Kinky Talk About Successful MTV Unplugged, Experimenting With New Sounds [INTERVIEW]

When we think about Kinky, an electronic, alternative sound comes to mind. We’ve loved that sound ever since their beginnings, and the way they can appeal to a pop-consuming market with their unique music. That sound has now been redefined. Kinky just released their MTV Unplugged album, and are in the middle of a tour around the United States with a stop in NYC on May 22 at the Best Buy Theater. With 8 career Latin Grammy nominations, Kinky's music has been featured in numerous soundtracks, TV commercials (Motorola, Smirnoff Ice, Nissan, Honda), and video games like EA Sports’ FIFA.

Their MTV Unplugged debuted number one on iTunes Latino and the first single was featured as a “Top Tune” on tastemaker station KCRW on the day of it’s release. We caught up with Gil Cerezo, Kinky’s front man after they had just returned from headlining a festival at SXSW and in the middle of their coast-to-coast tour. This is what he had to say about their Unplugged success and the future of the band.

Latin Times: How do you feel with the success that has been your MTV Unplugged album?

Gil Cerezo: I feel good. It’s a completely different CD for us. Only by getting rid of our backbone so to say, that has been electronic music, it was definitely a challenge but at the same time the process was very pleasant. Now we are touring, and putting what we did at the Unplugged on different stages, presents more challenges because we are including a group of instruments that we weren’t used to before, but everything has helped us so much to grow as a band, and besides taking us out of our comfort zone, we feel like we’re expanding and we love looking at new alternatives for our music.

LT: You said including new instruments to your sound was one of the challenges of the Unplugged, what other challenges you think were there?

GC: The hardest part for us was doing a TV show. Musically speaking it was very long dynamic, but like I said, the whole process was pleasant. The whole band and everyone involved worked together to make this as painless as possible. Challenges were learning about the camera angles, scenery, special guests, logistics in general and everything that had to do with making a TV show. That was our biggest headache because we weren’t used to it. It was also the first album we recorded live and that meant extra pressure because we only had one shot to make it perfect. Obviously we rehearsed a lot, and that meant time and effort from all of us to prepare this album.

LT: After going through this whole process, do you feel prepared to bring a piece of that “Unplugged” to the U.S. stages?

GC: That’s right. It’s a smaller version than what the Unplugged was, but we love having all these new songs that we want to share with the audience of the U.S. and we love having a new and dynamic proposal. It’s not your average Kinky show, we’re integrating our more electronic sound, including our hits and our most-known songs with this new segment and it gives the show a complete new dynamics. We have ups and downs and it makes the show more complete. So far thankfully we’ve had an amazing response, very positive.

LT: Once you finish the U.S. tour, do you think you’ll go back to your electronic roots or are you planning on continuing fusing genres and styles?

GC: This whole experience has opened a different set of eyes for us when it comes to composing, and even if our sound goes back to being more electronic, we are definitely taking some elements of this experience because it was very positive, and we’ll probably continue to use some of the new instruments incorporated in the Unplugged.

LT: What inspires Kinky when writing new songs?

GC: We’re inspired by the night, the nightlife, the festive side of the night and the consequences of the all-nighters. But we also try to use some personal quirks of each one of us and any particular event or incident going on, especially with everything that’s going on in Mexico right now, we feel it’s time to bring back our social commentary in the songs, that even though it’s made an appearance before in our lyrics, it’s been a little lost and it’s time to take it back.

LT: Are there any other projects that you would like to take on as a band? How do you see yourselves in the future? What would you like to do that you still haven’t?

GC: We love experimenting. We try to set a new goal for each album, but I think we need to experiment more with electronic music live on TV. And there are still a number of genres we would love to flirt with. Now like I said, I feel like we need to focus more on reality and what’s going on and include that commentary in our music.