King Tuff’s Latest Album Will Make You Want To Go Outside and Touch Grass
All photos courtesy of Wyndham Garnett // @afistfulofstars
King Tuff, or Kyle Thomas, was born with a musical destiny. The cheeky, Vermont-born and raised musician has been making music for over thirty-five years and performed his latest album Smalltown Stardust at the Sinclair on March 23.
Tuff wrote the album after he moved to LA. Smalltown Stardust is filled with folk ballads and classical touches. The style stray away from Tuff’s usual rock genre, but makes this album perfect for spring. Its heartfelt and nostalgic lyrics are about his hometown, Vermont.
The artist collaborated with Sasami Ashworth to create Smalltown Stardust in all its glory. The two have very different musical backgrounds. Tuff comes from a punk background and never took lessons, while Ashworth is classically trained. These differences between the two allow each other to create music outside of their norm.
The musician is quite familiar with Boston, because of the somewhat small proximity to Vermont. He shared that, during his late teens, he slept on a lot of floors in Jamaica Plain because Boston was the closest city with punk shows.
He’s seen shows, and performed at the Sinclair before. At his concert, King Tuff and his band brought an enchanting energy to the stage. The group consists of Erica Shafer on bass, Noel Friesen on guitar, and Corey Rose on the drums. Tuff shared that this is the first time the band is touring together, however their uniformity was seen in the matching colorful scarves they wore to band them together. This ensemble’s chemistry is observed through their individual love of making music. Each member of the band performed with the same unwavering confidence as the performers on Guitar Hero do. Their individuality can be observed from the back of the room, along with their synchronicity.
Tuff opened with “Love Letters to Plants,” a song that has classical elements like the violin but withholds a psychedelic energy through the vocals. Some of the songs on the album are more dance-like, such as “Portrait Of God.” One thing is for sure: the album embodies a delicate curiosity, and nostalgia of the world and self.
King Tuff’s energy is magical, and truly enchanting, his music calls you to the outdoors to touch some grass and revive your inner-child. It truly is a perfect album for spring, it calls for reimagining yourself, and taking inventory of who you are today.
Tuff, towards the end of the show wore a wizard costume, showing off his true nerdiness. His music is weird, he’s weird, and so is his band, but if you enjoy weird, good weird, King Tuff is for you.
In an interview with Five Cent Sound, King Tuff gets into the background of all the weirdness and shares some funny jokes, and advice for aspiring musicians along the way.
Kathia Dawson: How did you get into music?
King Tuff: Oh, I feel like music got into me. When I was a kid, I guess my parents got me a record player. When I was just a couple years old, I had a bunch of records like, “Don't Worry Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin, the ghostbusters theme, Starship’s “We Built This City,” some Lionel Richie and Stevie Wonder, George Harrison. I had a bunch of records and I would just listen to them over and over again. I think I was always kind of just making weird little songs; singing them. When I was about eight, my dad bought a guitar for himself, but I think he was secretly hoping for one of us to pick it up. Which I did. I just started writing songs immediately.
KD: I read that you never practiced covers, you just started making your own songs. Is this true?
Tuff: I don't know. I don't know why I was not really concerned with learning other songs. I immediately started making my own weird little songs when I barely played, but they were all just on one string. It was a start.
KD: What inspires you to make music?
Tuff: It's weird. It's just something I feel like I am supposed to do. It's the only thing I feel driven to do, really. I don’t know what the inspiration is, it's just like, my thing. I can’t really help it. It’s been a constant in my mind since I was a kid.
KD: I read that when you lived in Vermont, you would burn your albums into CD’s, give them to your friends, and sell them around Vermont. How many albums have you released thus far?
Tuff: I mean, this was the early 2000’s. So, it was my only way to get my music out—to just make tape cassettes or burn CD’s and give them to my friends. There were probably like four or five albums before Was Dead, which is my first official kind of release as King Tuff. There's a bunch of stuff before that, but they were made in very small quantities.
KD: How do you decide which songs to put on the album or what mood you want an album to have?
Tuff: It seems very clear once you're in the process of doing it, which ones should be there. Often, I try to make more songs than I need so I can just pick the best ones. You know, a lot of times, I'll be like: I want to make this kind of album. But then, when I'm actually making it, what actually comes out ends up being quite different than the original thought. So, they kinda just make themselves in a way. I don't have too much control over that. [The songs] just want to be how they want to be. It's just a process of working on it until it feels right, and then same thing with choosing which songs should go and which ones feel right sitting next to each other.
KD: How does Vermont permeate this album?
Tuff: I mean, I'm obviously talking about nature a lot. You know, there's kind of some characters within the album. The town is full of weird people. And you know, I feel like some of the songs have a rascally energy. Or, I’m like a little rascal running through the woods, you know? I think that's kind of the feeling I want to come through, some kind of dirty little rascal running through the woods, covered in the leaves and smiling wide.
KD: I saw that your brother used to design your album art, does he still do this?
Tuff: There’s a bunch of drawings that he did [for] the insert of the record and a couple on the back of the record cover. I did the main design for the record cover, he’s done a couple of drawings and he’s working on a t-shirt design. His art will always be a part of it.
KD: Would you consider yourself an artist as well?
Tuff: Definitely, that’s my other love. I haven't done a lot of it in the past ten years since music took over, but when I'm doing it, I feel a lot better. It helps the music too when I have both going on at the same time.
KD: When you’re not doing music, what are you doing?
Tuff: Just sitting and staring.
KD: What is your songwriting process like?
Tuff: I guess it’s always kind of different. Sometimes I just write lyrics. I have a book where I write a bunch of lyrics freely. And then, sometimes I’m playing guitar or piano [and] something will come out and I'll pick up the book of lyrics and see what fits to it. Or sometimes the whole song comes out at once, or I start singing something and I just have get the chords. It's like a puzzle that's floating in the air and I just have to put it together.
KD: Is that how it was for this album?
Tuff: Certainly [for] some of it. Some [songs]came very quickly and easily. Others took a bit longer to figure out, and some of the songs had been around for years and I kind of refreshed them and changed them around and made them feel really good. So yeah, every song is different. It's like a different puzzle to figure out.
KD: What would you say Smalltown Stardust is about?
Tuff: It’s really about the ceiling that I had. I grew up in this little town and I learned to write songs there. So, whenever I’m writing, I often think about being there—or I kind of feel like my creative center exists there. It’s still a sort of place of power for me, so I kind of try to access it even if I'm not there. That’s what the song is about, even though I'm not there I'm still accessing the place.
KD: How long has this album been in the works for?
Tuff: There’s only two songs on there, like "Portrait of God," which I’ve been working on for about five to six years. “The Wheel” is a really old song—like fifteen years old—that I re-did. The rest of the songs were mostly written at the end of 2019 and throughout 2020.
KD: Do you feel your music has changed at all since you moved to LA?
Tuff: Yeah, I do think it has. I get very influenced by people I'm hanging around with. My friends are usually my influences and I’m friends with a lot of amazing musicians. So, I think it's definitely changed since moving. It’s perhaps gotten a little less weird. I'm trying to tap back into the weirdness.
KD: In an interview with Pitchfork, you said that when the city feels like too much, you go to the woods. Is there a place in LA where you go to write? How does where you live affect your career and creative process?
Tuff: I mean, my house is kind of in a canyon zone, so it does kind of feel a little nature-y there. But, if I really want to get away, I’d probably go up north to maybe Big Sur or something like that. Sometimes I find that if I try to make a trip like that, where I’m like, “Alright I’m gonna go to the cabin and write the album now,” that doesn’t work because I feel this pressure to do this thing. I’m like, “Actually, I just wanna go walk around.” So I don't know, it just—it just has to happen naturally.
KD: What is your favorite part about this tour experience thus far?
Tuff: Well, I have a new band and they're the best band I ever had, so it’s been really fun to play with these new people and also play these songs live for the first time—let them take kinda new shapes. Because the album is very lusciously arranged, and you can’t really do that live, we’ve had to figure out how to play them.
KD: Can you tell me a little bit about your band? How did you guys come together? Did you start out as friends?
Tuff: I didn’t know any of them, but a friend of mine put me in touch with the drummer, [Rose], and she just went to LA and was like: you guys should meet! We did, and it felt like we had an instant connection and from there I just started asking around. There’s a really strong scene of players in LA right now, so I just started asking around and seeing who was available. It's always tricky because when you're putting together a band with people you don’t know, you don’t really know how it’s gonna go when you get out onto the road. The most important thing is people that are fun to hang out with, and you never can tell until you're out there. It can be a roll of the dice sometimes, but I got lucky.
KD: What was the process of production, and how Sasami Ashworth helped shape the album? Can you describe the production process?
Tuff: Sasami and I wrote a lot of the songs together. Some of the songs even started off as her songs and then she gave them to me. It was cool because she writes pretty differently than me. She wrote a lot of vocal melodies and phrasing, which was cool because she just does things that I wouldn't do. But, it was challenging because she is a much better singer than me. I had to learn how to sing her parts, but I think it's important for artists to do that. You gotta push yourself to get anywhere new. I learned a lot. She comes from a very different background than me. She's classically trained and really good at arranging [things]. It's a really a really informative experience.
KD: I also noticed that you’ve been in multiple bands before, how many bands did you start/were a part of before King Tuff?
Tuff: King Tuff was pretty much the first band and there's been a bunch of since. There were a couple of punk bands before, in high school. The main other bands I’ve been in have been Feathers, which was a psychedelic folk band, there's Witch, which is like doom metal, and there’s Happy Birthday, which is weird rock music. A bunch of random stuff, but I like that—I like having the musical experience.
KD: Smalltown Stardust is more indie compared to your older albums, which fall more under the rock category. Would you say where you are in life affects what genres you’re drawn to?
Tuff: Yeah. I don't understand people that just do the same thing over and over again. That seems so boring to me, and I like so many different kinds of music. I'm inspired by so many different things. I don't understand people that just listen to one genre or just want to do one thing. I guess maybe I’m ADD, or something. [My music is] more seasonal, I like listening to jazz in the winter and more reggae in the summer. But, I’m not about to make a reggae album, don't worry.
KD: Which song is your favorite song on the album and why?
Tuff: I really like “The Bandits of Blue Sky” just because it's kinda the first song I wrote on piano when I learned, and I just think it's kind of a strange song. I don't fully know what it's about. To me, it's just kind of a curious little tune.
KD: What is it about?
Tuff: I do think it’s about depression. I didn’t really realize that when I was writing it, but it’s definitely made itself clear to me in that way. Now, when we’re playing live, I say, “this song is about depression,” and people cheer and it’s hilarious.
KD: Do you have any pre-show rituals?
Tuff: Just hiding, you know? The band got matching scarves so we all put the matching scarves on. Last night we did a fist pump thing, which we hadn’t done before and I said some strange gibberish magic word, and that seemed to put us in a good place for the show.
KD: How many instruments do you play?
Tuff: I can pretty much play any instrument, but I can’t say I can play [all of them] well. I can probably make up a strange song on anything you handed me. My main instruments would be guitar, mostly. I can play drums and piano, but I’m mainly a guitar person.
KD: Do you have any advice for aspiring musicians?
Tuff: If it’s really what you want to do in your life, you just have to be relentless with it. Just put things out and go onto the next thing and keep doing it. If you’re consistent and relentless with whatever you’re doing, something will eventually happen if it’s what you’re meant to do.
KD: If there's anything you want people to know about Smalltown Stardust that isn’t online?
Tuff: If people are gonna come to the shows, I just want to say we really like gifts, we really just love presents, so please give us gifts. We like anything.