All of my stuff is raw, it's emotive, it's real.
— King Krule
I got alright GCSEs, but I was lost. I didn't know what to do, whether to continue with education, go to uni, go to art school - then again, I was like, 'Maybe I should just go and get a job, start early and make money.'
Because the Internet's there, I have access to a lot of the legends, like Fela Kuti. I used to watch a lot of Fela Kuti videos, just to see how he performed. He inspired me a lot, actually, because he was a man of many words, many good words.
Especially with the live, just the way I curve words, it's about expression. It's so emotive, to be able to release these words into a mike. It really emphasizes this insane tingle down my spine whenever I play.
I got a lot from my uncle who is a really good ska guitarist. Very ragged makeshift rhythms and intricate lines.
When I was younger, I used to do that a lot: I would hear a part of a song that would really relax me and then put it on repeat. That would send me to sleep. It was quite obvious classical music, people like Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Erik Satie, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel.
A lot of people who have been perceiving my music have been trying to formulate a genre for it, and I think it's just a natural thing; it doesn't need to be categorized. It doesn't need to be sectioned, if you will.
I'm trying to create a collection of stories - the 'U.F.O.W.A.V.E.' songs are all stories. I haven't really taken direct lyrical influence from other songwriters, but my dad bought me a book of W.H. Auden's poems when I was younger, and the imagery really interested me.
My dad is an art director for BBC TV shows, and my mum does screen printing workshops. Both of my parents played instruments, too, and my mum used to have crazy house parties when me and my brother were young - dub and garage would be banging through my house.
I actually find a lot of pleasure in writing lyrics.
It's strange. No one ever really talked to me about my voice. People started writing about it, and I was like, 'What?' I'm really about my lyrics, but more people were talking about my voice. It's cool, but at first I got upset because I wanted people to focus on the content.
I went through quite a few establishments that maybe weren't great for myself - security units, youth-offender places. I guess that was going to the lions' den. Social services said, 'You've got to go to some sort of school.'
I changed from 'Zoo Kid' to 'King Krule' mainly because I didn't want to be called a 'Kid' when I was 20, so I just thought I'd get rid of that alias and change it now while I'm younger. I wanted to change it quick. and 'King Krule' was the first thing that came into my head.
Stuff like Buena Vista Social Club and Fela Kuti were quite a main thing to my childhood. As soon as I reached an age where I realized that Fela was singing in English, when I got past his accent, I loved the rawness of it, and the funk and the rhythm and the melody.
My uncle was in a ska band called the Top Cats; that was my first proper influence, as I was taken to see them every week. It sort of built up, the want to replicate it creatively.
I've mainly been sampling jazz because the tone of the chords are expressive in itself, so it's quite nice to write over. It's got interpretations of a lot of different genres, too, a lot of dubby-ness and experimental stuff.
A lot of the time, I was unhappy as a kid, so I spent it, I guess, in a gray place.
I never got lessons. I took influence from Chet Baker, Ian Dury, and Joe Strummer. I don't hear my voice and think, 'Yeah, that's a banging voice!' It's more about putting the right emotions into the right words and the lyrics than anything else to me.
I want to get more and more sophisticated. I'm ready to go from being a kid to being a king.
I do love the music aspect of the Internet. The Internet made me.
Jazz is more raw than punk in a lot of ways. It's so expressive. A lot of people say to me, especially older people, 'It took me ages to get into jazz.'
I guess from 12 onwards I was always into my music.
When I realized I could write lyrics and let someone that I knew listen to them, but not know that the song was about them - say it was a girl. I could write this song about how I feel about this girl, I could play it to them. I just loved it, because all of the words would speak to them. I could see them slowly falling in love with me.
There's a lot of tension in London, but then you realize it's always been there, in its history, and that the best thing about London, that there's always been this tension.
I was always wrapped around music being a tradition, a skill.
Growing up in any big city, you get exposed to so many beautiful cultures. I've grown up with a lot of open eyes around me that's influenced my eyes to open.
When I make music, it's a very visual thing. Conjures up a lot of images.
My mum used to work in New York in Spike Lee's shop; she did the outfits for the video for P.M. Dawn's 'Set Adrift on Memory Bliss.'
I've got rid of a lot of cynicism and anger. I feel positive about my development, and I just want to carry on making music and building myself as a person.
