Yea Big + Kid Static is hip hop for the stationarily challenged, the soundtrack for your next dance-off, the preamble to next your coup. Yea Big + Kid Static will overcome you like a band of parkour ninjas wearing jet packs leaping over your grandmother's privacy fence to steal a pie. Yea Big + Kid Static are one part short shorts, one part cybernetic organism, all parts awesome. Yea Big + Kid Static are a comic book style action figure for all ages, ready to destroy the plastic casing and blow up the spot with the power and skill of 47 stuntmen wearing mylar battle gear. Be prepared to duck.
Be sure to check their video "The Life Here" at the end of the interview!
Yea Big: Wow, what do you want to know? ...My name is Stefen Robinson. I make music under the pseudonym, Yea Big. I am originally from Kankakee, Illinois, currently living in Chicago with my ladyfriend, Jamie, and our dog, Miso. I like to read at the laundromat.
Kid Static: My given name is Moses Harris Jr. I write music under the alias Kid Static. I'm born and raised in Chicago and love the hell out of the city. My dancing is correct and my swagger is like Jagger.
YB: Isn't that for critic's to decide? haha. I honestly haven't figured out how to answer that question yet. We've been asked that several times in the past few months and I still don't know. I just hope we sound good to some people.
KS: Yea Big makes beats from anything that makes a sound. Beats that BUMP. My voice can range from overanxious and shrill to smooth and smoky like a fine barbecue sauce. Saucy. Yeah thats it. Categorically? I really have no idea. We're hip hop I guess.
YB: This question, I love! I love talking about my favorite artists. My all-time most favorite artist of any musical genre is John Hartford. He writes the most amazingly pure songs I've ever heard. And most of his recordings are just as amazing as the songs. Raw, natural, beautiful, brilliant.
KS: Lately I been listening to alot of older rock and soul. Otis Redding kills it. Chuck Berry, The Vibrations, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson are all favorites. Its the music my parents listened to. Always so raw and emotional. It will always trigger that kind of reverie that brings good thoughts and makes you want to create something that touches people like that.
YB: Another one of my all-time favorites is Jim O'Rourke. His records, Bad Timing, Eureka, Insignificance, Halfway To A Threeway, and I'm Happy And I'm Singing And A 1 2 3 4, not to mention some of his other more experimental works, are all favorites of mine.
Also, The Mae-Shi and Rapider Than Horsepower! And not because they are friends of ours. Both of those bands have made several of the best rock records of early part of the 21st century.
I could go on and on, but I'll stop here.
KS: Where don't I get my inspiration from? I've written songs about the death of cassette tapes, sandwiches, relationship shite, rapping, driving, dancing, plant life. If I see it, feel it, experience it, eat it, drink it, etc, it will probably get written about.
YB: I get musical inspiration from everything I hear. Mostly from bands and individuals who's music I enjoy. But also from complete trash that I just happen to hear and say to myself, "I should make something like that, except make it sound good!" haha. Also from great mentors and teachers I've had, like the Oh-Astro family. Hank and Jane have been a huge inspiration to me.
As for non-musical inspiration, I get most of that from my family and friends.
KS: Why he wears it, he can tell you more about that, but I think its funny as hell. There are times on stage where i'll forget a line or two because I turn around and hes doing something that makes me laugh during a show. I like the lightness and air of fun that it brings. We take ourselves seriously but not THAT seriously.
YB: Well... Stefen makes music. Yea Big is a character I play. I need the costume to help me get into character. The shorts really do the trick. As soon as i put them on, I'm ready for anything!
KS: Thats a really broad question. Music is growing and changing in Chicago like it always has. Bands are getting out there, and we're trying to do the same. You can find people playing anything you want to listen to and that's the way it should be.
YB: I'm excited to be a part of it.
YB: You don't really want to know, do you? I don't want to bore your readers. I'll just say, I'm obsessed with rationality.
KS: Writing. Trying to finish off the next YB+KS record.
YB: Oh yeah! We're steadily working on a new full-length. Its going to be dope. I'm also trying to finish up some collaborations I have going with other folks. And we'll be doing some more extensive touring this Spring and Summer. Lots of stuff to do.
KS: That record, I'm working on a new solo as well as an EP for the summer. Also collabing with a bunch of folks and Yea Big and I are going back out on tour for Spring/Summer. Gonna be a good year.
Yea Big + Kid Static on MySpace
