After playing in Perth and en route to Melbourne, we caught up with The Impossible Girl aka Kim Boekbinder, her unique way of incorporating fans into her shows, crowdfunding her latest record and of course, we talk about her Australian experiences!
How did your Perth show go and what have your experiences in Australia been like so far this trip?
The Perth concert was really great. The venue (Fly by Night) was fantastic and my Perth fans are wonderful.
Can you tell us a little about the collaboration with Jim Batt? How did that come about and what is the collaborative process like?
I met Jim through Twitter in January 2010 when I was looking for an animator to make a short film/music video. We had a few Skype meetings to begin with – Jim in Melbourne and me in New York City, and we really liked each other. In July of 2010 I flew to Melbourne to meet Jim in person and we fell head over heels in love with each other. We’ve been together ever since, flying all over the world together, working on various film and musical projects. This most recent tour saw him doing live video projections for the show. Jim is one of the most intensely talented people I’ve ever met, he’s able to do everything from stop-motion animation to creating CG galaxies, from feature films to music videos. See our latest – http://youtu.be/ENJKo5jqjUw
What can fans (and the curious!) expect from the gigs… both artistically and musically?
Electro-Galactic Space Pop! I loop synthesizers, beats, and my voice to create big, complex, love songs to space while Jim does live video projections with NASA footage. The show is acoustically and visually engaging and super fun. I also tend to wear a lot of shiny things.
You have a bit of time off in between each show… what are you getting up to?
I’ve been collaborating with several musicians in Melbourne, working on new songs. Australia is home to so many brilliantly talented people. Well done, Australia.
After crowdfunding your latest record, is this something you’re looking into doing for future releases?
Crowdfunding is a wonderful and powerful tool for independent musicians and artists. I love it. It is also a very time-consuming thing to do, think full time job x3, plus you still have to make the art. I will continue to crowdfund because I’ll do whatever it takes to make my music, but I admit to daydreaming that someone (patron, label, whoever…) would invest enough for me to create without having to do the intense promotion that a crowdfunding campaign requires.
I’m writing a series of essays about artists, the internet, and money, you can read them here: http://medium.com/artists-on-the-internet
What is next for you musically?
I am always writing new material! And while I am planning a few small tours this year I am also starting to write my next album. I love the writing process, and the recording process, and the touring process. I guess I was born to be a musician.
Looking at the options for the show tickets, it seems there is a bit of a crowdfunding element into your shows; providing premium packages that help finance the trip and the more intimate showcases… can you tell us a bit about how the idea to do this came about and how it’s been going?
I first starting pre-selling shows in 2011. At the time it was groundbreaking and I was the first musician to sell shows that way. I would set up a Kickstarter project for each concert in each city and had to sell enough tickets before I booked the show. I have fans all over the world and this was the way I could afford to travel to them without losing my own money (because I don’t even have the money to lose in the first place.) Bands have traditionally paid for tours via record label investment, having no label I turned to my crowd. If they funded my album, I thought they might fund a tour. And it worked so well it launched dozens of websites that now pre-sell shows in this way.
If every artist in the world offered these packages, but you could only pick one, who would it be and what would you get them to play?
If I could buy a VIP ticket and have a song dedicated to me it would be Leonard Cohen – Take This Waltz. I went to his concert a few years ago and it was the very best concert ever, beyond anything I could imagine, but then he was my music idol when I was a teenager so his songs are the ones that matter most to me.
Where do you head to after Sydney? What’s next for you!
I’m going back to the US to play shows and write my new album! I also have several film and soundtrack projects in the works. Hopefully I’ll be back in Australia next summer.
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Kim’s Melbourne show tonight is sold out, but she’s in Sydney next week! Don’t miss Kim at The Newsagency for an intimate showcase. Details and tickets are available here: http://bit.ly/MqIe6k
