You don’t necessarily have to be in any type of mood to listen to Kid Dakota, but once you press play your mood is involuntarily at their mercy. ‘Tis quite a fine thing, though, so don’t go worrying about it. You see - as you’ve probably read in some publication or another by this point, or (gasp!) even heard for yourself - Kid Dakota do not inevitably create happy music. However, their music is not overly sad, either. Intoxicating would be a fine word to describe it. Maybe even honest, if we’re looking to get generic with it. But enough analysis, in that regard, at least.

No matter how you wanna slice the cake, Kid Dakota will affect you in a very personal manner. Their vivid imagery comes courtesy of eager lyricism and dynamic songwriting - all wrapped into a thunderstorm-type atmosphere, live and on record. As crazy as it seems, Kid Dakota do transpire hope with their music. It’s not a conventional hope, but a hope only to be initiated through listening. Don’t just hear it. Listen to it. Once you’re there, you’re there, and the West becomes very much so the future.

30: Let’s start out at the beginning of the Kid Dakota reign-

Darren Jackson: Reign of terror.

30: Could you explain how you ended up moving from South Dakota to Minneapolis?

Jackson: That’s a very long story. The short version of that is: I went to college in Minnesota. And after bouncing around the US for awhile, I came to reside in Minnesota. A lot of my close, personal friends were living in Minnesota at this time.

Christopher McGuire, the drummer, mumbles something in Japanese

Christopher McGuire: Or in Japanese: Me too.

Jackson: I met Christopher through a close, mutual friend. We started playing together and recording… then we started performing together. I didn’t know him before I got to Minneapolis, but soon afterwards.

30: So you guys have been together since the beginning?

Jackson: Well, I played some show out in Providence as Kid Dakota - more solo stuff.

30: You initially self-released So Pretty. Could you kind of go into how that whole process worked, such as self-promoting it, etc.?

Jackson: We just made the EP and we’d burn copies on our computers at home, made the packaging ourselves. I sent it out to a lot of magazines. I sent it to Radio K. Nobody knew who we were. Christopher was in 12 Rods at the time, so we had a lot of contacts and people to give it to. It was very DIY.

30: How did it work out recording wise?

Jackson: Alex Oana recorded it. He doesn’t live here anymore, but he was a local producer. Now he lives in LA. He did our new record as well.

30: How did you hook up with Low and Chairkickers?

McGuire: Would you mind if I take this story?

Jackson: I’d prefer it actually if you did.

McGuire: I’ve been a Low fan since ’93, before I moved to Minneapolis and people were playing Low for me and I was very affected by it. So I moved to Minneapolis, listened to all the Low records, and was at the Fine Line shortly after So Pretty had been finished it’s quote unquote limited edition CD burned version with self applied stickers. Anyway, I was at the Fine Line and I was walking to the bathroom. In the middle of the line for the bathroom I see none other than Zak Sally from Low. I go up to him. I get down on one knee. I present the So Pretty EP. I begged Zak Sally. I said, “Look, I’ve bought every one of your records, your music means a lot to me, it would me a lot to me if you would just listen to the first track of this record before you go to bed tonight.” And he said, “Alright, I will do that.”

He called me the next day and said, “Impressive shit.” I’ll never forget that. And then shortly after, Alan [Sparhawk] got in contact with us. It was very exciting. Dreams do come true.

30: So that’s when you said you’d do the So Pretty extended issue?

Jackson: Well, it was reissued in a jewel box with three new songs - bonus tracks if you will.

30: Now, I just want to touch a little bit on the Olympic Hopefuls-

McGuire: Jesus Christ. You know I’m so sick of this part of the fucking interview. [Trails off]. Kid Dakota’s drummer will be over here when you’re ready to talk about Kid Dakota.

30: Fair enough.

Jackson: He’s joking you know.

30: I understand that.

30: So, the Olympic Hopefuls kind of came out of nowhere. All of a sudden you guys were just kind of everywhere - especially locally. How do you balance the two acts? And what would you say is your main project right now?

Jackson: Well, the two projects are very different. At times one requires more time than the other, but none of them are a priority over the other. You know, it’s like, “What do we have to do this week for the Olympic Hopefuls? Or what do we have to do this week for Kid Dakota?” It’s very much so on a week-by-week basis. Right now I have 30-some shows between now and the end of March, so there is a lot of stuff going on.

30: So, you’re not focusing more on one?

Jackson: Not really, no. I mean, I have to focus on both of them.

30: OK, so let’s talk a little bit about The West is the Future.

McGuire: It’s a good record.

30: Yeah, I really love the record.

30: Lineup-wise, I guess Kid Dakota has always been interchanging. How did you decide who was going to play what and when?

Jackson: For a long time, it was just Christopher and I. Then there was the Low connection that was established. Then we did some shows with Low and got Zak to play on a few songs, which turned into him practicing with us. It was always one of my ideas to have a second guitar player because there has always been two guitar parts when we record. When we got Zak involved, it made sense to get Eric Applewick involved. We started playing with that lineup a lot and the songs changed in such a way that we thought they should be recorded like that.

30: Being from the Midwest, I would guess that is where a lot of your inspirations come from. I was kind of wondering if it was as simple as it seems when you’re referencing all these desolate Midwest landmarks, etc. It just breathes Midwest. Is that what you were going for? Or did it just kinda come out like that?

Jackson: Yeah, we wanted to make a really thematic record. The songs I was writing at the time were very personal songs about me and where I come from. So, yeah, we did set out to record a sort of loosely thematic record. That’s why everything kinda hangs together with that gusty, desolate, prairie theme. Prairie-core. (laughter])

McGuire: The songs are very personal, so like hearing the piano bench squeak and hearing the drummer shuffle around and hearing the attack of the pic before the chord starts. Those things are sort of forgiven in the spirit, in that it’s physical, it’s flesh and blood. Although, it was recorded on Pro Tools, go figure.

Jackson: Some of it was. A lot of it was recorded on two-inch tape.

30: How would you compare it to the recording of So Pretty? Such as the different approaches you took to each record.

Jackson: Well, So Pretty was recorded with a lot less initial preparation. I had known Christopher a couple months before we recorded the five initial tracks. The latter three we had a little bit more time to prepare. So, The West is the Future, we had been playing those songs for a long time, playing them live when we recorded them, except for the vocals and other random parts.

30: What’s up with your new studio?

Jackson: It’s called Short Man. We have acquired some new pieces, it’s coming together well.

McGuire: The number one thing is that we want to allow the luxury to have the time to do the best job we can. We’ll do layers, and layers, and layers of demos. So when we finally slaughter the beast, we’ll know what kind of steaks we’ll be cutting that day.

30: What were you listening to at age 17?

Jackson: When was that? Was I a senior in high school?

30: Yeah, something like that.

Jackson: I don’t even know if I want to talk about it. I was listening to Frank Sinatra, the Peanuts Soundtrack.

McGuire: Are you serious? Are you being serious?

[Jackson hums the Peanuts theme]

Jackson: I was listening to Bill Evans. Some stuff-

McGuire: I can’t tell if he’s being serious. I know him pretty well.

Jackson: Harry Connick Jr. I was really into that singer/loungy stuff. I was also listening to classic rock and roll.

McGuire: At 17 I was listening to Jellyfish big time. I was listening to Yes, I was listening to Helmet. A little bit of a Pixies thing, very little. I also masturbated about six times a day.

-30-

Visit Kid Dakota’s webpage: www.kiddakota.com

Read our review of The West is the Future

interview on 2005/01/30 by Kyle Undem