Matt Johnson has never had milk in his cereal.
“I’m not vegan or lactose intolerant or anything, and cereal is pretty much my favorite food—or has been for many years,” says Johnson, the Matt half of indie-dance outfit Matt and Kim. “But at one point I realized I had never tried the two together, and I was like, ‘Well, it’s no time to start that now.’”
Despite being a film major, he has never seen Star Wars.
“How did I make it this long?” he wonders. “How did I make it through my childhood? Shouldn’t my parents have made me watch it?”
And Johnson has never written a funeral dirge. For all of the acclaim garnered by Matt and Kim’s adolescent, hip-hop-tinged, joyous wares, the one thing the band has been chided for is a general stagnancy of sound. Johnson has always produced goofball synthesizer sounds, Kim Schifino has always drummed with surprising ability for a band designed to sound flimsy and the duo has never reached too far away from a style entirely of their own. They’ve cornered the market on Matt and Kim music. But talk to Johnson, and he seems to be on the cusp of trying something new. Continue reading