A relationship built from music and love
By Michelle Castillo
Feb. 3, 2009 9:00 p.m.
It is an unspoken rule in acting that if a couple portrays a romantic couple on-screen, they typically will not have any chemistry. Take the failed “Gigli,” staring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, or even “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” featuring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. The actors may have been in some state of happy coupledom in real life at the time of filming, but unfortunately this didn’t translate to the screen.
Either this is not the case with music or the pair known as Matt and Kim found a way around this rule. The couple, who have been together for six years, are playing the Troubadour tonight.
“The amount of time we spend together on paper, we should totally hate each other by now,” said Matt Johnson, keyboardist and vocalist for Matt and Kim. “But, somehow we still get along, which is really impressive. We only have one cell phone. It’s never been the issue the amount of time we spent together.”
If there is any trouble in their relationship, either at home or at work, it certainly isn’t showing. Their sunny disposition resonates through their upbeat self-described “dance punk” tracks. Now playing sold-out shows, as Johnson exclaimed “on Monday night in San Francisco!” the band has come quite far on the strength of its fan base and pop hooks that can be enjoyed by anyone.
“We started touring even before we released an album, playing to nobody,” Johnson said. “I remember our first show in San Diego, which is as far away from New York as you can go. Nobody knew us, but we were still able to get people to dance and sing along.”
Matt and Kim released their self-titled debut album on IHEARTCOMIX in 2006. Immediately, critics approved of the Brooklyn based-duo, and they found themselves playing festivals such as Lollapalooza in Chicago and the Siren Music Festival.
“It was basically like a mutual friend sort of thing, and neither of us knew what we were doing,” Johnson said. “They didn’t know what they were doing; we didn’t now what we were doing. I think that worked out with that situation.”
Deviating from the mainstream, Matt and Kim have run their career making choices from supporting downloading music from the Internet to producing an extremely violent video for their single “5K,” which was subsequently banned in the U.S. The band keeps in tune with their “do it yourself” beliefs by not tying down their music to one style, which works well with their carefree attitude.
“We’ve toyed with the genre sort of thing for a long time,” Johnson said. “We’ve been really lucky; we’ve been able to play with so many different bands. We’ve toured with Against Me!, this hip-hop band Cool Kids, Girl Talk. We played with the Breeders at one show, and Circle Jerks at another show ““ in the same day.”
Deciding that it was time to further their careers, Matt and Kim eventually signed to the FADER label, run by the magazine of the same name. The move to a slightly larger label paid off. On Jan. 20, the band released its second album, which was all recorded in the Vermont home where Johnson grew up.
“It just ended up being a better partnership for us,” Johnson said.
“It was a little more established, they had more people there, and we worked it out a little better for the parties.”
Though they liked the added distribution that FADER provided, Johnson admitted that that was not the key to their current success. Using the strength of social networking, he admits that their rise to underground acclaim was mainly because of their MySpace page and their quirky YouTube music videos.
“If you wanted worldwide distribution, even 10 years ago … to have your music to be accessible everywhere, you’d have to have your CDs stocked in stores ““ that kind of distribution,” Johnson said. “These days you have a MySpace page to have global distribution. It’s something you can do for yourselves. If (a band) is doing something I like, I’ll go and seek them out. No one has to put money behind them. If you do something good, it tends to get noticed.”
The couple, who went to Pratt Institute, met where most romantic college relationships start: the quintessential house party. Though Johnson remains a bit secretive at the details, he admits it took a while to get the relationship going, especially because he was a bit intimidated by Kim Schifino.
“Kim was just graduating; I was in my sophomore year there,” Johnson said. “She said she was eyeing me for my first two years. Then I kept losing her number ““ I honestly kept losing her number a couple times. I was nervous because she had tattoos and she was older, but eventually we got in touch.”
Three years ago, they decided that they wanted to mix business with pleasure and became a two-man ““ or, more accurately, a one woman, one man ““ band. Deciding it was a fun project to do as a couple, Schifino took to learning the drums while Johnson tackled a keyboard he had found.
“Kim’s a very competitive person from years of running track and stuff like that. If my friends are doing cool stuff, then she’s like, “˜We’ve got to do cool stuff too!'” Johnson said. “It’s bizarre being in a band of two people because if you disagree on something, you don’t have anyone as a tiebreaker. It’s one versus the other, and if we disagree as a band, we become bitter in our personal life as well.”
Because of this, as a band Matt and Kim agreed on one fundamental rule in order to further differentiate their personal life from their work: They decided never to write songs about love. While the pair finds inspiration in almost anything, Johnson admitted they will never write about each other.
“I’ve never written a love song in my life,” Johnson said. “I never plan on doing it. I’ll let other people cover those bases, but I try to be positive and upbeat.”
Whether Matt and Kim have discovered the key to a healthy relationship may be something that only time can tell. One thing is for sure though, even though Johnson is on tour with his best friend and spends almost all of his day with Schifino, they always find something to talk about.
“It’s kind of hard to separate the two,” Johnson said. “But, we’ve been so busy that I’ve noticed that it will be the end of the day, and we’ll be going to bed, and I’ll be like, “˜Oh hey, how was your day?’ Even though we’ve spent the whole day together dealing with this and that, we always feel like, “˜Oh hey! I feel like I haven’t seen you.'”
