Matt & Kim

For many
bands, making music is all about the routine of recording an annual album, or
being able to tour in progressively bigger venues. Not Matt and Kim. “Our goal
is to make music we want to hear,” says Matt Johnson, who co-founded the band
with Kim Schifino. “When it comes time to make a new album, I’m just so
excited, since I know we have all these ideas and I just want to get them out
there.” As for the band’s extra-emphatic live shows, which these days happen in
large venues, he explains, “We’ve always just really enjoyed playing music, and
things have kept growing.”

Matt and
Kim’s enthusiasm comes across loud and clear on the band’s new album,
Lightning, its most diverse and developed to date. From the relentless drive of
“Now” to the dance-fueled beat of “Let’s Go” to the more contemplative “Ten
Dollars I Found,” Lightning is the strongest distillation yet of Matt and Kim’s
unique sound: a spunky hybrid of indelible songs, an emphatic beat and almost
tangible energy, mixed with the duo’s influence of listening nonstop to Top 40
Hip-Hop and pop-punk.

To make the
album, Matt and Kim spent six months working in their home studio in Brooklyn,
producing the record themselves. Lightning is a touch more minimal than their
earlier work – with layers taken away, instead of added, enabling its intense
performances and memorable tunes to really come to the forefront. “What’s made
the songs on this album really strong is we’ve been able to pull a lot off – to
not have so much going on – and still have a strong song,” Kim explains.

“It’s easier
to make a song with a lot going on,” Matt adds. “It feels very safe. It’s like
putting on a lot of clothes: you feel all covered up so no one can judge just
one aspect of it, but when you try to break it down to be as simple as can be,
you’re really baring it all. When you can see clearly what’s going on, those
are the times that the songs are easiest to connect to.”

Connecting
with their audience is certainly a key focus for Matt and Kim. The indie dance
duo’s live shows – which are legendary for constant, in-your-face exuberance –
feel more like vibrant, sweaty loft parties than traditional concerts, for both
audiences and the band. “I think we’ve managed to continue to make them feel
intimate,” says Matt. “When we first started playing venues instead of playing
on the floor at parties, we tried hard to keep the vibe of ‘we’re all doing
this together and having a wild time’ going. The show is not just the two of
us: it’s the 3002 of us, or however big the venue is.” Or, as in the words of
Rolling Stone: “Matt and Kim’s reputation as a live act precedes them – and
justifiably so. Simply put, they are a two-person dynamo, frantic, tightly
wound, and full of good cheer. Their performances are as physical as they are
musical. . . . For sheer adrenaline-per-second, no other band comes close.”

The band started in 2004, essentially by accident when Matt and
Kim were art students at the prestigious Pratt Institute, where they studied
film and illustration, respectively. When Kim wanted to learn to play drums and
Matt (who’d been in bands before) was getting his head around a new keyboard,
the band was born. Since then, they have earned a Gold Record for the upbeat,
stick-in-your-head track “Daylight,” played festivals like Coachella,
Lollapalooza, and Bonnaroo, along with international festivals like V (U.K),
Pukkelpop (Belgium), Fuji (Japan), Big Day Out (Australia), Primavera (Spain),
Oya (Norway), SWU (Brazil), as
well as hundreds of shows. They have won 3MTV awards: a Breakthrough Video Music Award and
mtvU Best Video Woodie Award for “Lessons Learned”, as well as a 2011 award for
Best Live Band. Lightning is the band’s fourth album, following Sidewalks,
Grand, and their self-titled debut.

Matt and Kim
have always been inspired by Brooklyn’s general urban din as well as the area’s
artists, yet Matt points out, “I don’t think a place can define a person. We
simply write songs about us and our life so that’s why where we live comes up.”

Indeed,
there’s something universal about a song with a beat that grabs you, with a
great melody, played by a band that simply loves to play music. And that, in
Williamsburg and way beyond, is the key to the universal appeal of Matt
and Kim.