Kissy Sell Out
Words by Anna Richardson
For most of us mere mortals, a difficult decision involves weighing up the merits of Chicken Caesar over BLT of a lunchtime. So spare a thought for Kissy Sell Out, who not so long ago had to choose between remix requests from Hot Chip and the Human League.
Electro producer extraordinaire and rewind wunderkind of the moment, Kissy would appear to be living every teenage boy’s wet dream, skipping between his Radio One show and jetting off around the world to play records to the salivating masses, occasionally cherry-picking remix projects from the queue of hopefuls awaiting their turn on the Kissy carousel.
Previous collaborators include Mark Ronson, Gwen Stefani, Chromeo, Frankmusik, Shiny Toy Guns and Calvin Harris, so it wouldn’t be surprising if he was as in love with himself as everyone else appears to be.
However, Kissy comes on like a puppyish fan-boy, at once perplexed and delighted at his trajectory from ordinary Essex Boy to one of the world’s most wanted. He’s so enthusiastic and eager to please, he’d probably offer to get your granny’s shopping in - if his superstar DJ schedule allowed it.
He says: “I get messages sent to the show saying ‘I saw you in Tescos the other day’ and I just think, why didn’t you come and say hello? I’m reluctant to get into the fame side of things.
“People think I’m living this cool lifestyle when they see me, but I’m still a fan – I still get very starstruck when I meet other producers and DJs. I still can’t believe people actually want to know.”
He’s offering up further proof of his everyday geezer credentials with Youth, an eleven-track musical memoir of his teenage years (mis)spent in Colchester, written and performed together with his cousin and teenage partner in crime Danimal Kingdom, which he’s been performing around the UK with his live band.
Except, of course, the result is anything but ordinary. Youth fizzes with the exuberance of that tantalising time between childhood and the onset of adult responsibility. Imbued with a sense of wonderment and a healthy injection of humour, the album wears its heart on its sleeve and, occasionally, has its tongue lodged firmly in its cheek.
Each track tells a story – from teenage garden parties to snogging people we shouldn’t, there’s a reference point for anyone who braved the highs and heartbreaks of adolescence and lived to tell the tale.
But it’s not all teenage kicks and misdemeanours – the pressure of producing a project so close to home meant Kissy’s personal life suffered, and those tensions have also made their mark on the finished article: “To our girlfriends we must have looked like lazy musicians – it seemed like we were never there when actually what was happening was we were battling with a major label to see our vision through.
“Through The Leaves, the first track on album but last one we recorded, is me talking to my girlfriend at the time. I imagined taking her hand and walking her through a forest and pointing out what everything was, where I’d been and what I’d been doing.”
The Kissy Sell Out success story is already much-feted: a graphic designer by trade, he had always made and played music, serving his time as a DJ in some of London’s less salubrious venues.
In 2007, he took his debut white label Her into Rough Trade records. Just over a week later, a friend showed him a video of Simian Mobile Disco playing the track at Bugged Out, and suddenly he had an underground hit on his hands. Word spread and the Kissy phenomenon was born.
But suggest that Youth could result in pop stardom and he recoils in horror: “No way! I’m quite protective of my private life. There is an element of alter-ego in the Kissy Sell Out name. If this all ends tomorrow I want to be able to go home and give my mum a hug and have Spag Bol with a mate. Being Kissy Sell Out is my way of preserving those things.” Aw, bless ‘im.
Posted Tue, October 20, 2009