Dust-Tone Interview: King Pari
art by dusq.
Meet King Pari: your new favorite band. The duo have each made music in various forms for years, but together they have linked up as King Pari- a sweet, lofi R&B group (for lack of a better term.. Mtume meets Prince with modern “indie-pop” sensibilities?) that has a sense of both optimism and longing typically only found in 60′s-70′s soul music.
Cameron Kinghorn and Joe Paris Christensen originally hail from Minneapolis, but have since relocated to Los Angeles. They have played in bands together in the past but also have made a name for themselves in various projects throughout the years. In Minneapolis, Cameron sang for the soulful Nooky Jones and is a part of Black Market Brass- an amazing Afrobeat group that recorded for the legendary Colemine Records. Joe, also no stranger to the music scene, was a guitarist in the Prince-approved PHO and had been creating and performing as DJ Stepmom (which combines an electro sound with live instrumentation and a modern-funk leaning style) when he came up with some ideas that went on to become the first King Pari Songs. He then texted it to Cameron. Cameron’s response? “I want in.”
Thankfully they had some time in between recording, playing shows and getting their first EP released to have a chat together.
Dust-Tone: Thanks for taking the time. I love the style you guys have fleshed out. What kind of process or influence led to that? I hear strong vocals mixed with almost-electro beats and live instrumentation, and I’m just curious as to what elements led to you discovering and championing that sound.
King Pari [Joe]: I didn’t produce music until I got a Tascam 388 1/4-inch tape machine and an Oberheim DX drum machine, so I got those two things around the same time and it was like “oh cool, I have drums, and I have a way to record now” so then I made loops with the drum and tape machines.. so it all started without a computer, basically because I didn’t how to use a computer to record. I think the knobs made more sense to me and also with playing in funk bands before.. the drum machine kind of gave it a Minneapolis sound, tied in with the funk and psychedelic sound going on.
D-T: How do you guys split up the process of writing/producing/recording?
KP [Cameron]: It depends on the song.. we live together now that we are in LA, but generally Joe will come up with some super rad/wild instrumental and then either I will do the vocal production stuff fully on my own or sometimes we’ll get together and I’ll just riff/improvise vocals and we’ll look at all the ideas we like and finish writing the lyrics before recording. For example “Sunshine” [Joe had a full instrumental version ready] from the first time we hung out, and then I wrote lyrics and came back to record them. But a song like “Understanding” was more like the two of us in a room together and we came up with melodies we liked before Joe had [the hook] of the chorus and he was like “it’s got to be that.” And then we built the song together around that, so it just depends on which song, but it’s kind of a combo of both.
D-T: You have already released a handful of singles, but also have the debut collection, Mary EP, coming out soon, correct?
KP [Joe]: We already have a 7″ record of Sunshine, and a 12″ of Come Inside which was released with PPU (Peoples Potential Unlimited) but will not appear on the Mary EP. Towards the beginning of August we’ll release another single, but the full EP will be released at the end of August and the release show is in Minneapolis on September 23rd. Looking forward to getting it out there.
D-T: How and when did you meet the artist Jake Huffcut? His artwork is a great pairing with style. For those who do not know, he’s animated each music video you’ve released and provided artwork for the singles so far.
KP [Cameron]: We got together after the recording of Sunshine, and Joe+I had the idea of what it sounds like visually. We both thought this would be awesome to be animated in an Adult-Swim style.. and so Joe found Jake on Instagram and it was exactly what we’re describing. He had already made a music video for another band from Minneapolis and it was like “This is the guy.... this is exactly what I’m describing.” He was super down to do it.. we would send him the lyrics and he would go and make the visuals, and totally crush it. There wasn’t a lot of “we need this to be in the video,” which is great because there is stuff he added, and there was no way we could have thought to tell him to add that. After the first video he took a lot of creative control which was nice for us. After it’s all out you’ll be able to watch the entire 24-minute EP as a short animation film basically.
D-T: Any plans to tour as the country opens back up?
KP: We are definitely looking into it now, but we would love to tour, and when the right stuff comes up we’ll be there. We’ve done a lot of touring in separate acts and want to continue touring as much as we can.
If you’re in Highland Park in Los Angeles, the two suggest Chico’s Restaurant if you’re feeling Mexican flavor or Burgerlords for some cheap but delicious burgers. Can’t forgot to mention the Tuesday morning farmer’s market if you’re looking for freshness, but for the truly fresh I would suggest just looking up King Pari on your preferred streaming service and buying the records they have before everything sells out.