Kalla released his second single ‘Feel That Way’ in late November and we spoke to him about some of the ideas behind the feel-good number, mental health and making it in the music business as an independant.
So what’s the craic man, how’s it going?
I’ve been really busy, to be honest! So the song [‘Feel That Way’] was made a few months ago, and that was all ready to go – but last minute I thought, ‘I’ve gotta change it up’. I was going to literally pull the song and replace it with the song that I was making at the time, so last-second I thought I would just leave it, but do an updated one later on as another release. Besides that, I’ve been doing some behind-the-scenes stuff – video content, live performances sort of like the Colours shows, acoustic stuff.
Well congrats on the new single ‘Feel That Way’ - your second release came out yesterday. Absolutely great tune, a good blast of sunshine in these dark times. So what was the story behind the changing of the mix coming up to the release?
So the first song, ‘It Be How It Be’, was supposed to be like, you’re in a situation, you’re in the shit at the moment, and you’ve just got to accept that and get going. ‘Feel That Way’ is a more intimate look at what it’s really like to be in the moment of depression. It’s got the whole fanfare, and it’s got the positive vibes, it is a blast of sunshine and that was done deliberately – because if you pick apart the lyrics, each line is actually poignant and talks about how I feel, so it’s very personal. The reason why I wanted to change the mix was because it didn’t feel personal, and the way it was handled didn’t really reflect the message and it didn’t feel like me enough. So last minute I was like: ‘right, we’re gonna change the song and we’re gonna put it out’. I love both versions, to be honest, but I’m going to put out an EP in early-to-mid 2021, and I’m going to put out the new mix on the EP and celebrate both versions. The EP is going to be something different, you’re not going to hear music like this – it’s got jazz, it’s got hip-hop, but it’s got guitar as well. There’s a song on there that kind of reminds me of Carlos Santana or something. It’s just different, the music is a breath of fresh air. I’m really excited for all these songs to come out.
Well, we’re excited to hear it as well. And what were these changes that you made to ‘Feel That Way’ that you felt were more personal to you?
There were some decisions that I wanted to make that were kind of passed up, and I felt like it was really rushed. The next mix will be way jazzier, and it will have more feel to it. It will be more of a vibe, I feel like ‘Feel That Way’ really hits, but ‘Feel That Way 2.0’ is just really a VIBE. It’s got piano and strings in it, different harmonies, and it has a big dirty sax solo as well.
Oh yeah, can’t wait to hear that.
You can’t go wrong with it. The thing is, I wanted ‘Feel That Way’ to be the introduction, and with the EP and the next song, I want it all to be a progression. I think that’s important, because the actual lyrics are all poetry. It all starts with my notebook, and I just write poems and then just put music to the poems.
I have loads of these notebooks just full of stuff. Obviously, it won’t always be a song - I might just be on the bus and a couplet will come to my head, then I’ll write it down and later on piece it all together. The in-between bits are how I feel in the moment. I might have the beginnings of a chorus, and then I’ll start to think: ‘OK what is this chorus saying to me?’ That’s actually how ‘Feel That Way’ started, I had the hook in my head – ‘get up, get dressed, feel good no stress’ – I was in bed and just couldn’t get up, and was thinking, ‘why do I feel this way?’ I know that might seem cheesy or very convenient, but I wrote that and that’s what got me out of bed.
So it’s almost like a self-therapeutic process for you?
Yeah – I think music is supposed to be like that, it’s supposed to connect to the soul. Good music connects, you know?
Absolutely. That’s what I was going to ask about the song [‘Feel That Way’]; obviously the music itself is very punchy and uplifting, but then the lyrics touch on mental health and the struggles that it brings. What kind of role does mental health play in your music, in terms of the sound and the creative process?
It’s actually really tricky – even talking about it now, it feels like it’s a taboo to talk about. I think that opening up is one of the hardest things to do. I couldn’t do it in person, so I would have to write it down to internalize what was going on. If you look back at the first single, it’s the exact same thing. See, I love writing in contrasts, so there’s always a layer under what you actually get in person. I love music that’s upbeat, but the problem with upbeat music is sometimes it’s just cheesy, it doesn’t really say anything and I want to make sure that I’m saying something. So mental health has a massive role – it genuinely is the guts of everything I write about. There are a few love songs and stuff, but love songs actually say something as well. It might not be a love for a person, it might be a love for the feeling itself, and that feeling is obviously a mental state as well. So a lot of it speaks that and hopefully breaks the taboo of talking about mental health. I feel like if you’re upfront about it, then someone else is going to be. Someone else is going to think ‘If he can talk about that, then what’s wrong with me writing it down or having a chat about it’, you know? I wish I had that music to listen to and connect to, and I did in a sense, but not in the direct sense of being like, ‘I am struggling’ or ‘I have struggled and it’s okay’ – I think that’s a really important message to spread. If someone thinks that’s a bate out thing to say, I don’t care. It makes me feel good.
Yeah, mental health is obviously very important, especially now, and opening up is probably the most difficult aspect about it, so doing that through music and encouraging other people to do that is class. You said earlier that your lyrics come from you just writing poetry, is that where you would start in terms of crafting a song? Lyrics first and then making the music around them?
Typically yes, usually it comes very quick; it’s done in bursts. I collect the words and stuff, and the music just flows out. Music really is just feelings - you’ve got the major and the minor, happy and sad, and within those you have the different sorts of feelings. What you can do through the process of elimination is ask, ‘what are these words saying?’ what is that music saying? Do they match up?’ And then when you get the groove or the feeling of the song you can start to add layers, so like ‘what’s the saxophone gonna say?’, and the saxophone is essentially another voice, and that’s the same with the other instruments, so they can bring attention to what the words are saying at different parts. The guitar is basically filling the spaces where the words aren’t there, and the beat is like the life of the song. The bass ties in with the drums and the guitar, so there’s actually a lot to it but it’s a very natural process. Within the first ten minutes if you don’t have something going, then that idea’s not working. That’s how it works for me, but that being said – months and months of words…just words go in there until it’s actually a real thing.
There’s a lot going on in the tracks – you talk about the sax and the guitar – in this latest single there’s a prominent brass section, how are you collecting all these sounds together in terms of the production? You were speaking in a video you made about learning more about production, is that a skill you’ve been trying to hone?
Yeah well, in March I made a decision to be more like Tom Misch as an artist – he’s a massive massive influence. He put out his B tapes when he was younger, and then recorded his first record himself, ‘Geography’. So I made a decision to basically cut out the middleman, because what I was finding as an independent artist…there were a lot of variables that you’re paying for if you go to a record label. I decided I can’t make my music at the moment, therefore, I’m not as proficient of a musician as I am right now, so I need to put myself in an uncomfortable position and go through all that. It’s taken months and months for me to get just pretty good at it. I’m by no means an expert, and I find it hard to mix my own songs simply because I often think that there’s something I don’t know here and there. Sometimes you do need a helping hand; luckily I found those people to help, but in terms of the producing aspect I use a lot of samples of different stuff. These previous songs I’ve just been using the computer, using Splice for the production and Logic for the drums. For the next songs, I’ve been working in the background to find a real live band – I got a keys player to play those parts, a real jazz-head guitarist. Like…this guy can play. He picks up the slack; I play the guitar parts on all my records, but for that live stuff there are parts where I need to do the spoken-word bits, or rap or sing, and I can’t do all of this stuff at the same time. The saxophone player, the trumpeter, the bassist and the drummer…I’m literally the worst musician in the room, by a good bit, and when I record them that comes out. I have some songs ready for this upcoming project, and they are shit-hot. They make me sound good! The saxophone player has played in Europe, and the sax isn’t even his main thing – he’s a cellist and he plays in orchestras and stuff, and I’m sitting here like an eejit! But it’s good fun, and that’s what matters. In terms of the production side, we’re now moving towards the live aspect, so less samples, but we’re trying to get a nice mix of both.
And how did this coming together of musicians come about?
Funny story actually - you know the way Ed Sheeran does that one-man-band thing? I tried to do that for a long time and it was kind of working, but what it ended up being was just me playing guitar, so I was almost hidden a bit within the song; I wasn’t stepping out and being the front man and developing that aspect. After trying to play by myself I found that I didn’t really have this rhythm to make it a one-person thing. I was doing an open mic in The American Bar, and I went upstairs and seen the jazz night on a Sunday and I just thought ‘this is wild’, and then I went downstairs and played my pre-recorded drum loops and was like ‘this is not the same, I need to be with them people!’ So I just made some connections; the guitarist was a friend of a friend, and I met the bassist by accident on a night out last year; I told him I was looking for a bass player and he just said ‘I play the bass!’ The saxophone player I already knew, and I’ve recently been talking to a keys player, so it was all very natural. There have been a few variations of different lineups, so I’ve just been trying to find the right fit. The band changes faces a lot and it just keeps getting better, but I think we’re at a place now where I feel it is what I had in mind, and they can do their thing – from there it’s like structured improvisation.
You were saying you have been doing video content - like what you would see on ‘Colors’ – where this live aspect comes out, tell me a bit more about that.
Yea well, I was in the Blackstaff for like six hours the other day recording with a filmmaker. I’ve got a lyric breakdown, a ‘story so far’ video, a musician tag where I answer questions, ‘ten songs that influence me’, and another Q&A video. As well as that, I’ve got an acoustic performance of ‘Feel That Way’, which is a completely different vibe – it’s kind of a mashup with a Lana Del Rey song. It changes it where the song is now talking about someone, as in ‘don’t feel that way for you’. I really enjoyed doing that, and I’ll definitely be doing more of them.
Happy days. You’ve obviously taken on multiple creative roles in making your music – the production as well as singing and the guitar. Now that you’re doing all this at the same time, are there any particular aspects of the process that you’re finding yourself enjoying more than you would’ve thought?
I feel like the role of the businessman, like actually running it as a business, has become more and more alluring. So, if you’re putting out a magazine, you can charge for that product yourself any price depending on your audience; but the problem that we have as musicians, is that our price has been set. We have to do so much selling for something that’s not our product, to then sell our product. I think we get paid something like 0.0003p per stream, so it’s just not viable to be a musician financially, unless you’re selling out arenas. I’ve been trying to find a way to become financially stable through music – and I haven’t done it yet – but I’ve been enjoying trying to find ideas to do it. I wanted to stay away from that before. I wanted to be, ‘The Artist’, and just be all about my art and that’s it, but at the same time I don’t want to go and work a job that I hate just to fund my art. Everyone’s in that position at some stage in their life: ‘I don’t wanna do this, but…’ So, I’m trying to get rid of the ‘I don’t want to do this’ and just do the ‘but’.
What do you think has led you to making that type of music, and has growing up in Belfast influenced how you make your music at all?
Well, a lot of people don’t know this but I actually come from a mixed-race heritage – I do look like a white guy, but my dad isn’t white. Living in Belfast shaped that, because of my dad and his musical influences. I didn’t really listen to U2 or whatever, or 90s rock – I listened to 70s soul and funk. I feel like if I hadn’t, under those circumstances, I don’t think I’d be able to spread the message that I try to spread; coming from that background I’ve had to go through a lot of shit. That just comes with the territory. Growing up in Belfast has had both positive and negative experiences, and that’s not just a race thing – that has basically defused into the religion or sectarianism thing as well, that’s inherent. That negative experience has basically shaped us, but more personally, the music from my dad’s side has shaped my musical preferences and style; I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the likes of George Benson, Jimi Hendrix, and all those African-American and UK artists that came out of that struggle. I’m Indian - I don’t have African descent but I feel like I connect with those artists and I wouldn’t be here without them. In terms of Belfast and my music – you were saying my music is more on the funky side and stuff, but I have a hard time putting a button on it and what it actually is, because I don’t even know. I get that it’s maybe cutting-edge in terms of the Northern Irish music scene, but to be honest, I think that music just isn’t celebrated enough here. If it had more eyes on it there would be more like the Belfast Busking Band, more like Honest Numbers. There are jazz-cats in Belfast, but there’s only one jazz club. There are lots of buskers and people in the streets doing it, and we need to look towards those people to grow the scene.
Yeah definitely, there’s plenty of it here, have you any recommendations for us?
There’s a lot: Space Entertainment – a hip-hop group, Lacuna Raps – he put out a banging song out recently, Superfly Soul & Funk – a record label, The Organauts…there is more than just singer-songwriters and rock bands. The heritage here is obviously rich for those genres and its inherent – we bring the folk side and the punk, which has obviously been a massive part of growing up here – but as we as a people begin to diversify, culture diversifies too. I can’t wait to see in ten years time, in twenty years time…what’s it gonna be like!? It will be sick.
Absolutely man. You were saying that you find it difficult to put a label on your music – that’s something that I found as well. Your first two singles are similar in some ways, but they’re also not at the same time. I thought that ‘Feel That Way’ really had almost a dance music sound to it. With such an eclectic style of music, what genres would you say influence you most?
That’s really hard for me to say. One of the things that I left off the list of ‘big genres’ is house music, dance music. That’s a massive part of the scene here as well – but I used to think ‘that’s for smicks’, or whatever. I recently did a production course and some of it was to produce house music, which is something I really wasn’t into at all. On the third day I just thought ‘house is shit’, and then on the fourth I was like ‘house is class!’ But my music is a mix of everything – my problem is how do you market that? I take jazz, funk, soul, and the songs are actually produced like house songs. There’s the ‘four on the floor’ at the end of ‘Feel That Way’, and that’s done just because people like that – it’s like a hearbeat. In turns of genre, there isn’t one; I love blues and jazz and all of those cultures, and I love mixing them. Hopefully I’m doing them all justice by making them all one thing.
Yeah, I would say that’s definitely one of the strongest points of your music that you’re able to blend these different genres into your own sound. So about your new EP – have you got a date set for it, and what can we expect to hear?
There’s no date as of yet, but I’m looking to put out another song in January. I want to play at festivals next year – I was supposed to book for festivals coming, but obviously they were all cancelled. But now I want to get eyes-on for gigs being booked in February, so that’s the main goal. I’m looking towards the summer because I want to get festivals on my résumé. EP will hopefully be released around May time, so kind of summertime – because the songs will all be summer vibes!