Taking a day off from recording in a quaint studio surrounded by the tranquil Blue Mountains to go home and visit family in Newcastle, music duty wasn’t over for Kim Churchill with a number of interviews to get through, including one with us.
We start our interview and about two minutes in Churchill interjects ‘Ah shit my toast is burning, Jesus! It’s really burning too…um…beg your pardon [laughs]’. It’s 10am and the guy has been so busy he hasn’t had breakfast; a reflection of his entire 2018, touring Europe and Canada, writing, recording and shooting his new four part EP series, and a projection into 2019.
“Basically what I’m going to do is four EP’s. It kind of like a cheeky way of doing a double album but it’s four EP’s. One is set in the Blue Mountains, one is set in Berlin, and one is set on Vancouver Island in Canada and one is set in London in England.” He continues, “I’ll be releasing those over two years. So yeah it’s going to be quite the onslaught of new Kim Churchill music to badger everybody with!”
Immersing himself in the most beautiful environments, Churchill adopted his scenery into his songwriting. The EP set around Berlin absorbs the underground grunge and hiphop scenes of the previously war-torn eastern precinct, while the Canadian quarter soaks up the sleepiness of rainforests.
“My music would kind of channel the experiences I was having and that’s hard if you’re stressed and tired… and I was noticing all of that was having an effect on my music. So I started feeling like I could turn it into a positive by putting myself in the right environment and places I would be really affected in a really positive way and allowing that to sort of dictate the music.”
Currently just shy of being three quarters through the process with only the London leg to go, Churchill confirmed fans will get a preview of new material in early to mid February followed by an extensive touring schedule.
“Once the single comes out in February we will start touring- I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say yet but bugger it, I’ll say it- I’m going on tour to South Africa to do a bunch of festivals and shows which will be cool because I haven’t been there before so that’s fresh adventure.” Churchill details. South Africa will be followed by a run of touring and festival rounds in Europe, North America, London, and returning back to Australia. “F**k it’s going to be a very big year. A lot of new music and a lot of shows which is cool because that’s what I know how to do, you know, record and release music and perform it to people. That’s the crux of what I’ve managed to become reasonably good at in my life and I’ll just be doing a shitload of it.”
Winding it back to January, the avid songwriter and surfer will be stopping by Torquay Hotel for their Summer Series between cruising along the Great Ocean Road in a kombi van scouting breaks.
“I haven’t played the Torquay Hotel in years and years and years but I’ve hung out in Torquay a lot- I have a lot of friends down there- and I’m kind of chuffed that they’ve got me down to play the opening week… I think it’s great there is a new ticketed venue that’s putting on some slightly larger shows and offering people the quality of show that normally people would have to travel to Melbourne for. I think Torquay is too beautiful a place to not have a great music venue that people are consistently passing through.”
Spend Friday 18 January soaking up the sun by day and soaking in Kim Churchill by night at the Torquay Hotel from 8pm. GA tickets via torquayhotelsummerseries.com.au
Written by Tammy Walters