[INTERVIEW] Kill Paris Talks Name Change, Nintendo Games and Plants

August 2, 2018 -

Ashlyn Fulton

Just a couple of weeks ago the H<3art Beats team had the privilege of hosting Kill Paris - a household name in the bass scene - at Knitting Factory Brooklyn. But 'where has he been' you ask? Well for one, he's been working on a new album set to drop by the end of the year. His first single off of the album was released today and you can listen to it below.

While the nostalgia flowed from the set he gifted us at Knitting Factory that night, we also got to sit down and see what he's been up to, most notably with a company called MIDI Spout that turns plant signals into music!

Read below for the full interview and check out his new single, Two Minds feat. Tim Moyo.



So, how have you been? It’s been about 3 years since I’ve seen you play!

Yeah, I’ve been good!

In light of the Paris shootings a few years ago, you changed your name. Why’d you decide to change it back?

Part of it is the name itself - it comes from romeo and Juliet. It comes from that idea of actually looking into things and actually following the truth instead of getting caught up in all of the crazy shit. I think the fans wanted it too because it was just such a side swipe that I didn't even see coming. I feel like at the time it was respectful to change it because it was such a nightmare. Even though I wasn't involved in any of the stuff that happened. Which was weird, I was getting death threats and all kinds of crazy shit…

Yet, you had the name before all of this

Exactly! It was a really weird time because for the most part from putting out music, and doing everything I do, everyone has been so nice. I think I was naive a little because up until then nothing like that have ever happened. And then out of nowhere people were like “This is your fault” “You’re the reason this happened” “You should have been the one that died.”

People are nuts

Exactly and I had no idea how to deal with that. So, yeah, I felt like it was a respectful thing to do at the time and also a chance to say what the name means. I felt like enough time passed, and since the name stands for, arguably, something good and my music obviously stands for something good, it stands for love and respecting each other and having a good time.

Has it helped you, creatively, to have the name back?

Yeah I think so. it feels more comfortable i've had that name since I was 16 so it’s been a long time. I only had it changed for a year.

You just got to play Nintendo with some of our contest winners. What are some of your favorite old school games and what are some of you new favorites?

Ooo okay… Nintendo Switch exclusive. I will go through a little list:

Well I play a lot of Tetris, but multiplayer games there is this called Astro Bears, I think it’s like $5 - best multiplayer game ever. If you have like 2 or 4 people, it’s so much fun. That, Splatoon. Recently started playing Fortnite for the first time. I was very reluctant to play but that’s really fun. I’ve been on Rocket League since day one. Outside of that, Overwatch, I play that a lot a lot a lot.

Old school games - the original Super Mario Bros. I love that. Robotron: 2084 which is an arcade game. Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2. Katamari Damashy - Play Station 2. Super Nintendo - Secret of Mana. Just trying to cover all the basis… Kaboom! on Atari 2600. Best Atari game I’ve ever owned. I think that about covers it.

Tell us about this partnership with MIDI Sprout and how it relates to your music.

I found them through a podcast, Duncan Trussell was talking about it and I got really interested so I had my manager hit them up. In the last year or so I've been on the side studying electromagnetic fields and how that affects plants, how that affects humans. And also sunlight affect versus artificial light - the difference between full-spectrum light which is comes from the sun and artificial light which is just a narrow band. The effects of circadian rhythm and all of that. So I've been into all of that recently. Once I found MIDI Sprout, I thought it was really interesting because what it's doing it reading the electrical signals that the plant is giving off and translating that into midi notes. So you can plug it into a computer and you can make music. So, it was interesting to me because I’ve been trying to figure out how to do some experiments like, I did an experiment a while ago: I had 4 different plants - I watered them all the same - one was outside, one was inside close to a laptop but was getting indoor sunlight through the window, one was in a backroom where all the windows were closed but there was a phone, just white screen as bright as it could be right in front of it, and one in my studio underneath an ott light which is a full-spectrum light bulb so it actually replicates the sun.

So, the one under the ott light did amazing, it was so pretty. The one near the laptop did okay. The one outside was fine but the one in front of the phone - awful. Died really quickly, everything was trying to move away from the phone. So anyway, being that i was interested in that kind of stuff the MIDI Sprout seems like an interesting thing not just to make music with but to experiment and learn about plant interaction. Because plants and people are obviously very different - it's kind of a coupled system that we have with them because we breathe co2 and they take that in and make it into oxygen so it like without plants we wouldn't be here and without us they wouldn't be. So it’s kind of a weird affect.

Do you think it relates to human life?

Yes, because it's all part of the same thing. we kind of seem to think of this stuff as separate like “you are you” “I am me” “a plant is a plant” “I can put this plant in a pot and move it” but it’s all apart of the same thing so with MIDI Sprout I'm experimenting with that, recording the midi then resampling that, making sounds out of it. It's essentially a note generator a really cool not generator. It’s something special when you’re sitting down and you hear it changing, the sound that it's making, the notes its hitting. Sometimes they make chords, sometimes those chords repeat, sometimes they don't. I'm just really interested.

Does any of this have to do with anything you have coming up, musically, in the future?

Yeah, so my album which should be coming out by the end of the year - there's going to be a lot of stuff that's influenced by that. We’ll see where is goes in the future, I'm interested to do a lot more experiments - figure out how to play the plants essentially. It sounds so hippy hippy but it’s fun.

Anything else you are working on?

I'm just finishing up the album. I have a single coming out August 2nd on Monstercat and a bunch of remixes that are coming out.

 

Get Two Minds on SoundcloudSpotify or Apple Music

Feature photo by Chuck Kwok

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