork ideas for your EP cover art. It’s always so enchanting and emotive!
KK: I had a huge stroke of luck here. A friend of mine – Simon Birch – is an incredibly talented painter and he has given me access to his rich catalogue of artwork to use for my music. I think it pairs really well with my style and I’m grateful for his selfless contribution.
SR: Working in the creative field is a very trying profession; constantly figuring out the boundaries between work and play – all the while self regulating without the 9am-5pm construct. Whats the biggest life lesson you’ve learnt as a music producer?
KK: Set limits and stick to them. I limit myself to six hours creative work a day. I find that if I go over this my music and mental health both suffer . I typically write from 7am to 1pm then focus on something else in the afternoon.
SR: Do you have any plans to head to Australia?
KK: I’m hoping to make it later in 2017.
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