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atcostmag · 7 years

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Yes You Are’s Kianna Alarid on former band Tilly and the Wall, her Chicana identity and being featured on the Super Bowl

Through her alma-mater Tilly and the Wall, Kianna Alarid has seen it all. At one point, it felt like Kianna was on top of the world with her songs plastered over ads (and even on the 2014 Super Bowl) as well as some high-profile features from starring on Sesame Street to dropping a track with Tiesto. But it wasn’t something that would last forever and as the indie-pop explosion Nebraska soon died out in favor of the more central Williamsburg scene, things started to slow and stagnate for Alarid. Searching the world but failing to find the right musical collaborator, combined with post-partum depression and a relapse from 8 years of sobriety, took a toll on Kianna. Starting anew and back on her feet, Alarid found herself in Kansas City, Missouri and formed her latest act Yes You Are. A rush of new energy and ideas came back to Kianna and now out of the woods it seems like things are looking up for Alarid again. After all, you gotta be doing something right if the 2017 Super Bowl wants to feature your music again.

I last met Kianna back in 2008 during one of Tilly and the Wall’s last few shows, but it would be nearly 7 years later until we would catch up again, in a promo email. Since then we’ve been writing each other, and appreciating each others’ quirks on Instagram and Facebook, and a long time in the works we finally decided to get an interview down. We spoke candidly to Kianna about the last few years and what it all meant, that and other things among why the Kansas City Royals is the best team ever.

Tell us about your beginnings and meeting your former band Tilly and the Wall.

When I was 15 I met Todd, Clark and Joel (The Faint,) but at that time I just knew them as Omaha's best skateboarders, along with my boyfriend at the time. I was very involved in the skate community and was always hanging out with them and found out that they were also musicians. I got very into the underground Omaha scene through them, listening to bands like Commander Venus, Norman Bailer and Simon Joyner. After a few years, my boyfriend and I broke up and I didn't see that crew for a while.

I started playing in my first real band when I was 18 with a few friends of mine. We were really into hardcore and metal at that time and wanted to write and play that kind of music. I only played bass at that time, I had never really sung, although I did rap during one song. I met a lot of people involved in that scene in Omaha and many of them had crossover relationships with people playing in the indie music scene. I started seeing my old friends around again who were no longer skating as much, and were way more focused on their new band The Faint and playing with bands like Bright Eyes and Cursive. I started hanging out with that crew way more when I turned 21 and started going to karaoke with a handful of them. We went all the time, sometimes 3 times a week. That's actually how I really started singing and came to realize I wasn't half bad.

We were out at a bar one night when a few of them were taking about starting a new band, their old band was called Park Ave., and I basically invited myself to be a member of this hypothetical new band and they were like, right on! That band was called Magic Kiss and though it didn't last long, one of the members Jamie Williams and I became very close and we continued to hang out and write music together. She invited me over one day to meet these two weirdos, Nick and Derek, also musicians, who had just moved to town from Atlanta, Georgia. We all hit it off big time. We starting hanging out all the time, playing music and just having a blast together. We decided to become a real band soon after that and asked Jamie's old band mate Neely to join as well. That's how Tilly started, from my perspective.

Though you were born in Omaha, your family is from New Mexico and proudly wear the labels Chicano and Native American. Tell us what that identity means to you?

Both sides of my family are originally from very small towns and villages in New Mexico. I grew up identifying as "Chicano" which, according to my relatives meant "displaced" and wasn't used with the more commonly known definition of "Mexican-American". My family used the word more radically, to refer to a race of people specific to New Mexico, who were a genetic mix of the native people of that area, who had lived there for thousands of years, and the Spanish explorers who colonized the area in 1598. There was always a vibe of resistance surrounding the term and we had strong sense of culture relating to our indigenous roots. Kachinas, sand paintings, heavy turquoise jewelry.. these were all normal things in my world. I understand more now why "displaced" was used to describe our people, although possibly the word "outsider" could be interchanged. New Mexico is a very strange and magical place and has a very interesting culture, including a different sort of "singing" Hispanic accent and completely unique food. Not to mention all the UFOs and aliens.

At one point Omaha was to indie pop like Seattle was to grunge. What was it like to be in Nebraska during the height of the scene?

It was awesome! We were a very tight knit group of people and anyone you ask from that group will tell you, with shivers on their arms, about the night when everything changed. The Faint was set play this big venue we had always known to be a place for bigger, touring bands and everyone was excited to see how that would pan out. We all sat there, shocked and stunned as hundreds and hundreds of people kept arriving... people we didn't know or recognize. It had always just been us at the shows before... a lot of people, but you at least sort of recognized most of the crowd. This was different, it was just so many new faces. It was the first time anything like that happened and it just kept happening from there on out with Bright Eyes and Cursive and so on. At first we were just like, "Who are all these people coming to our friends' shows!?" Then it just blew up. It was so exciting to be there and help out and celebrate our friends' successes.

Of course, there’s the highs and lows of touring. What was it like battling with sobriety?

Addiction is a funny thing, it seems to easily go hand in hand with being an artist. It has been the downfall of so many incredible and gifted people throughout history. Drinking is such a normalized part of our society, so it seems pretty harmless in the beginning. I can see why its so destructive. Its a sneaky thing. I am a very intense person, so for me, it makes it a life or death choice. When you're faced with that reality, it makes it much more clear that you need to choose wisely. I want to live and I want to do my job for as long as possible, so I'm staying sober. To me, having drinks isn't worth missing my destiny.

I like the fun and funkiness of Yes You Are. Tell us about how “Holy Ghost Explosion (HGX)” came about?

Well, I think all our songs are weird. We aren’t writing from a typical perspective and aren’t even doing this for any typical reasons. We have something to say but it can’t really be said.. so we dance with words in order to cause a certain phenomenon in a certain listener. Could it be you? “HGX” started as an nod to Timbaland and wound up as something else.. but still has that 808 vibe and a fun beat to get down to. Its a creeper and possibly its creepy too, depending on how you look at it.

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“HGX” stands for “Holy Ghost Explosion”, which was the title of this viral YouTube video a while back of some Pentecostals really going WILD. Something about the name of the video stuck with us and we would up using it the song lyric. We had started referring to the song as “Holy Ghost Explosion” and then after some time, we just started saying “HGX” as that's how we would write it on set lists.

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Honestly, I never would have taken you as a sports fan. Tell us about your newfound love for sports and more specifically, the Kansas City Royals.

I grew up with jocks for parents and I just could not relate. They have always been die hard Cubs fans and baseball was always on our tv but i just couldn't get into it. It wasn't until I reluctantly watched the Royals play in the 2014 Wild Card game that I thought... "Wait, what is THIS? This is baseball? Holy sh*t!" I haven't really missed many games since that night. Learning the game and understanding it has been a huge revelation for me. I can’t really get into it here because it would take too long, but there is a poetry to the game of baseball that goes far deeper than meets the eye. I never would have guessed I’d become a sports fan but the 2014 KC Royals did some kinda alchemy in me and I’ve never been the same since. Its awesome. These games, these insanely high paid players… it all seems so insignificant on the surface, and possibly for some people it is. To those who have been touched by the metaphors of it all.. its very much something else. Its so beautiful. I even have a closer bond with my parents. I get it now.

Well, for a sports fan being on the Super Bowl not once but twice is certainly the honor. What was it like being on the Super Bowl not only with Tilly and the Wall but with Yes You Are?

We had no idea that our song was going to be on the Pepsi Super Bowl commercial. I was doing our taxes, tuned into the station that day and suddenly the song was on. I just sort of blanked out.. then my phone blew up. It was amazing to us, like a sign of some kind. We have believed in Yes You Are for so long and have just pushed steadily along through hard times and better times but for this amazing thing to be given to us… it certainly felt like a sign that something bigger and better is coming.

So it seems like you've done a lot in your career. What's next?

What’s next is putting out our debut album and getting our songs known throughout the universe and beyond!

Last question! I heard you're an MMA fan as well. What did you think of the Conor McGregor versus Mayweather spectacle? This is probably completely crazy but do you think you'd entertain the idea of fighting Floyd Mayweather if the chance came up?

No. Definitely no, I would not fight Floyd Mayweather! I guess I may entertain the thought of letting him beat me up for 100 million dollars though (laughs). I thought the whole McGregor/Mayweather thing was just that, a spectacle. I heard the fight was really good and I also heard they hugged like old, rich-ass friends afterward so, whatever (laughs). You know actually, I am a big fan of the Diaz brothers. They're such ninjas! Nate Diaz actually inspired me to start training Brazilian jiu jitsu at Kansas City BJJ but I stopped after a while because some of the chokes we were doing compromised my throat on more than one occasion. Those guys are killers (laughs). I had a sore throat for over a week and I just couldn't risk it. I miss it a lot though and I do remember my training and drills so... just saying.

Check out Yes You Are on Spotify below:

#kianna alarid #yes you are #tilly and the wall #music

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