Q&A: (Kid Koala)

Born in 1974 in Vancouver, Canada, Eric San, a.k.a. Kid Koala, has always exhibited a devoted affinity to the world of music.

Following years of classic piano training that began at the age of 4, San discovered the wide world of turntables at the age of 12.

San migrated to Montreal in the early 1990s to study early childhood education at McGill University and began DJing in nightclubs during his spare time.

In 1995, Jon More, the co-owner of the UK record label Ninja Tune, discovered San and signed him as the label's first North American artist.

Since then, San has toured with the likes of Beastie Boys and Radiohead, and cut his debut album for Ninja Tune in 2000 entitled "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome."

The label released San's second full-length album "Some of my Best Friends are DJs" earlier this month.

The Beach Reporter recently sat down with San, known by most fans as Kid Koala, and talked about his new record, and the samples and experiences that inspired it.

The Beach Reporter: The title of your new album is 'Some of my Best Friends are DJs.' Is that actually true?

San: Yeah, but it's also kind of a retort to the silly fact that it's so surprisingly unfashionable to be a DJ now, but those of us who have been unfashionable all our lives, it feels pretty cool. I realized it wasn't necessarily a cool thing to do, but it was that special outlet for me when I was 13. You're already trying to grasp on to something and trying to figure things out at that age, and for me it was turntables. I would just practice for hours a day for no reason since I wasn't playing shows and I didn't really have any prospects for the future since there weren't any scratch DJs making a full-time living at it. So no one was listening and I was kind of in my isolated world where I did it for the love, I guess.

It seems like there are a lot of obscure samples used on this album. How much of your time is dedicated to searching for new music and new samples?

For the recording, I usually use early takes, usually first or second. So the actual process doesn't take that long, but finding the bits that you want to use and other bits that you want to use to fill up other parts of a song later on takes months and months. For this record, I probably spent about two years digging for stuff. Then I would practice with it, learning how to get certain melodies and tones out of the cut. The actual recording of this record took about eight months.

So when you're on tour, are you in record stores looking for new material?
Yeah, I kind of always have one eye open for that. I feel compelled to stop to have a look through record bins since you never can tell just by looking at it. That's the fun thing about records, there is always something that surprises you.

Are you using other forms of media such a television or movies?

No, it's most all from vinyl really. That's the jumping point for most of the things on this record. I start from hearing a little clip from a record and thinking, 'Oh that could be cool for a song.' For instance, "Elevator Hopper" was a song inspired from a record that had the voice of an elevator operator on it. He says, 'First floor, step backward.' It just got me into the whole elevator mode and I started thinking, 'What kind of music is played in elevators?' I then started to look for characters to be in that elevator to see if they could react to each other. It's just about creating a little, fun audio playground for a bunch of these random samples from different records that coexist and have a conversation with each other or in this case, pick up on each other. So that's usually how things start for me is just hearing a little bit on a record and creating a story around it.

Do you have another example in mind?

Well, the song "Basin Street Blues," (originally written by New Orleans trumpeter Louis Armstrong) started with the intent to do a turntable version of it and that started with a horn line. I visited New Orleans for the first time three years ago and I've been a fan of jazz music for so long that it was my time to go see where it all came from. I spent all of my time in those clubs down there. On the plane home, I didn't know how my new album was going to sound, but I promised myself I was going to try and do a version of "Basin Street Blues" and see what it would sound like. I didn't know how long it would take, but it was just one of those things where I wanted to see if I could do it.

It turned out well and in listening to it I kept thinking, 'This is so jazzy.'

It's jazzy in the sense that it was a study for me, a turntable study because if it was really jazzy then I'd have 18 DJs and we'd do it in one take. I don't have the budget for that, so in the meantime, I make music of the lonely-hearted.

So, is that considered the DJ equivalent to jazz?

Yeah, jazz is about playing together and when I was putting "Basin Street Blues" together I had to do each layer by itself so you don't get that same vibe as if everyone was playing together at the same time. I wanted to see if I could do turntable renditions of each instrument. So the bass line was this silly thing that turned into a hell project. I skatted a bass line because I didn't want to sample one, I actually wanted to use an original one and I knew the chords to "Basin Street Blues" so I skatted one with my voice. But then I went back and found all of these single notes, single bass hits off different records, a lot of classical records. Then, I scratched those notes in, in key and bent the notes so I had all of the notes that I skatted and then I took the skat out. It's such a tedious way of doing things and most people don't care. I don't even know if I care, but I just wanted to see if I could do it at the time.

What do you think this record is about, musically?

For me, this record is an exploration of what a range of turntables can do. Scratching can sound like a lot of things to me and it also has a mode of qualities that I hadn't really tried to go for in the past. The thing about scratching is that when I'm happy, sad or angry I can go scratch and so for me it's always been a meditative process. When I'm in those moods I play off different records and scratch different things. This album is about going there to those places and seeing if I can accomplish really bold, angular cuts or really atmospheric layered cuts.