The American band Kayo Dot has cult status – widely known in narrow circles. They do not collect stadiums and do not play as support for grants of heavy music. The reason is their music is not bad, but not for a wide audience. The rich sound of Kayo Dot catches the experienced listener. Leader and multi-instrumentalist Toby Diver gave Metalscript.net an exclusive interview.
First try to explain – what does “Kayo Dot” means? How had you invented this name?
KAYO DOT the name has no meaning. It’s just a personal code for some nostalgic things from my childhood that give me an extra personal attachment to the music. I wanted to come up with a name that had no meaning for other people so that when they heard the name KAYO DOT they would immediately associate it with our music only. In fact, our music is like this as well. All the music is a secret code for things that are personal to me, and they have no other meaning outside of our world.
Is the naming of your albums and songs connected to their content or it’s only your impression of their sounding?
Yes, they are all absolutely connected the content! However, like you said, in some instances, the imagery that the names evoke is the actual content of the music. The dreamlike visions, etc.
Do any of your albums have any notional conception or not? If they do – what conception is it?
Yes, they all do, in fact. Choirs of the Eye is about dreamy things, fantasies, escapes. Dowsing Anemone is also about this from from a much darker angle. Blue Lambency Downward is all about being alone. And Coyote is a narrative about a person who wants to leave for a better place and goes through some hallucinatory adventures. In addition Coyote has another side to it – the mirror of the main character’s adventure with the illness and dying process of our friend and collaborator Yuko Sueta.
What shall we wait from Your new album Coyote? What is it about? Why have you named it so?
Like I mentioned above, Coyote has two sides of meaning – the fictional, narrative side, but then also the side that is an analogy to the really tragic process of its creation. It’s called Coyote because mythologically speaking, Coyote is the god of chaos and creation, in a way he is Loki, he may lead astray. He evokes the smell of warm musky woods and soft needle beds. The music on the album is all like this. It’s important to note that the music also comes from a specifically conceptual place – this music is supposed to be using the aesthetic of 1980’s goth bass but in a modern-classical or through-composed context. So we would like people to approach this album knowing this – think about that sound that was created by the Cure, Joy Division, and others – and then blast it into the 21st century and advanced-music world!
Your first album Choirs of the Eye was recorded on John Zorn’s label Tzadik. Do you communicate to Zorn? Have you ever played together? Did such an extraordinary musician as Zorn influenced you?
Yes, I talk to JZ every now and then. We have played together at improv parties in New York City a couple times, but I’ve never played any of his composed music. He has definitely influenced me, but not musically so much as just in ways to approach life and music.
In general – what musicians inspired you creativity? Did any writers or artists inspired you?
I’m always being inspired by everything new that I hear! It’s really impossible to settle on anyone as the most influential. There is no one. Everything I read and hear leaves a great impression on me. I don’t see the world in terms of favorites – I think that’s an immature approach.
Are there any songs you want to make cover-version? Which of your songs do you want to listen cover-version of?
Yeah! There are so many songs I would like to play cover versions of. But the main problem is that the people in our band can never agree on what to play – everyone’s got such different tastes! Soon though, we will do a show in which we include a couple covers, played alongside of music from Coyote, because I want to show the audience where the aesthetic of Coyote is coming from – the 80s goth chorused-bass guitar sound. So we’ll cover “Twenty-four Hours” by Joy Division and “Disintegration” by the Cure. I’d like to hear any band cover any of our more straightforward and pretty songs in a creative way – maybe “Cartogram out of Phase” , “The Useless ladder”, or the older songs, “The Blue Ghost”, “Geography,” “Sleep is a Curse”, stuff like that. The songs which follow more rules than others.
Do you have any special musical education or not? How many instruments can you play?
Yeah, I’d studied music since I was 8 years old and even went to college for it. I can play a few instruments: guitar, bass, clarinet, vibraphone, piano, a little bit of cello, a little bit of drums, I don’t know. Always learning!
Did you ever try to create your own original musical instruments to use in your albums and performances?
As far as creating my own instruments (like Harry Partch for example – ) I totally am into the idea, but haven’t had the need to do it yet.
Do you like to play live shows? Are there any improvisations when you play on the stage?
Yes, love it! There are not really any improvisations at all, except sometimes in between songs, when one person is tuning their instrument, the other people will improvise some ambient stuff for a minute or so. Within the songs though, no, there is never any improvisation. It’s all strictly composed.
I’ve heard that there were occasions you had played for audience of less than 10 people. How can you explain this fact? Do you think you music is hard to understand or maybe people prefer your records to your shows?
Yeah, that still happens to us all the time! I think the explanation is that, well, we have some dedicated fans, but they’re spread out all over the world. We don’t have any high concentrations of fans in any one area. And that’s just because most people don’t know about us. And a lot of people who do know about us find it too difficult or impossible to understand what we do.
Aidan Baker, the leader of Nadja once said that there is no difference between big audience and a couple of people near the stage, cause if there are people there to listen, he will play for them. What do you think about it? Do you feel awkward if you see only 5 or 10 people in the concert place or you always try to play as good as you can?
I totally disagree, it makes a HUGE difference when there are a lot of people at the show. The energy is a lot higher and the bands feeds off it. If there are just a couple people, it’s a real bummer and the energy on stage is low. Of course we always try to play as good as possible, although, sometimes small turnouts make things interesting because the band is more relaxed and likelier to take risks and do crazy things. But that would still be born of a feeling of “fuck it”.
Have you ever tried your hand in other areas of art, like painting or literature? What book or painting can you compare to your music?
Yeah, I draw and paint sometimes! Sometimes other bands will hire me to do their album covers, which I think is great! I foresee myself getting more into this in the future. I have some of my paintings up at
my website as well,
I don’t think that there’s any book or painting i would compare to the music I do though… nothing that I’ve ever come across and seen myself in it 100%.
How do you think – is Kayo Dot enough popular or not? I’ve met the opinion that the musician who is well-known in narrow circles of fans is cult musician. Do you feel like underground or cult musician?
Well, this is an interesting thing to think about, because it seems like a lot of people are listening to Kayo Dot, but hardly any people are supporting us. I mean, most people are stealing our albums online – downloading for free. Not buying from us (and it’s really easy to buy from us directly through our website) and not coming to shows. This really fucks us over in a really big way, and makes it very difficult or impossible to tour or make the records we want to make. It even makes it hard for us to eat, to have anywhere to sleep, I mean, it’s a huge problem. The fans don’t realize this, for some reason. It discourages us and makes us feel like quitting music all the time.
On your opinion can good musical taste be bought or not?
I don’t think it can be “bought” like you say, but it’s true that a lot of the time, people are “asleep” and don’t realize what’s out there, and sometimes a big powerful marketing machine is the best way to make people realize that something is right there in front of them. Just drill the message into their heads until they wake up! But ultimately, people decide their own taste.
If any person says “Kayo Dot is my favorite band. I think Toby Diver is genius.’ – whom do you want this person to be?
A cute girl I guess? ha ha – seriously though, yeah it doesn’t matter! It means a lot to me if this music reaches anyone!
What question you always wanted to be asked?
Hmm.. maybe “do you want to be in my band?” asked to me by Bjork.
The last question – what dreams does people who compose such an extraordinary music see?
Oh, really disturbing but pretty things. Constantly. I honestly don’t think my dreams are really any more bizarre than anyone else’s though. We all have the ability to see the strangest worlds on the other side.
The 4th band’s album Coyote released April 20th on Hydra Head
0 comments on “Kayo Dot – I don’t think my dreams are more bizarre than anyone else’s.”Add yours →