Having recently released their debut album Remind Me in 3 Days…, hip-hop duo The Knux provide an original and refreshing take on rap by drawing heavily on garage-rock and slick hooks. When I caught up with them on the summer music festival circuit, brothers Al Millio and Krispy Kreme talked about their new home in Los Angeles and how they bring it live.
Bang! Bang! – The Knux
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You grew up New Orleans – how is that reflected in the style found in your music?
Al Millio:
New Orleans, man, affected our style in so many ways. It’s a cultural city, so the essence of it – it’s a very music city. That’s why I learned all the instruments I played [on the album] in New Orleans, man. So you know, I think 85% of our music comes from the city. I mean everything, from our accents to what we talk about in our music – everything.
Now that you’ve relocated to Los Angeles, how have you combined both your native background with the West Coast vibe?
Krispy Kreme:
LA has a lot of different rap styles, that’s the thing. LA hip-hop has always been a mix. On a major level, only one style is just shed light upon. But LA has always been crazy, with all different types of styles in LA. You’ve got the stuff, the really really underground stuff like early Dre and Jurassic 5 stuff, like Amad-Jamal and all that stuff to the Pharcyde and the more college rap type, you know what I mean? LA is a very diverse place for hip-hop.
Have you ever tried to incorporate the “g-funk” tradition of LA rap into your music? What do you think about the roots of Los Angeles hip-hop?
AM:
For me, it was like Amad and Pharcyde. Their crew, was like for me, what I really liked about LA hip-hop. You know what I’m saying, it was that type of stuff. As far as being influenced, LA’s attitude of glam from the 80s is what’s really with us. If you’re talking about music, where we get the LA is in the attitude and stuff.
In your beats, you have a lot of jangly, distorted guitar, which adds a fresh new sound. Where did you guys develop that from?
AM:
On this album, we just went for a raw garage sort of sound. So none of that stuff is rehearsed, and a lot of that stuff is me playing punk riffs and four to the floor stuff – just going. Then, we took the best of it and kinda chopped it and did what we wanted to with it. We didn’t want to have it over polished – we believe in keeping that raw element in hip hop.
Do you find yourself incorporating other sounds into that, like punk or rock? What ideas do you bring to the table when constructing your beats?
KK:
We don’t like that word “beat.” Because, “beat” takes so much away from what we do in our music, you know what I mean? Other hip-hop guys like beats, you know, like “send me some beats or whatever.” But, you won’t have a Knux beat CD floating around. No beats – we create for the person. When we did the track for BOB’s album, we did it for BOB. We create for the person and tell that to the artist. We keep our production for ourselves, to our liking. We’re like Quincy Jones in that we’re producers and we can do whatever. You can’t trap us in the boundaries of hip-hop, you can’t cage us. It would be too small [a zone] to explain what we do. It’s like when we’re creating this stuff, we look to garage rock – it’s like a really big influence on us. And early 90’s hip-hop. But, we always add and try stuff. Garage rock, straightforward rock, blues rock, whatever you want to call it and boom-bap hip-hop – those are the basis of what we do. Everything else is just extra.
Does your rock ‘n’ roll influences affect the way you tour? You’ve got a live guitars and synths, and you personally play some instruments when you’re on stage. How does that tie in with your mentality of how you want to deliver your music to the audience?
AM:
The live instrumentation is definitely something we love to do. But, we try to master the art of having the same energy if we didn’t have a band too. If we do two turntables and a microphone, we’ll have the same energy, or you know, just a DJ and me on guitar. We do different sets for different venues or whatever setting. We try to have the energy of a band, but sometimes, you know, it can take the soul out of hip-hop if it’s too…you know. That’s probably why we don’t have a drummer, we want to keep it warm and keep it hip-hop or whatever. You know, basically, it’s a good balance.
As brothers, when do you first remember starting playing music together to begin creating that bond as musicians?
KK:
We always played in jazz band together so we pretty much always knew each other from the music end. And growing up together, we’ve had some of the same experiences and same influences. As a musician, I know his strong points and weak points and vice-versa. Because not only are we brothers, but we played together in bands, you know what I mean. Horn sections, brass sections, and woodwind sections where you know who was stronger in what – we practiced so much over the years that we’ve been playing music together since we were 12 or 11 years old. You pretty much know your partners’ strong points and weak points when you’ve been with them that long. So it translated well when we started doing our hip-hop shit together.
In your album, Remind Me in 3 Days… , when reading through the lyrics, it seems that many of the stories you tell stem from your experiences in Los Angeles. As lyricists, what themes and stories did you want to communicate to your listeners?
KK:
It’s not like we’ve got stories we like to portray. When we do this, like literally, we would write a story about this right now, like you and me doing this interview right now. They aren’t planned at all. Like literally, we’ll write about anything that goes on. We’re real people, and we don’t filter that shit either, I mean the only time we might filter is when we change a name, like Roxanne, or change a little something. For the most part, all that stuff is like true stories, and we write about what we see. You know [they lyric] “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, meet me in the powder room”? That’s actually something my boy said to a girl, and I was like “damn, really?” But he’s rhyming like that, but that’s basically how he said it: “I don’t know what’s wrong with you. You said you want this, and I’m that. Come over here and get it, I got it over here. Let’s do this.” You know what I’m saying, it’s as simple as that. I thought it’d be a good idea for a song. And you definitely don’t know what’s gonna be a really really good song for a pop song, because you might have an idea that’s a really good pop idea, but when it’s on paper it just becomes something else. Like “Bang Bang,” we thought it was a pop idea, but when it came out, it was mad popular. You never know before it comes out. You know, you just write, and after it comes out, it comes out. You can’t really say “this is gonna be the one hit” before you even finish the song. You write it, do it, finish it, and if it is, it is. And if it’s not, it’s not. Just keep writing.
Were you surprised that “Bang Bang” was a first single from Remind Me in 3 Days… as supposed to any of the other tracks? When you wrote it, could you tell?
KK:
You know what, we come from the writing world that’s where we started in the industry. A lot of people don’t know that we wrote for Atlantic Records, so we just, like, write. So we are really good at writing hooks, that’s one of our specialties. We pretty much knew the bulk of our album of songs could have been like singles, that’s why you hear some of our songs in commercials and television shows and stuff because they are catchy. You know what I mean, that’s something we can’t stop. We’ve tried not to be catchy, we’re too into punk and being just anti, and we like totally hardcore dudes trying to be not catchy. You can’t help it, sometimes it’s just like what you. That’s just like what we do.
So what do you see next? Are you going to write a follow up album and stay on the festival route?
KK:
Writing? It’s finished!
Really?
KK:
We’re the hardest working band in hip-hop.
AM:
The new album is called Pop Killer, and it’s coming.
KK:
Like, we already finished the album. Lupe Fiasco’s on it, the Streets from the UK, a few other artists. We do this, and we don’t fuck around. We perform three or four times a week and I haven’t slept in four days. We do this, man. This shit is real, it’s not a facade.