Catching Up with Kate Simko
Verboten Presents Kate Simko @ Hudson Bar & Terrace was a great event that we at TTL enjoyed so much, we had to have some questions answered. While Kate is out on the road promoting her new solo release, we were lucky enough to exchange some electronic Q&A’s and get a bit of a glimpse of soul behind the music.
TTL: Hello, Kate! Let’s start with helping our readers to get to know you. Where did you grow up? Was music a strong presence at home?
KS: Hello! :) I grew up in Chicago. And yes, music was a strong presence at home. My father was passionate about classical music and was always listening to music in the car. Not just background music, but specific pieces by specific composers and classical performers. It helped me learn how to listen to music from a young age (because he’d tell us “shhhhhh listen!”).
TTL: You studied piano and music theory as a child. Does that still carry some influence in how you hear and produce your tracks?
KS: Yes, for sure. I always write my songs in a certain key and base everything around that, so it’s kind of the backbone of each track.
TTL: Then you have spent some time as a college radio DJ. Do you remember your first time slot? Did you have a co-DJ or co-producer?
KS: Radio was my first intro to DJ’ing. I was a student at Northwestern, so the show was on the student radio station, WNUR. It’s a pretty famous station, a number of very high profile house, techno, and hip-hop DJ’s have had shows or set foot in the studio. First, I sat in on another student’s show, then I graduated to having my own show, every Friday night from 9:30-11pm. It was a great time slot because a lot of people were at home getting ready to go out on Friday night, or in the car driving. Having a weekly radio show is was the impetus to start buying vinyl too. I’d eat ramen for dinner and save my cash for records.
TTL: How did you transition into making and producing techno? What pulled you into techno from the classical music you originally studied?
KS: House and techno started pulling at my heartstrings in high school, when I was going to underground parties every weekend. My favorite DJ’s back then were Derrick May, Jeff Mills, Claude Young, Traxx, and zll of the Chicago house DJ’s, of course. But hearing IDM music for the first time is what sealed the deal. I had no idea electronic listening music existed until I moved to Miami for college (for a program in classical music studies). This music blew my mind, and I started to question what I was doing playing music from a couple hundred years ago on the piano 4-5 hours a day in the Miami practice rooms. I realized that I’d be much happier making my own new music (although I had no idea how to make it happen), so I packed my bags and started on a new path. It was really like starting over.
TTL: While your music possess your hometown Chicago vibe, you lived in Chile after college. What prompted you to move there?
KS: I moved to Santiago, Chile for a study abroad program in music. While things were great at the university with my radio show and music studies, I started to feel antsy and wanted a change. I chose Chile because I wanted to better my Spanish and the country was a bit more integrated into the electronic music world 2001 compared to the rest of South America.
Follow through the break to read about Santiago, her collaborations, return to Chicago and her debut album.
TTL: Hopefully you could speak Spanish before you arrived in Santiago. How long before you found yourself speaking with a Chilean accent?
KS: Yes, I spoke some Spanish, but couldn’t understand much of the slang or Chilean Spanish upon arrival. Luckily, I met some great Chilean friends right at the beginning and they helped me find my way down there.
TTL: While in Chile, you met Andres Bucci and collaborated under the name Detalles. Did the change in atmosphere change your approach to hearing, feeling and producing music?
KS: Andres and I met in December 2001 and recorded our first album together in January and February 2002. Looking back, it all happened really quickly. Both Andres and Pier Bucci, and the other Chilean electronic musicians around at that time really inspired me. They made due with whatever equipment was available, and were really defining a new sound at that time. Our first Detalles record, Shapes of Summer (Traum) was definitely inspired by the hot South American summer that year.
TTL: And now you are back in Chicago. Are there other artists, sounds and places you find inspirational for your music since coming back from South America?
KS: Well, Tevo Howard has been the main new inspiration here in Chicago lately. We’ve been making music together the past year and are always bouncing ideas off each other.
TTL: Back to the Chicago scene, where have you played your best set in Chicago? Where would you recommend your friends to go out?
KS: Well, the coolest place I ever played here was at Millennium Park. It’s an amazing outdoor theater designed by Frank Gehry right next to the Chicago skyline. I’d recommend Smart Bar (where I’m a resident) and Spy Bar.
TTL: Let’s move along to your current album: Lights Out. What served as your inspiration for this album? How has this album evolved your sound?
KS: My inspiration for the album was trying to bring together all of my influences into one concise, flowing story. It was cool to be always thinking of this larger thing that didn’t exist yet. It’s my first solo album, so I guess the hardest challenge was this feeling that somehow you’re going to define your sound and who you are through this one thing. I‘m into house, techno, minimal, dubby stuff, tech-house, etc, so in a way, I didn’t know exactly which direction it was going to head at the beginning. When it was just getting started, I’d make a new song every day or two, then go back at the end of the week and see how the ideas fit together. Now that the album is finished, I feel like some things I thoughts were “habits” are actually just a part of my sound. Things kind of got hashed out making the album. I feel excited to make new music soon.
TTL: Two of my favorite tracks on this album are Flight Into BA and Mind On You. Can you provide some insight into these two?
KS: Flight Into BA is about taking a flight into Buenos Aires, alone at night. The song has the most melodic arrangement of all of the tracks on the album. It’s a melancholic song with a walking bass line, and soulful vocals by San Francisco-based Kevin Knapp.
Mind On You is a Chicago song, with vocals by Chicago-based DJ and vocalist, Brenda D. The song is like a follow-up to Take You There (Spectral Sound), which was our first collaboration. Brenda has a great voice and really understands the nuances of house music, so it’s been great to work with her.
PS: only three of the ten tracks have vocals …
TTL: Was there any track on the album you would call ‘a labor of love,’ a track that took so long to get just right, but was so rewarding?
KS: Geez, the whole thing was a labor of love! Making an album really brought out the perfectionist freak in me. I listened to every song so many times and was changing things like high hat panning up until the last second. The positive to this labor of love is that I feel really good about the album. It’s something I can set on the shelf (on vinly and CD – thank you Hello? Repeat) and feel good about years from now. It’s not perfect by any means, but it expresses what I was going for at the time.
TTL: How do you balance your DJ schedule with music production?
KS: I’m not very good at making music music on the road, so I usually collaborate with friends when I’m away, and make my own music when I’m home in Chicago.
TTL: Thank you very much, Kate! Best of luck.
KS: Thank you! Hope to see you next time out in Los Angeles..
Kate Simko’s album Lights Out is being released on Hello? Repeat on June 13. Be sure to grab a copy from Beatport
