By John Phillips
Staff Writer
You know when you are in the beginning of a relationship with someone? When you just can’t get enough of the other person, you walk around in public holding hands, make out for hours in front of complete strangers and not even notice their presence. For most people on the outside of that situation, it can be very nauseating to witness. It’s just far too cute. Matt and Kim are not cute. They’re fucking hot and they want you to know it.
Matt and Kim are a musical phenom hailing from Brooklyn, New York. The band consists of Kim Shifino on drums; a fiery sex goddess with loads of energy and mass appeal and Matt Johnson on keys and vocals. Both are equally a vibrant and hot talent, breaking the hearts of a growing number of young girls across the country. The band officially formed in ’04, the two members were already romantically involved which along with constant smiling has inspired the oh-so-hated ‘cute’ tag on the band.
“We were sick of everyone targeting us as being ‘cute,’” explains Kim of the music video for their song, “5k,” which was banned in the US due to violent content.
“We just are who we are,” adds Matt.
Recently the band was invited to play Lollapalooza. They were very surprised.
“It was amazing!” Kim laughs, “When we got asked I was like ‘Lollapalooza? Who goes to that?’ I didn’t even realize it was still going on. And we opened the stage. [I was thinking] nobody’s going to be there but a shit-ton of kids came out. And then another band cancelled and we ended up using another stage…I was worried when we came on. They’re expecting to see CSS, [not us]. It was awesome.”
When they started dating, Kim was learning to play drums and Matt was already playing guitar. They dated for years before the band formed. They started off by doing art projects together.
“I found that one keyboard; that Yamaha cs5 at my neighbor’s garage,” explains Matt. “I borrowed it; I put that in quotations, about ten years ago and luckily he hasn’t asked for it back. But I just found that thing and finally I was like ‘this thing looks cool. I should learn how to play this.’ So I was trying to figure out how to play that. Kim was trying to figure out how play drums. And we just did it together.”
The band has done well. In October ‘06, they released their first album, self-titled, on the iheartcomix record label. This year came “Grand” on Fader Magazine’s record label. The band has also garnished the appeal of the re-mix community, sporting ten of the sort in their portfolio. Kim has some visions of what her future holds.
“I want to have a hip hop album,” revealed Kim. “That’s my goal. And we could have guest rappers on every song.”
If it is even half as good as ‘Grand,’ it would still be awesome.
