Bringing regal splendour to East London, King Khan rides into Shoreditch in his gold silk cape and ostrich feather crown.
The flamboyant Canadian is one of the most engaging live performers in the world right now. Think James Brown on acid, screeching over dirty-garage guitar riffs. One of his gigs should be on everybody’s to-do-before-you-die lists. Clash caught-up with the new saviour of soul to talk about his ‘nightmare’ style, burning dollars and foreseeing evil…
You’re pretty stylish, where does it come from?
I love wearing elaborate costumes. I get most of my ideas from dreams and nightmares – they just come to me like messages from outer space. My wife makes a lot of my costumes and some are gifts.
Those necklaces are quite something. Where did you find them?
This mermaid necklace is a bone carving from Tibet; the teeth I bought at a church in Brazil – I got one for each member of the band. I got our organ player one and on the first day of our American tour, one of the teeth fell out. I told him to be careful, as you need to watch out if that happens. He threw it in his suitcase and just went to buy records. That night we were robbed and the only thing that got stolen from all of our stuff was his suitcase – spooky!
Describe your sound.
Psychedelic… rhythm ‘n’ blues…erotic gospel music. A lot of my influences come from punk and free jazz though too, aside from a lot of old rhythm ‘n’ blues and soul of course
What do you look for in a good live performer?
I really admire GG Allin, James Brown and Otis Redding the most. I look for a real sense of desperation and the ability to feel some kind of pain or struggle. I prefer music that is inspired from desperation.
What’s this I hear about you burning dollar bills?
That was pretty crazy. We were playing a show at the Pitchfork festival in Chicago and I managed to convince most of the audience that it would be a god idea to start burning money. So there were like a thousand people all burning dollar bills at once.
How does life in Berlin compare to Montreal?
Berlin actually has the same kind of relaxed vibe as Montreal. It’s so cheap. Berlin is the perfect place to make art because you don’t need to worry about bills. There’s a real sense of freedom and the people are just really laid back; they’ve seen a lot of stuff so it’s not like anything’s going to shock them. There are really crazy places. There was this bar where you had to go through a sewer to get there – it was really ridiculous – and they did tattoos and my friend from New Orleans got ‘Black metal’ written on his toes.
You’ve travelled to a lot countries of other countries, is there anywhere that completely blew your mind?
Mexico, which was amazing, I’d love to tour a lot more in Mexico. It’s a really spiritual place. We also spent a lot of time in Brazil: I got loads of cool stuff there, lots of crazy jewellery. India’s obviously a great place too and I’d have to say that Indian style is definitely the best in the world.”
Words by April Welsh
