I, Kimbra – How The Indie Star Is Thriving On The Road

Since being launched to stardom as half of the smash 2011 hit “Somebody I Used to Know” with Gotye, New Zealand indie pop adventurist Kimbra has been a fixture of playlists for those seeking more out of pop music than just hooks and looks. That continues on her latest album, A Reckoning, a strikingly personal batch of songs that has led Kimbra to a place of what seems to be great personal satisfaction.

Kimbra, who is scheduled to return to DFW for a show at The Studio at The Factory on Saturday, March 4, at 8 p.m., is presently in high spirits on the road, a place that tries most musicians’ souls. She’s content with the press cycle while touring because, fundamentally, she made a record that strikes a chord with many.

“I know I asked for it, because I’ve written an album that’s talking about some big emotional human stuff, but the interviews are usually going to be quite deep and thoughtful, right?” she says from a brief tour stop in New Orleans. “I just have to get into that mode of just kind of being very disclosing and honest. It’s a practice for sure. You have to get your head in the game a bit. But I feel lucky that I get to do interviews about stuff I really care talking about rather than just small talk, which gets boring for me.”

Kimbra has said several times that A Reckoning’s unorthodox production and subject matter was akin to a personal exorcism — processing the loss of a loved one, a relationship and her previous relationship with her label through the thing she does best. As a result, press surrounding the album tends to approach sensitive areas.

“There are days where I’m like, ‘Maybe it would be easier to put a mask on and just talk about stuff that’s not that deeply integrated into my own life.’” – Kimbra

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“There are days where I’m like, ‘Maybe it would be easier to put a mask on and just talk about stuff that’s not that deeply integrated into my own life.’ But I think it kind of all comes down to why I got into the music in the first place,” she says. “I know that that’s kind of what my gift is — to speak to people on a level that maybe they don’t feel is totally penetrated by a lot of other pop music out there. I think it’s good to identify the thing that you genuinely are good at for the world.”

But is it worth the constant digging and possible sacrifice of one’s privacy? Kimbra says it is — to an extent. “It does give me a lot of satisfaction that this [music] is actually meaningful to people. And there’s a cost which is maybe sometimes my pride and emotional privacy or whatever. But at this point in my career, I feel like I’ve surrendered to the fact that that’s a cost I’m willing to pay to feel connected to other people and give them a sense of feeling less alone.”

On the day of our conversation, Pink Floyd’s landmark 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon turned 50, a sign that music’s true test is staying power, not necessarily the metrics that labels focus so hard on these days. Kimbra is aware of this now more than ever and says that the new perspective has helped alleviate what would have previously worried her.

“The metrics of how things are landing and everything like that, I try not to get too caught up in that stuff because so much of great, great music is kind of taking place in a much longer timeline,” she says. “We see things go up and down and trends and stuff, but great records, they can sometimes just really take their time to find their place in the world and how they do the first week doesn’t really mean anything compared to what they will mean over the legacy of an artist’s career.”

A Reckoning is Kimbra’s first independent release, not backed by the massive promotional power of her old label Warner Bros. Despite what would normally be a marketing handicap, Kimbra says people are learning the new songs fluently, and the music seems to be accomplishing what she set out to do when she made it: comfort people experiencing the same things she was.

“Oh, I’m definitely proud of the record I made,” she says. “It’s human to go back and be like, ‘what if.’ That’s also what makes an artist — that they have this intense attention to detail and maybe are sometimes prone to overthinking, and then it’s the art helps them get out of their own way. It’s always like a holding the tension between overthinking and letting go: control and letting go.”

Kimbra says she oscillates between those two modes frequently, but as a means of staying positive, she tends to look forward to whatever is coming next.

“I’ve lived inside these songs for so long, now they are taking on a new life in the eyes and ears and souls of other people, so it’s not really mine to control anymore,” she says. “You have to let it take its own course, and that has its own mystery and magic about it. I’ve even seen that in my decade in the music industry, things that have taken on whole new meanings at different times to when I put them out. So, yeah, I try to surrender to that as much as I can.”

Kimbra performs at 8 p.m. Saturday at The Studio at The Factory, 2727 Canton St. Tei Shi opens.