"Dude, we got the order wrong!": Kim and Matt

Brooklyn synth/drums duo Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino are a spirited and fun-oriented couple. I toured with Matt and Kim for a spell in July/August 2008, and seeing the rapt, euphoric responses to the band from the north to the south, it’s evident that Matt’s stoked onstage presence and Kim’s energy-drink–fuelled drumming (as well as the occasional teasing comment directed toward her counterpart) have an infectious charm. With their second LP, Grand, set to debut on the Fader Label (an offshoot of The Fader magazine), their profile will only increase. I spoke with Matt as he and Kim enjoyed a day in their heatless Brooklyn apartment.

Did you name your album after the street in Brooklyn?
Yeah. Names are so damn hard. We’d never even thought of a band name — [Brooklyn promoter] Todd P just booked us as Kimberly and Matthew, which I thought was too formal. We’d been trying to come up with a name for our first album forever, and couldn’t come up with anything, so we defaulted to making it self-titled. We couldn’t do that again, and in this album I mentioned Grand Street a bunch of times, so [calling it Grand made sense]. The only confusing thing is that it’s also the name of a song on our last album.

You’ve toured a lot this year. Have you been relaxing between your last tour and the release of Grand?
We’ve been home for a bit, which is relaxing. It’s nice to feel like I have a home, but then again, I have become quite antsy to be traveling. I guess [after touring] it becomes sort of normal to move around, and less normal to go to the same places you went to the day before.   



You were playing some of the new songs while you were touring and the response to some of them has been great. I heard “Cutdown” and the response was so strong that I thought it was an earlier hit.
With that song, people pick up on the “five, four, three, two, one” [lyric] by "three" at least. They can already chime in. It’s kind of wild that via the internet and YouTube, we’ll come to a town we haven’t been, and people will already know the lyrics to it. Technology spreads the word.  As someone who’s lucky enough to be playing music [for a living], I think sometimes it’d be cool if it was like the ‘90s, and you could sell records and make money off of that, but it was because of the internet that we were able to tour and make money doing that.

Why did you sign with Fader?
When we were looking for a record label, we wanted to find a multimedia company. Cornerstone is the parent company of Fader, and they’re a marketing company that gets hired by record labels. I want someone who can help me make a TV show someday, or help publish a book. You can’t bank on record labels [alone]. Rappers have proven it.

What was it like growing up in Brattleboro, VT, where you recorded Grand?
We used to hang out in this parking lot called Harmony Parking Lot. That was where you hung out if you were an alternative youth. I loved those years, when I found like-minded kids in that town, because we weren’t a big group. We were so tight; we did everything together. Living in Brooklyn, there are a million like-minded people, and the funny thing is, I find myself with less people I’m tight with. I liked the simplicity of it. You didn’t have to call anyone to hang out, you just went to the parking lot, and your friends would show up.