Boston duo Kind Being are one of the more conceptual bands in town. Marrying the sweet and tender harmonies of folk with the crunchy guitars of alt rock and the gridded, textural beats of IDM and hip hop, and the sqeauky clean sheen of turn-of-the-century pop music Mateo Garcia (of, like so many bands he’s stamped) and Tommy Ng (of Jesus The Dinosaur, among others) are clear students of the game. They are also among kindest and most genuine folks around, and it’s no surprise that the music they make together is in many ways a tribute to the people around them. With a live show that blends the at times haunting specificity of their songs with skits based on Yamaha keyboard preset instrumentals and harmonies bolstered by Tommy’s Jesus The Dinosaur bandmate Hannah Foxman, Kind Being naturally reflects the easy-going vibe of close friends making art for the fun of it in every aspect. It just so happens that the songs are also rock solid.
We spoke with Kind Being on EP release day about their roots, their place in the Boston scene and more, hit play on the stream below and read on.
Allston Pudding: The two of you obviously have a rich history in the Boston music scene, how and when did Kind Being come together?
Mateo Garcia: It was during COVID. I had time and money and was constantly writing, but some songs didn’t fit my projects at the time. We’ve known each other since college, but hadn’t really hung out much til quarantine. I had always loved and admired Tommy as a person and their writing in Jesus The Dinosaur, and wanted to hang more, so we did. They also had some songs that could be separate from JTD stuff, so we tried combining stuff and our first EP Two Truths came pretty quickly.
AP: How does the songwriting differ for this project versus your other ones?
Tommy Ng: there are some elements that are the same, in that the songs are very collaboratively written, but there’s definitely something unique about this project is how we record. We do it all in Mateo’s bedroom with whatever we got lying around, and mostly everything that ends up on the record is a first take or something close to it. Like maybe we aren’t even sure what we are doing yet and if something makes us laugh or scream when we are doing it then that is something we want to keep.
MG: Heavy emphasis on seeking out things that actively make us laugh.
AP: What is the process like for building a Kind Being song? Are there certain elements you build on first?
MG: We’ll have a song idea or structure, usually vocals and a chord progression, or a riff, and then see what feels good and fun. We write and arrange parts as we record so we’re constantly playing, exploring and committing. It’s very free and open ended, but usually after the initial idea we’ll try building a beat and then all the individual elements on top of that.
AP: Building community and taking care of the people in your life are clearly big lyrical motifs for this band, what other themes do you feel are key to the EP?
TN: Oh, lots of bummer stuff: low self-esteem, changing yourself for others, I feel very tapped into my adolescence with this stuff. Some of these songs were started 5-10 years ago.
MG: Love and loss during the fall of an empire.
AP; There are some crunchier guitars and synths on this one compared to the first couple of Kind Being releases, was there a conscious choice to get a little heavier here?
MG: Yes, definitely. We were very inspired by the 90s and early 2000s, and I feel like our first two EPs show our love for commercial indie and alternative rock and pop, especially in the production aspects. I wanted this one to feel closer to a “regular” rock band, with a bigger emphasis on rock and roll guitars. That and some of the songs just felt better supported by distortion more than prior ones.
AP: Folk and indie rock are obviously your main influences, but the drum programming definitely bears some traces of electronic music as well. What artists in that realm inspire you?
MG: When the band started I was getting into drum and bass. I asked local celebrity and good friend of the pod DJ Denim Dill (now DJ Wholesale Club –ed) about DnB, introducing me to artists like LTJ Bukem and Roni Size. Around the time of this discovery, I was listening to my pals’ great electronic music as well (shout out Bronze Vases, Mercet, Bas Relief, Sander777). This helped me realize I had always loved fun electronic shit: “Rubber Johnny” by Aphex Twin, glitchy Tera Melos, the defeated sound of a Microkorg in early 2000s indie rock and screamo music. Marrying these ideas with the electronic and hip hop production of the early aughts (shout out Michelle Branch, Shakira, Nelly Furtado, Dido, Christina Aguilera, etc), funny shit like “Sandstorm” by Darude and “Better Off Alone” by Alice Deejay, and the rock of Third Eye Blind is essentially how we got to the KB sound. I’m also very inspired by electronic-inspired and adjacent modern stuff like Spirit of the Beehive, Hovvdy, Couplet, Postal Service, etc.
TN: When Mateo came up with the beat for the first song we ever wrote together I was so shocked in the very best way at how it reinterpreted my perception of the music from indie to electronic fusion whatever the hell it is. It made me smile a lot, and I loved how unusual it felt for me.
AP: How do you recreate these dense productions live, and do the songs change at all onstage versus in the computer?
MG: The live versions are mostly different arrangements with limited instrumentation in comparison to the recordings. Shout out to our best pal Hannah Foxman who holds down guitar and harmony duties live. We play along to backing tracks that have all the beats and percussion elements as well as bass, then Hannah and I play guitar, letting Tommy focus on just singing. We also try to do funny transitions live sometimes. Shout out my ancient Yamaha keyboard for having the sickest instrumentals.
AP: What does the city of Boston mean to this band?
TN: I have lived here since i was 17 or 18, so i feel like I grew up a second time here since my entire 20’s were spent here. Bostonians are a funny mix of feeling very “loner-y” and secluded, but also very tight knit, it’s like everybody gets how much it sucks to go out and how being a shut-in is natural, but if a friend is playing a gig, or a band you stand for is playing, or something important for the community needs to be done, no matter how much it sucks to get there or how awful the weather is, people say “fuck it” and endure to support.
MG: I have also been here for the better part of 14 years or so. The people, the place itself, have shaped who I am so much. I love it, and can’t imagine living anywhere else.
AP: What’s next for Kind Being?
MG: Some gigs, maybe more new songs when we get around to it. It’s a very fluid and flexible project. The world is burning, so we’ll see how that pans out and do what we can.
This Ground Is Made of Understanding is out now, you can grab a copy right here. The record release show is Friday, March 13th at The Cantab Underground in Central Square.