Kickin' it with Matt and Kim

Popular indie-dance duo Matt and Kim bounce back and bring the fun to Houston

The band returns to touring after taking nearly a year off due to Kim uffering a torn ACL during a show.

Photo by Caleb Kuhl

It’s hard to keep a good band down. Super-energetic and cute-as-all-get-out indie-electro-dance-punk duo Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino — affectionately known as Matt and Kim — returned to the stage last month following a freak accident during a show in Mexico in April last year. Schifino suffered a torn anterior cruciate knee ligament after jumping off a stage riser and awkwardly landing. The Los-Angeles-via-Brooklyn act that has made a career on exuberant, high-octane live shows had to cancel all appearances for the rest of 2017 and early 2018.

It was a low point for the professional and romantic couple so used to recording upbeat songs, playing the world’s biggest music festivals, and creating memorable music videos with the drive of Energizer bunnies. Schifino faced surgery and grueling rehab, which Johnson documented on Matt and Kim’s behind-the-scenes YouTube channel. Fortunately for fans, they are back to doing what they do best: whipping audiences into a frenzy with their simplistic keyboard and drums set-up, infused with a whole lot of adrenaline.

Even better, their sixth album, Almost Everyday (out May 4), came out of that time off. It saw the two tackling the loss of feeling indestructible that growing older — and major surgery – brings, all the while maintaining the positivity they’ve become known for by audiences everywhere.

CultureMap caught up with Johnson following an appearance in San Diego on the first leg of 30-plus dates, including Austin on April 12, Houston on April 13, and Dallas on April 14.

CultureMap: The lyrics on the new album are taking on some serious subject matter, like getting older. You’ve been doing this rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle for a while now — how has your worldview changed over the years?

Matt Johnson: It’s crazy when I think about it because I don’t feel like we’ve been doing this as long as we have, but it’s been 14 years. Last year, it gave me this peek into what life might be like after the band when we’re off the road, just living at home.

It was like the movie It’s a Wonderful Life, it seems what it’d be like. Granted, I’ve always been super appreciative of what I’ve got to do, but it heightened the appreciation even more, that it let me know things don’t last forever. I think that made its way to the album because we were writing in that time.

CM: Are you starting to feel your years a little bit?

MJ: There are a couple things to let us know we’re not invincible, meaning what happened to Kim. I’ve done so many stupid things in my life revolving around skateboarding and snowboarding and BMX biking, and I never broke a bone. But then I broke a bone in my hand on stage the year before and I thought, “Godammit, I’m not invincible!”

But on the other hand, I think there are 23 other hours of the day we’re not on stage and that one hour, we’ve always put in 150 percent. I can’t help it, the adrenaline hits and everything comes out. So, I think the show is surprisingly the same or more energetic than it was even 10 years ago.

CM: How much did not being able to play a show for so long affect your relationship with your bandmate and partner?

MJ: It’s weird. People sometimes ask how you separate the professional life from the personal life, and you really can’t — they’re completely intertwined. Kim was bummed because she loves playing drums, she loves getting on stage. When you take that away from her, it really put her into some depression.

That’s why a song like “Happy If You’re Happy,” one of the songs we already released from the album was about only being happy when you’re happy. When she was feeling sad, I was really bummed, which is really unlike us because we’ve been very lucky to have a good life. My entire adult life we’ve been on the road and touring doing shows. It was just a very different year.

CM: You must be very happy to be back on the road then.

MJ: Oh, hell yeah. Even though [I’m] very nervous a lot of the time because Kim certainly doesn’t hold anything back. We were doing a meet and greet at the festival in Mexico [last week] and one of the people we met got excited and grabbed Kim, then picked her up and was spinning her around. Then her leg slammed into another fan. I’m just very worried. I feel I’m not invincible anymore.

CM: You just got back from Mexico – how much was it going full circle with the injury happening there?

MJ: We had a dinner afterwards with the crew and it felt kind of like a celebration because it had been about a year since we had been in Mexico playing a festival and then ended up in the hospital. Then, one year later, we were back in Mexico and we played another festival that went successful and everyone was okay. So yeah, it felt like some sort of closure.

CM: You’ve recorded albums quickly in the past. Did the time off give you more time to record Almost Everyday?

MJ: I feel like this is one of our faster albums we’ve made. I think when you can make things faster, it comes out more honest and real and you don’t dull down the edges. We thought we were going to have more time to work but when Kim was in recovery, we just couldn’t get to it.

CM: Your stage presence is so positive, and people have come to expect an exuberant live show and high energy songs. How do you keep from pigeonholing yourself into a particular sound or reputation, or are you happy with where you are?

MJ: I’m very happy in that people come to our shows because they love the energy. I’ve found that a lot of people, indie isn’t their thing – they might be into metal, they might be into rock, or they might be into dance music. But there’s something about the energy of our show that they get swept up in, whatever they’re into. My favorite part of the show is watching a visually excited audience and I would be sad if it ever changed.

CM: Why do you think it’s important to have a fun band such as Matt & Kim, in such a divisive time?

MJ: I grew up playing in punk bands, and a lot of times, politically inspired punk bands through my teenage years. I have looked at Matt and Kim and the soapbox — however big or small it is —and what kind of statements we use with that, and I think the best thing we can do is get the people excited to do whatever it is what they want to do.

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Matt and Kim play Stubb’s in Austin Thursday, April 12; White Oak Music Hall on Friday, April 13; and the Bomb Factory in Dallas on Saturday, April 14. Cruisr and Twinkids open. Find tickets here.

music concerts nightlife

Movie Review

Avatar: Fire and Ash returns to Pandora with big action and bold visuals

Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Oona Chaplin in Avatar: Fire and Ash.

For a series whose first two films made over $5 billion combined worldwide, Avatar has a curious lack of widespread cultural impact. The films seem to exist in a sort of vacuum, popping up for their run in theaters and then almost as quickly disappearing from the larger movie landscape. The third of five planned movies, Avatar: Fire and Ash, is finally being released three years after its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water.

The new film finds the main duo, human-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his native Na’vi wife, Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), still living with the water-loving Metkayina clan led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). While Jake and Neytiri still play a big part, the focus shifts significantly to their two surviving children, Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), as well as two they’ve essentially adopted, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and Spider (Jack Champion).

Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who lives on in a fabricated Na’vi body, is still looking for revenge on Jake, and he finds help in the form of the Mangkwan Clan (aka the Ash People), led by Varang (Oona Chaplin). Quaritch’s access to human weapons and the Mangkwan’s desire for more power on the moon known as Pandora make them a nice match, and they team up to try to dominate the other tribes.

Aside from the story, the main point of making the films for writer/director James Cameron is showing off his considerable technical filmmaking prowess, and that is on full display right from the start. The characters zoom around both the air and sea on various creatures with which they’ve bonded, providing Cameron and his team with plenty of opportunities to put the audience right there with them. Cameron’s preferred viewing method of 3D makes the experience even more immersive, even if the high frame rate he uses makes some scenes look too realistic for their own good.

The story, as it has been in the first two films, is a mixed bag. Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver start off well, having Jake, Neytiri, and their kids continue mourning the death of Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) in the previous film. The struggle for power provides an interesting setup, but Cameron and his team seem to drag out the conflict for much too long. This is the longest Avatar film yet, and you really start to feel it in the back half as the filmmakers add on a bunch of unnecessary elements.

Worse than the elongated story, though, is the hackneyed dialogue that Cameron, Jaffa, and Silver have come up with. Almost every main character is forced to spout lines that diminish the importance of the events around them. The writers seemingly couldn’t resist trying to throw in jokes despite them clashing with the tone of the scenes in which they’re said. Combined with the somewhat goofy nature of the Na’vi themselves (not to mention talking whales), the eye-rolling words detract from any excitement or emotion the story builds up.

A pre-movie behind-the-scenes short film shows how the actors act out every scene in performance capture suits, lending an authenticity to their performances. Still, some performers are better than others, with Saldaña, Worthington, and Lang standing out. It’s more than a little weird having Weaver play a 14-year-old girl, but it works relatively well. Those who actually get to show their real faces are collectively fine, but none of them elevate the film overall.

There are undoubtedly some Avatar superfans for which Fire and Ash will move the larger story forward in significant ways. For anyone else, though, the film is a demonstration of both the good and bad sides of Cameron. As he’s proven for 40 years, his visuals are (almost) beyond reproach, but the lack of a story that sticks with you long after you’ve left the theater keeps the film from being truly memorable.

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Avatar: Fire and Ash opens in theaters on December 19.

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