Kill Paris has had a busy year. Over a year ago in the wake of the Parisian terrorist attacks the artist made a decision to change his name to Chill Harris. While his original and now current name is an allusion to Shakespeare ‘Romeo and Juliet' and had nothing to do with the city itself the artist was put in a difficult position. In a stroke of luck we were able to catch up with Kill Paris who has recently dropped a brilliant new track titled ‘Junkie'.
It all felt like the floor fell out from under me and all of a sudden I had nothing
Back to the name change though. The attacks in Paris that occurred in November of 2015 shook the world to it's core. Not only was it one of the worst terrorist attacks in Europe of all time, but many saw it as a personal attack against the arts. The Bataclan, a historic venue was one of the targeted sites. Dozens were murdered who were attending the concert that took place that night. In a moment, the name Kill Paris became an ultra controversial moniker. The following day the decision was made to change his name, even though he knew it might have an unintended impact on his career.
“Well, when that tragedy happened, I felt like it put me in a really awkward position really quickly. I knew it was the right thing at the time, regardless of how it was going to affect me. There were some really really negative and hurtful things that people said. That really threw me back. It was terrifying and confusing.”
It might seem somewhat bizarre to say but in a way an artists name can become part of his personality. I read his long post about his decision to change his name to Chill Harris. It was heart felt and powerful. Full disclosure though, the first time I saw Chill Harris on a line up, I did not make the connection in my mind. It did not jump out to me that is was in fact the new moniker of Kill Paris. So with that in mind I was curious how the name change impacted his life, turns out it impacted his reality as a whole.
Oh yeah. I mean, it was still me, but it wasn't. It felt weird. That's why the only release that came out was my remix of Griz's “Stop Trippin”. It's hard to describe the feeling, but it all felt like the floor fell out from under me and all of a sudden I had nothing. It was a great chance to dissect the way that social media gives us “identity” nowadays. I learned a lot from this whole thing. Some personal issues I had with balancing my home life vs music life.
After an appropriate period of mourning the decision was made to change back to Kill Paris. The decision was met with widespread approval, as his decision to change the name in the first place was a more than generous gesture towards the victims and those affected by the tragedy. It was time to continue on with the name that he was always supposed to have. The latest release from Kill Paris is a powerful one – ‘Junkie'. A sultry track filled with themes of addiction in various forms but focusing mainly on the addictive nature of love. Being in recovery myself I had to ask where inspiration came from for this powerful ballad of love and loss.
The song is about that universal feeling of want and not wanted, the same thing at the same time. That addictive feeling where your brain is working in bipolar mode hardcore. That constant back and forth of “I'm done with this” to “ahh I need it.” For me, most of those situations have revolved around love. At the same time, during this whole name change thing, I lost myself for a bit. Drinking too much became a problem. Psychologically I was a wreck. I wanted to make a song that was about love, but not necessarily a happy song. It's the other side of love that we can't control. Attaching and intertwining your soul with someone can bring you limitless amounts of joy and pain.
Listening to the song is a full sensory experience. The track is dynamic and hypnotic with it's arrangements but also beautifully intelligent in it's structure. The vocalists on the track Nevve and Monstre have a back and forth that creates an almost Concrete Poem like experience. A song about the back and forth of a relationship is mirrored by vocalists singing a back and forth to each other. I was curious the thought process that molded this result.
Nevve and I wrote the whole song together. When we were writing it, we had the idea of it being a duet to really convey the back and forth between lovers.
I loved the different pieces of the song. It was absolutely dynamic in every sense of the word. There were trap sections, funk, pure vocals and many pieces that were beautifully molded from many different pieces. So I was curious where inspiration came from when writing, the answer I got was more than I could ever ask for, unexpected but just so awesome.
So I had been researching “432 hz tuning”. Which, is a slightly lower tuning than the standard “440hz”. There's been countless papers and videos on how 432hz is the resonate frequency of physical objects in our realm. It's been linked to DNA healing as well. There's a lot of conspiracies about why the standard tuning is 440, but it basically comes down to 440 producing a more harsh “anxiety” like feeling. Where 432 resonates with your physical body, so it's much more calming. So, long story long, I was messing with that and I wrote this guitar part. That's what sparked the whole song. I did the rest of the music for the song, then took it to Nevve and we wrote the song.
We gotta give Kill Paris a huge thanks for taking the time to chat with us about everything going on in his artistic world. He has had to make several difficult decisions over the past few years and we are thrilled to see that through it all he has not lost any of his amazing artistic ability. ‘Junkie' is a masterful track and we cannot wait to see what 2017 and beyond has in store for our favorite Shakespearean referencing artist. Check out Kill Paris on Facebook to stay up to date with his latest news. And hey before you go, check out this incredible remix he just dropped for the homie Illenium, this is something special folks…
