What first attracted me to Kyng Venus’ music was the overall darkness and mayhem, that seemed to be associated with the way he constructed his beats. Over the years he seems to have embraced this dark mayhem more and more. With every release, Kyng Venus has continued to dig even further into his own world of distorted, electronic-chaos, while mixing in more intense rhythms and wailing vocals. It has been interesting to watch his music evolve from an outside perspective. It’s like watching a robotic caterpillar emerge from a death cocoon and evolve into an apocalyptic, mechanical-butterfly.
On Loom, Kyng Venus’ latest release this mechanical-butterfly is on a truly beautiful flight of destruction. All six of the songs contained on Loom are full of twists and turns. With so many innovative elements in each track, I find myself coming back again and again to dissect the glorious mechanized creature of doom and gloom that Kyng Venus’ songs represent.
I have been so captivated by Loom in the past couple months that I needed to know more, so I caught up with Kyng Venus and asked him a bunch of questions about what makes him tick.
B.G.M. – Tell us how you first came to creating music. What was the initial motivation?
Kyng Venus – I was pissed off and frustrated and I needed an outlet. I’ve been attempting to make music for years but this most recent wave began back in 2012. It was my last year of university and it was just starting to dawn on me that my degree was more or less going to be completely useless. I guess it was sort of a kneejerk reaction to that situation, having poured years and thousands of dollars into something only to realize that it was basically going to amount to nothing. When this all dawned on me, I kinda panicked and got my hands on a copy of Ableton and started fooling around on it to take my mind off of my impeding doom. I made this beat that would eventually serve as the foundation for one of my first tracks, “Maximinimum,” and I realized hey, maybe I can actually do this. I recorded and released my entire first mixtape within the span of like two months. I was so excited about the prospect of actually releasing music that the first mixtape had basically no quality control at all. It’s really bad. Please don’t listen to it.
Which artists inspire you the most?
Mike Patton has always been my biggest inspiration, although he’s gotten pretty corny over the last decade or so. But his ethos of finding the beauty in ugliness will always be inspiring to me. Deftones’ ability to write really heavy music contrasted with Chino Moreno singing gorgeous melodies. Any type of subversive art that makes you rethink pre-established notions or what something is or what it can be. Perc’s dancefloor demolition. Kanye West’s unbreakable will and belief in himself. My good friend Matt Bankuti aka Ero Guro is currently writing his eighth album or something crazy like that. His dedication to his art is something I strive towards.
I think my favorite thing about your tunes and what really makes songs your so special is the beats. What’s your approach when constructing them?
Honestly there’s no formula at all. One of my favourite parts of producing is sound design; I’ll spend hours tinkering with a single noise, just to see what I can do with it. The end goal is usually to create something completely unrecognizable and alien, yet still has potential to fit within a somewhat familiar framework. But how I get to that point is completely different from track to track. It’s kind of an anti-approach but I like it. Each song has its own unique origin story.
You’ve recently let your vocals become more of a featured element in your songs. Do you have any previous experience singing in bands?
Oh hell yeah baby. I was in a dirty ass thrash metal band back in high school and we totally ruled. This was back when carbon copy metalcore bands with shitty names like Seasons of Exile or whatever were big on the ‘scene’, and we were a breath of fresh air, in my completely unbiased opinion. We were called Seventh Circle, and we actually recorded an EP. You can find a few songs online if you try hard enough. Remember Purevolume? We never officially broke up but I guess it was unofficial when I moved to Ottawa for school. I feel bad about it sometimes, it was kinda my fault we aren’t together anymore and I genuinely feel like we had promise.
What are your lyrical and vocal inspirations?
Vocally it would definitely be the holy trinity of Patton, Moreno, and Daryl Palumbo of Glassjaw. It’s pretty indicative of how most of my inspirations are from heavy metal-based music despite my music being electronic. It’s all about bridging that gap for me. Lyrically I’m all over the place, kinda like the beats. Random phrases will pop into my head while I’m out and I’ll jot them down and try to flesh them out later. Sometimes I’ll just freestyle-sing over the beats and stick with whatever comes out of my mouth. Raw, base emotion has always been important to me and what I do, although my future output will have more focus on actual songs that I’ve written.
How do you feel your music has grown between releasing Wasted Potential and Loom?
In many ways I feel like Loom is the distillation of Wasted Potential. I was still an amateur when recording Wasted Potential, and it shows in a lot of the mixing (I basically had no idea how to mix properly at that point). There was also the same quality control issue I had with the first mixtape, Whispers. I was so focused on releasing the record as quickly as possible I didn’t take my time to perfect the beat, as a certain Doctor would say. To compare, I recorded and released Wasted Potential within the span of about 5 months, whereas Loom is about half the runtime, and took me about a year. A lot of the themes and tones are similar, Loom is just basically a refined version of the same angst that drove Wasted Potential. I also just generally got better at working my way around Ableton. It’s a learning experience that will continue until I stop making music or die.
My favorite song on Loom is “Sequester,” which was originally entitled “Exesst.” The reason this song stands out to me is the total nihilistic energy that it has. Tells us about the creation of that song and why the change in title?
There was a lot of implicit aggression in the songs I had written for Loom, and I felt like the record needed a cathartic moment. The lyrics and vocal part came to me while I was showering one day, and I didn’t have my professional mic on me for whatever reason, but the flash of inspiration was so bright I borrowed my friend’s kinda shitty mic to record the part then and there. I was still dripping wet by the time I finished recording. My initial plan was to use that take as a demo, and re-record later with my actual mic, but I liked how raw and inspired it sounded so the first take on the shitty mic is what you hear in the final version. Despite being the shortest track on Loom, “Sequester” actually took me the longest to mix. I really had to wrestle with it because of how loud and extreme the track is. I initially uploaded the track to Soundcloud under the name “Exesst,” which was a word I made up to describe the mood of the song, but I took it down a few weeks later because I was still unhappy with the mix. The version you hear on the record is something ridiculous like the 60th final mix of the track. I changed its name because I realized unless you’re Aphex Twin making up words for song names is dumb.
Speaking of name changes, you’ve gone through several name changes as an artist. It seems you may have settled on Kyng Venus. Any significance behind this moniker? Is the Kyng Venus title here to stay?
Who knows! I hope so. Its tough gaining momentum as an artist when you’re constantly changing your name. The name came up during a recording session I was having with this artist named Alisanne last summer. We were talking about what I wanted to be credited as in the final credits of the track and she suggested the name King Penis because she’s super hilarious. I was really into gender theory and space at the time, so I thought of the name King Venus as a play on the whole ‘women are from Venus men are from Mars’ nonsense. I searched the net to see if anyone had this name, and I found this random guy on soundcloud who was already calling himself King Venus, so that’s where I got the idea of exchanging the I for a Y in Kyng, to kinda compound the gender neutralization. I actually messaged the King Venus guy asking if it was cool to basically steal his name, and he hasn’t gotten back to me yet, so unless I get sued somewhere down the line, I think I’m good!
You were recently featured in a Noisey article, how did you come about being featured?
‘Featured’ is a bit of a stretch. Every month or so they do this thing on Twitter where they’ll review whatever you send them over the span of a 30 minute period. I happened to see the tweet as it was posted so I sent them “Silence of Space is Deafening,” my most recent track at the time. I’m familiar with the feature and was aware it was mostly just a vehicle for them to make fun of amateur artists, but exposure is exposure. Anyways yeah they completely eviscerated me and the track. I was bummed about it for a day or so but the escalating play count changed that pretty quickly.
In the article they seem to be mocking your music, but from my perspective they were complimenting you by the comparisons they made about you to other artists. Regardless of whether or not it was negative it got you a lot of Soundcloud plays. Now that a few months have passed how do feel about the exposure that gave you?
It hasn’t really amounted to much, but it is nice seeing the playcount as high as it is I guess. I like to think that one or two of the 1200 or so that listened to it via Noisey liked what they heard.
You’ve played live a few times. What’s your stage set-up like?
Minimal, for now. Initially it’s just been me on staging singing/screaming/dancing/trying not to puke over my instrumentals, but I’ve been working on a more developed live show that integrates my controllers and mixers. When it’s done the live set will be like a hybrid of DJing my instrumental tracks in between performances of my actual vocal-based songs. I want it to be as engaging for the audience as possible; I want them to be dancing one minute then cowering in fear the next.
Any plans to bring in any other members? I think Kyng Venus’ tunes would be insane to watch a live band execute.
If I can find the right people, ideally I would love to make the transition into ‘band mode’. It’s nice having complete control over my output, but I have the tendency to get so wrapped up in the details that it would be nice to have that external voice that collaboration brings. Hit me up if you wanna join Kyng Venus.
What’s the music scene like in Ottawa? Are there any acts in your area that you feel are similar or that you can relate too?
The scene is surprisingly healthy, even if it is a bit one note. There are tons of bands and local shows, but because the majority of them fall underneath two or three labels/promotion companies’ umbrellas. If you’re a garage rock band or a house/techno DJ, you won’t have an issue finding shows to play. If you don’t perform those styles of music, however, you’re basically shit out of luck. It’s actually a big problem I’ve been having. I have no real issue getting shows to play in the Toronto area, because the audience is a lot more diverse and open minded. I’ve been trying to play a show in Ottawa for years now and I’ve basically had no luck because promoters aren’t willing to take a risk. It’s too bad really, Ottawa would be a lot more fun and culturally significant if it was more willing to expand its horizons.
Have the Backstreet Boys reached out to you regarding your cover of “Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely”?
Yeah they love it. Just kidding.
Any plans of creating a mixtape full of “Brutalist” remixes of other famous boy band songs?
I’ve been toying with the idea for a while. I have this totally absurd remix of “Thong Song” that I made when I was really drunk one night that HAS to see the light of day somehow. And for a long time the Backstreet Boys remix was far and away the most popular track on my Soundcloud. It hit the limit of 100 downloads a few weeks after I posted it. Hey if you’re one of the people who downloaded that track have you been rinsing it? Let me know. I’m really curious about the different places that track has ended up.
What’s coming up for Kyng Venus in the future? Any new tunes in the works?
Yes. You’ll see.