Music Waves Q&A: Kiiōtō
learn more about Kiiōtō through dipity's monthly music interview spotlights
Introduction
Kiiōtō is the musical love-child of award-winning songwriter/pianist, Rohan Heath, and Mercury-nominated singer/songwriter Lou Rhodes (formerly of Lamb). Their album, As Dust We Rise, sprang out of a chance reconnection, which birthed an inseparable bond, unplanned explorations at the piano in Lou’s kitchen, and a trip to explore Rohan’s diasporan heritage in the American Deep South. Their songs tell the stories of this shared experience and dig deep into the bigger themes of life.
Q: What is your name? AND Where are you currently located?
Our band name is Kiiōtō, comprising of singer/songwriter Lou Rhodes and songwriter/musician Rohan Heath. We're currently located in London, England. Rohan is from London and Lou from Manchester.
Q: What’s the story behind your artist name?
To be honest we just liked the way the name “Kiioto” rolled off our tongues. But the two “i’s” also signified the two of us as a couple, standing next to each other in life and in our musical creation. Finally, although spelled differently than the city Kyoto, we’ve always found ourselves drawn to certain aspects of Japanese culture and ceremony.
Q: How did you begin your journey into the world of music? AND How long have you been in the music industry?
We have both been in the music industry for over 30 years, so it’s been a long journey, one that between us has seen us perform (in different guises) at Coachella, Glastonbury, Pukkelpop, The Rose Bowl, Montreux Jazz Festival, Roskilde etc., as well as with artists Bootsy Collins, Leo Sayer, Meshell Ndegeocello, Eek-A-Mouse etc. Lou fronted her band Lamb and was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize as a solo artist, while Rohan fronted his project Urban Cookie Collective, best remembered for their worldwide smash “The Key, The Secret.” Our journeys in music started as children as our parents were musicians (Lou's mum a folk singer, Rohan's dad an accomplished pianist). However, our careers in music took shape in Manchester, England, in the early 1990s when we were both in our twenties.
Q: What inspires you both as artists? Give us some insight into your creative process.
We can be inspired by everything and anything, but particularly jazz, art, literature and nature. At the moment we are reading James Baldwin and listening to Gil Scott-Heron, Sault, Khruangbin... Although we approach songwriting in a different way for each song, it tends to start with us both sitting by the piano, firing ideas at each other based on what we're reading / listening to / experiencing at that moment.
Q: What's your favorite song you've released? AND Why?
Kiiōtō's favourite song is definitely “Song For Bill” — it's kind of a centrepiece for the As Dust We Rise album and is a homage to the legendary American Jazz pianist Bill Evans. It was the first song we started writing together and therefore probably represents the true distillation of what the band is about. Lou had been trying to teach herself Evan's tune “Peace Piece” on piano; Rohan took an essence of the tune as inspiration and translated it into a whole new beginning. Lou's lyrics sprang from here, telling of Evan's tragic loss of his older brother to suicide and his spiritual solace in the Zen nature of jazz.
Q: What's an upcoming project or which event(s) are you excited about?
We're very excited about our upcoming UK tour, which we're rehearsing for at the moment. Our performances differ for each venue, dependent on whether they have an acoustic piano on stage, the band line-up we're working with, and the general vibe of the place. That's what keeps the experience fresh. We're about to play Gilles Peterson's wonderful We Out Here Festival and are leaning towards a more jazz tinged set for that show, with double bass, drums etc. For more intimate venues we pare down to just piano and vocals.
Q: We love to read and get inspired by lyrics. Share the title of a song and its lyrics (one of your favorite songs you've either written or released).
Song For Bill.
As we shared earlier above, it was written about the late, great Bill Evans. He was a singular musician who influenced the likes of John Coltrane and Miles Davis. In his sleeve notes to the latter's Kind of Blue he wrote about the way musical improvisation parallels Buddhist painting in the sense that, in both forms, the individual has to “get out of the way” in order for their creativity to truly flow. These notes were inspiration for the second and third verses of the song, while the first verse begins with a reference to the tragic suicide of Bill's elder brother, Harry, an event from which Evan's never recovered. The lyrics of “Song for Bill” are below for reference:
Harry died in the spring When the green life bursts into blue You’d 'a done anything To bring him back safe beside you Fluid forms in your hands A divination of two When the world understands That all of life returns to the blue All of life returns to All of life returns to All of life returns To blue Circles painted in time The revelation of truth Meditation in rhyme And all of life returns to the blue All of life returns to All of life returns to All of life returns To blue Harry died in the spring By the next fall you'd followed after him... All of life returns to All of life returns to All of life returns To blue
Q: What are your thoughts about the world of poetry?
We're both big fans of poetry! Lou finished an MA in Poetry last year, the experience of which has fed directly into the process of writing Kiiōtō's song lyrics. During the MA, Lou became slightly obsessed with the work of Diane Seuss—her poem “Spirea's covered in those clotted blooms” from Four-Legged Girl: Poems (2015) is a particular favourite. Rohan was part of a project with the Ethiopian poet, Lemn Sissay, in the 1990s and had begun writing a work of auto-fiction which drew on poetic use of metaphor in the exploration of grief through the practice of fly fishing. Rohan's father was also the Guyanese award-winning novelist Roy Heath, whose novel The Murderer was recently re-published in the USA. Roy Heath also wrote poetry, most of which remains unpublished.
Q: What are some fun facts that your listeners may not know about you both?
Rohan loves to garden while Lou loves to cook. Often, we do the two things in parallel with the door to our kitchen open and music playing. The fact that we live and work together means that it's often hard to stop and we have to have a self-imposed “watershed” in which we don't talk about “work.” Of course, we both know though this is practically impossible and that music is like our blood. The creative process flows in whatever we do and often song ideas that have got stuck during writing sessions become unstuck at times like this. It's Sunday now as we write, and we're doing our parallel thing with the garden and food. It's like a kind of creative re-stock and everything feeds into everything else.
Q: What was the last music video you watched that you recommend others check out?
We were just watching Little Simz’s video for her track, “Gorilla” (from the album NO THANK YOU, produced by Sault main man, Inflo). Loving the big recurring horn theme, the power of the track and the dry humour of the video. Little Simz is a modern-day renaissance woman—she writes, performs, acts, models—and her meteoric rise from London council estate roots is well deserved. Her lyrics stand apart from many of her hip hop contemporaries in their intelligence and political consciousness and have a distinctively British edge. This is poetry, without doubt; just gets out to a wider audience.
Q: Who are some of your favorite artists and musicians that you listen to?
We've already mentioned Gil Scott-Heron and Bill Evans who were two profound influences on our music. Also, Sault, whose work is prolific and pulls no punches in its politics. Other artists we love: Sufjan Stevens, Bill Callahan, Radiohead, Mulatu Astatke, Low, Sun Kil Moon, Bel Cobain, Bobby Hutcherson to name but a few...
To Check Out More of Kiiōtō’s Music Visit:
Instagram: @we_are_kiioto
Follow and listen on Spotify [Here]
Subscribe to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Kiioto
Website: https://www.kiioto.com/
Additional Credits [Banner Photo]: Steph Dray
Any other thoughts, comments, or shares after listening and reading the interview?
[Interview Processed By VFORROW]
Thank you so much, Kiiōtō, for sharing and submitting to Dipity Lit Mag! ~ Jazz Marie Kaur (Vevna Forrow).
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