Quiet Achiever

Photo by Simon Zoric

He’s not going to prance around with his shirt off like Devendra Banhart but Karl Scullin aka Kes is a bit of a hippie. He admits it but don’t freak out cause he’s rad and way more into chickpeas and brown rice than acid and love beads. In short, he’s the real deal. For years now he’s been quietly making up songs, playing in other bands like Bird Blobs and Mum Smokes and now the hard yards are paying off. His second full-length release The Grey Goose Wing is barely off the press and already hard-arsed critics are calling it the “album of a lifetime”. It’s true but Karl’s far from kicking the bucket and is already busy recording his next album. Fuck touring and free love; this man is busy. What’s the new album like? It’s a midway album—half acoustic and half band. It’s a pretty creative album. Do you write a lot? Now I do. I’m really focused. I’m on the dole and I’m living really cheaply and just putting all my energy and time into music. Is music something that you’ve always done? I’ve taken a back seat for a long time, playing in other people’s bands and constantly trying to build up my confidence. I was never a muso at school. I was academically retarded. I couldn’t read music or anything. It’s only in my mid twenties that I really got confident enough to want to have a crack at it. What inspired you? Jesse, my cousin, has been a big influence on me cause he’s a massive music collector. Growing up in the suburbs I was into straight, white bread music so the closest I could get to interesting was, like, Nirvana. But Jesse put me onto some really interesting records and from there I spent a long time listening as opposed to playing. Did you always sing? I never sung. Ever. I’d never try and do that, never even think about it, wouldn’t even talk too loud. And now you sing all the time. That’s what I like about song writing though. When I was young I couldn’t understand how someone could write a song that didn’t already exist. Which is really funny now because I’m totally creative. That process of coming up with stuff is just confidence. This guy I know has a theory that music is a by-product of charisma. I’m not meaning to sound arrogant, but charisma is just personality and people’s music is just an extension of their personalities. If you have personality then what you know musically isn’t necessarily that important. This is the fashion issue. What do you wear? Because I’m focusing on doing the creative act I’m pretty functional. I just wear shirts and jeans. I don’t know anything about labels. I have a cream shirt and I have this shirt [an orange one] and two pairs of jeans. It’s a total uniform. I like the orange shirt. Not many people wear orange. I’m usually pretty earthy. I’m into beige, olive green and brown. I’m not a hippie but I like things from the earth. Sometimes I’m likened to Devendra Banhart but although the texture of his music is similar to mine his vibe’s really different. He’s a total confidence machine. That’s not my vibe at all. I’m pretty confident now but I’m not, like, walking around with my shirt off at festivals high fiving people. PROGAN STONE