Cooler Kids – Interview

GETTING OFF WITH SISELY OF THE COOLER KIDS!

I know you are about to head out on a radio tour. How have you been getting ready for it?

We have been rehearsing. We have a little rehearsal space in L.A. We were getting our outfits ready. (Laughs)

How did it go from you emailing Kaz to becoming a group?

Kaz was already working on Cooler Kids. I heard his music before on random records and thought he was a brilliant producer. Crazy enough I found him online. I emailed him and amazingly he responded. He was working on this project and someone asked him if he had any friends who could sing on the record after the project got signed as a recording project instead of a publishing deal.

Were you performing before that?

I was actually in Hollywood just trying to work as a dancer. I danced, not erotic (Laughs), like jazz and hip-hop. I’ve been in music videos and commercials. Anything that had dancing in it I was trying to get into. I was teaching dance too. I was taking singing lessons. I was landing Broadway shows, but I wasn’t very serious in it. I wanted to do a project on my own that is why I was searching for someone.

Were the tracks on the record done when you joined?

The tracks were pretty much finished by the time I got involved. They were thinking of just making the songs dance tracks and push them out to Europe. Then they got signed to a record deal with Dreamworks, who was more interested in more than just a dance group. Realizing they needed someone to front the project. So in came random girl from California. When I actually got involved in the project I co-wrote on two of the tracks.

Did you like the concept of the songs – uptempo and pop?

When I heard it I thought it was too good to be true. I wanted to do trip hop, but not 1996 trip hop. I wanted to expand and go for something that was cutting edge. The Cooler Kids are an eclectic mix of 70’s disco with 90’s weird sound with a 2000 twist. I couldn’t believe this kooky dance music was getting signed to a label.

What is the live show like?

This is where we’ve made the group our own. Instead of Dreamworks coming in and telling us what we need to do they asked us what we wanted to do. So Kaz and I brainstormed and we wanted to make the performance a big part of the music. You can listen to the music but we wanted to extend the music into our performance. We want to make a happy and fun performance with sarcasm.

What was it like to go from what you were doing before to being a part of a group on a record label?

My dad was a musician and in a band in the 80’s, I lived around music. I have this musical background so people don’t think I’m a dancer turned singer. I play piano. When I got involved in this project I was excited… (pauses) I got lost. (Laughs hysterically)

Will the shows be weird because you’ll be playing in front of a lot of kids?

What is weird is that we toured with Erasure and their audiences vary. But it was great to tour with them because they are tech-pop originals and it was really hard to compete with that. They have all ages from eighteen to fifty and we had a good response from that audience. Also we were on the Lizzie McGuire soundtrack and that brought us another age group. The best thing about it is that I’ve given the cd to friends who listen to it with their kids. It’s not written specifically for kids but it is made fun for all ages. I hope we reach across the age barrier.

What is your hope for the future of Cooler Kids?

Just that it flies. I hope we get to express this cool, fun thing we love working on. I hope we can get this feeling out to everybody. I like the idea of spreading a happy word because there are so many crazy things going on in the world right now and we want to make you feel good.

+ Charlie Craine