On SXSW Being A Clusterfuck

The Jericho rose can survive for decades without water in its hibernation state, completely dried and curled into a ball. Soon after it’s wetted, it can reach full bloom. It’s a powerful metaphor for love and compassion in Hiatus Kaiyote’s song Breathing Underwater, off their second album Choose Your Weapon. The record is filled with vivid imagery like this, reflective of frontwoman Nai Palm’s lyric writing style. Palm tries to get as much out of a single word as possible. “For example, in Swamp Thing, just the word ‘saffron’ – ‘saffron tears, the sweetest you’ve ever had’ – it’s kind of set in southern Louisiana, like, that’s kind of the theme,” begins Palm. “The reason I chose the word ‘saffron’ is because it’s used a lot in Creole cooking but also saffron at a point in history was more valuable than gold. Even though it’s like a fragrant, descriptive word, the context of it is like something so simple that is so sought after. It has a weight to it even though it’s just one word.”

 

This tendency to search for deeper meaning and more layers not only applies to their lyrics, but of course their music and musicianship as well. “There’s this constant development,” says keyboardist Simon Mavin. “Even now, we’re still developing tunes that are on [debut album Tawk Tomahawk]. We’ve been trying to flip Boom Child, that’s gonna be put in the new set. The World It Softly Lulls, now when we play it, is a completely flip of what was on [the record]. That’s what we like to do, rather than letting something kind of stagnate in a way… because if we’re going to do 50 shows around the world in the next couple of months, you wanna keep it interesting, not just for your sake but for the public as well. You never wanna stop learning.”

 

Hiatus Kaiyote’s music has received compliments from plenty of contemporary music’s greats, including Questlove, Prince, Erykah Badu and Flying Lotus – artists that have likely influenced Hiatus Kaiyote’s sound and work ethic to some degree. “As soon as you hear it, it’s kinda like, ‘that’s fucking amazing’, and then you go and meet these people, and they’re just people, man,” says Mavin. “They’re just chillin’, they’re just musicians that are focused about what they wanna accomplish… and that’s the inspiring thing, not this stardom… awe kind of thing.”

 

The four-piece has been busy this year, playing their second SXSW, releasing an album and gearing up to take it on tour to the US, Europe and then back here. Apparently SXSW doesn’t get any easier the second time around. “You could be, like, fucking Madonna and it’ll still be a clusterfuck… it’s just chaos,” says Palm. Mavin adds, “You’ve got all this pressure to go there and you’re playing to all these industry people and you’ve got the worst conditions that you can possibly be thrown into, and it’s just like, ‘Deal with this shit, and make it really good for that guy, because it’s really important!’ Who made it like this? You motherfucker. But you know, you deal with it. We had a great time!”