Adriannah Popkey: Hey Kai! I just saw you play at the 7th Street Entry here in Minneapolis! You played some of your Sharp Pins stuff off of Radio DDR. Just for my sake, I’d love to know where the names ‘Sharp Pins’ and Radio DDR came from, if you’d care to explain.

Kai Slater: Yeah! Sharp Pins is a very simple, style-type thing. It’s very boneheaded (laughs) but ‘pins’ like lapels or badges, are very cool, classic mod or punk fashion. Sharp is like, well..a pin is sharp, you want to look sharp. That's as far as it goes!

AP: Double entendre!

KS: Radio DDR…My roommate got a bunch of East German newspapers and it was super cool to read them and all the art was super amazing. I went to Germany to visit my dad, who lives in Berlin, and we went to the Radio DDR museum. I was very inspired by the fashion at that time and postwar culture. Obviously a very interesting political situation and I learned about Radio DDR and it was just a very cool radio station in East Germany. It was a super interesting story and the logo was super cool and I kind of just took it.

AP: Awesome! Of course, people can’t see this but we’ve both got some awesome ruffles on as you pointed out earlier. You sort of mentioned a little something about mods, what is so particularly charming to you about the mod subculture? I totally hear that in your music and keeping that alive through the zine too is super awesome so I’d love to know why it has a special place in your heart

KS: I think the subculture of mod is one of the first major cultures that was globally visible that was created by the youth. The point of it was that it was a youth subculture and it was changing how the working class was divided among different ages. It’s interesting as a commentary on consumerism and the contradictions of it…After being in a youth scene for a lot of years at this point and being a fan of things, you get into the history of it. My first favorite band was ‘The Who’...not that that’s the mod band or that’s what mod means, but I have a personal connection with pop, soul, and RnB music. The sentiment of being a modernist and appreciating new culture and new music and the want to dance and a freedom of your body…I think it’s really important to think about when kids started to dance freely and have youth spaces, I feel like it’s the only thing that I know I can do in the world is make youth spaces and try to do that. To me, it seems like an emblem of that and personally, I like to dress like that too. 

AP: Well, me and you both! Like you said, being a part of that youth scene is super fundamental to your music experience, how do you feel like your zine has become an outlet for other kids to get involved and be given a space to explore things that they otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity to?

KS: Initially it’s very abstract, like how can you see the impact that a zine makes. I’ve started to see people that connect with it, I think it makes sense because it was an act of not desperation, but during the pandemic, I was like “We need to make a mark” and do something except rot our brains, organize ourselves in a way that is possible at this time. Getting into my later teens I got into zines, and I’m obsessed with history. Zines are such an interesting document, it’s like a first-hand document. They’re usually handmade unless it’s some bougie shit. It’s so handcrafted and you can feel the soul in it, and I just started getting obsessed with all of these old zines. It’s what I spend the most money on, I don’t buy records I just buy zines. I think they're a cool document of a zine and an image of a culture. It’s been cool to see people making their own zines that are inspired by [Hallogallo]. There are some people I met in Portugal who are starting to do this youth organizing stuff. It makes my soul really happy. 

AP: That’s so amazing. Of course, you’ve had some crazy interviews in the zine. You talked with Michael [Rother] of Neu! which is wild. I’m a huge Lemon Twigs fan too…

KS: Yeah, Michael [D’Addario]

AP: So speaking of Michaels, when was a moment where you were thinking “This is bigger than I thought it would be”.

KS: The Neu! one is a good example, the Neu! publicist reached out to me and was like, “I know about your zine” and I was like, “How do you know about my zine?” They probably googled the song name by Neu!, but it was a full circle moment and that guy grew up in the 60s…I was like “That guy’s old!” I’m just a huge fan of music and since then it’s just been cool to be able to have a portfolio and reach out to people. Talking to Dolly Mixture was super cool, they’re one of my top three favorite bands of all time. Michael from The Lemon Twigs…they’re one of my favorite current bands. One of the top three current live bands right now I would say.

AP: I would say the same!

KS: It’s been a great thing, I think hopefully it can be inspiring to young aspiring journalists, not that I’m a journalist necessarily but you don’t need to go to school for journalism to be a good interviewer. Well, you’re going to school…well anyway

AP: I’m not! I dropped out of the journalism program (laughs).

KS: There you go! Hell yeah. You’re obviously a great interviewer and you care about it and you dress well and you’re a fan. That’s all it takes I feel like, you don’t have to go to some expensive college to do the interviews that you want to do…

AP: Absolutely. I love that ethos and I live by it. Okay, going back to the EP, did you get to do anything new while making it? You have Lifeguard, which is something that I’d say is not vastly different, but you have more creative freedom with this project. Did you get to incorporate any weird instrumentation or things behind the scenes that you otherwise wouldn’t have been able to?

KS: I kind of like to do whatever my mind thinks of! (laughs) Maybe the most unusual one is that there’s a Theremin app and I did some Theremin on the album like that. You put it on tape and it sounds like Theramin, I’m not gonna spend $7000 or whatever the hell on a Moog. I pretty much keep it normal, like classic Beatles instrumentation. I think I did some glockenspiel which is fun. You know percussion, just for the novelty of it I banged a spoon on my helmet that I wear when I ride on my scooter. Lifeguard is doing some cool electronic stuff now, I love breaking the molds of what rock music instrumentation is. I’m not gonna say rock music itself, that would be insane for me to say.

AP: That’s sweet though! I had such a blast chatting and watching your set, thanks for talking to me!

KS: Thanks so much Radio K!