Interview with an Artist : ZKennedy
Interview with an Artist is a series where we, Galerie House, spotlight artists in our world. Our goal is to celebrate their work, and inspire our community to never stop chasing their creative spirits.
Explain what you do in 100 words or less.
I rarely call myself a musician cause it doesn’t usually work like that for me. Songwriting is a blend of mathematic and spiritual, and I’m heavier on the latter. Most the time I just feel like a satellite receiver. I don’t think ideas originate from any one person. There’s an absolute source of creativity and sometimes we get a clear channel and other times the weather can get in the way, and my job is to sit down and do the work on the days that it comes easy and on the days that it doesn’t.
How has your professional path evolved over time?
There was a vague sense of what success would look like when I began my musical journey, and that ambiguity is something that every new artist faces. We start as some general amalgamation of our heroes and we are tasked with whittling those inspirations down into some new combination that we call our own.
I’ve gone through a lot of iterations as a songwriter and it’s all been part of that evolution towards a true essence. I’m learning to get to the point; to trim the fat. If I’m a little bit quicker at that than the day before then I’m headed in the right direction.
It doesn’t hurt to be niche these days anyway. We live in a consumer culture of infinite options, and something pure, specific, and authentic has a better chance of being remembered than a wider swath of palatable art. All of that is a long way to arrive at a familiar trope: just be yourself!
If you could tell your younger self something, what would it be?
For starters I’d slap the 20 year old me and just tell him to go outside. I had (and still have) an intensity about me that tends to suck the fun out of something as soon as it’s labeled as a “professional pursuit”. I think when I was just starting the music game I approached every relationship with that intensity and my relationships suffered because of it. I was too selfish with my energy and uptight about improving my craft. Like Bill Murray said, “the more relaxed you are, the better you are at everything”. I think that’s so simple and true. The tighter you hold on to life the more it withholds itself, and I had to learn that the hard way.
What are you excited to do in the next 5 years?
Definitely excited to see how my songs translate on a stage. Covid hit right about the time I started releasing things seriously in early 2020 and it froze a lot of things in place. When the world opens back up and concert goers feel safe again there is going to be a real spike in communal celebrations and I think we’ll have a deeper appreciation for it that we weren’t quite aware of before. It’ll be cool to play a part in that upcoming era of live music.
Describe your dream dinner party.
We’ll get a little boujee with it: We’re in someone’s backyard in Malibu. We’ve got a private chef. He’s doin the 12 course thing where we get a little bite of a lot of things. On a normal night I’d want to stick with a higher quantity of less items but we’re going to restrain ourselves within the lavishness of expensive foods. There are eight of us — it can’t be any larger or the conversation gets fragmented. I don’t want to argue at the table but I want to get deep. It’s Asian focused but there are moments of fusion into Mexican cuisine. Cocktails flow. I put on a little Khruangbin, a little Portuguese pop, a little Rolling Stones. The meal is finished and no one picks up their phone.
Listen to ZKennedy on Spotify, Apple, or Amazon Music.