Q&A: Indie-R&B Artist kerri Embraces Getting Older With New Album ‘Finish What You Started’
☆ BY Shellsea Lomeli ☆
Photo by Philippe Salazar
WHILE SOME OFTEN FIXATE ON THE DOWNSIDES TO GETTING OLDER — Montréal-based artist kerri offers us an alternate, hopeful perspective on the vital process of maturing with his latest and most personal album, Finish What You Started.
As a naturally curious person, at age 13 kerri began dissecting sound in order to pull back the curtain and gain an understanding of how musicians and producers create. At 17, the self-taught artist channeled this knowledge into his own self-produced projects. Now, at 24, kerri has cracked his own code for creating music that properly reflects his authentic self and experiences.
Pulling inspiration from an array of genres, ranging from the nostalgic bedroom beats of Frank Ocean to the early 2000s sounds of electronic producer deadmau5, kerri has developed a sound of his own signature.The otherworldly soundscape, which he lightheartedly labels “astronaut music,” is a particular merging of indie and R&B, delivering a transportive melancholic feeling.
Finish What You Started is a sonic documentation of kerri’s search for what comes next in life with the ultimate understanding that while it’s not a simple thing to achieve, the value of self-growth is immeasurable. Songs such as “I Just Saw a Ghost” and “Ultraviolence” pull you from your LED-lit bedroom, car, or neighborhood street and offer a concealed space to truly feel the complexities of emotions that are often swept under the rug.
Read below to learn more about the making of the album, kerri’s process for navigating a pool of hundreds of beats and dozens of demos, and the coming-of-age film he thinks aligns with his sound.
LUNA: Congrats on the release of Finish What You Started. How are you feeling about it?
KERRI: I'm really excited. It's definitely a huge stepping stone for me. It feels like my first really mature project. I've been releasing projects since I was 17, so this is the first one where I feel like it's really backed by a lot of mature life experiences.
LUNA: What track on the album are you most proud of to share?
KERRI: That is a hard question. Probably “Ultraviolence,” I would say. I feel like it's exactly how I want my music to feel like. There’s a really nice balance between [it being] cinematic while also being … an approachable song at the same time. It feels so grandiose, so evocative.
LUNA: You’ve been making music for a while now. What’s your earliest memory of thinking, “I want to learn how to do this”?
KERRI: Somewhere around when I was nine or 10 was when I started thinking about it, but I didn't end up trying to make music myself until I was probably 13. I had a Foo Fighters CD that I really loved. There was a Nickelback CD that I was putting on all the time too. And then eventually electronic music came more into my view. I got really curious about the idea, thinking, “How are they doing this?” It was the era of deadmau5 and Skrillex and stuff like that. Every time I tell someone this, I feel silly (laughs), but that era of electronic music on YouTube is kind of what led me there.
I would just see it on YouTube and be like, “Whoa, what is that? I want to find out how it was done.” It made sense to me in reverse, and then I would think about how they made music back in the day, like The Beatles. [I’d think] … “Okay, so this is actually how … back in the day, they're making … The Beatles” — the production and then sequencing and all this stuff. And so I just started kind of figuring that out.
LUNA: Are you the type of person who likes to know how other things are made? Besides music?
KERRI: Yeah, I'm a super curious person. I have a very analytical brain sometimes. I find myself googling stuff like, “How does a tree produce oxygen?” Or like food … just anything. Usually I just end up getting really curious and go down a Wikipedia rabbit hole about things.
LUNA: You self-described your work as “astronaut music,” which I think is really cool. Can we go into that a bit? How would you define this? What draws you to this type of moody, reverbed soundscape as an artist?
KERRI: I don't really know. I just think it was this imagery of me or someone floating through space. Like, it doesn't really get much more complicated than that, I guess (laughs). A soundscape like that adds so much character, and I’m really a details guy. The music I really liked when I was younger was the same. I’m constantly drawing back to influences from old UK garage, older rap music, or even older Frank Ocean. A lot of music that hits me tends to have a very aware atmosphere, whether it’s minimal or not. I really like the contrast to when something sounds very minimal then builds to big and dreamy as well.
LUNA: How do you think this new album demonstrates growth, either musically or personally, when compared to your 2018 project release, happy accidents?
KERRI: I think that just listening to both of them says everything. My first project has a place in my heart, for sure. But I just think it sounds like a kid [who] doesn't quite know what he's doing. There's definitely a certain purity in that.
But now I have five or six more years of figuring out what it is I'm doing, what I want to be doing, and how to exist in a space where I can express myself properly. I definitely think that what I'm doing now is more unique to me as a person than back then. You learn more over time, and feelings evolve as you get older. You legitimately just have more life experiences.
LUNA: In a world that prioritizes media that’s fast and easy to consume, did you feel uneasy about putting out a 19-track album? Was there any pressure to cut down?
KERRI: Absolutely, yes. There was a lot of emotional confusion revolving around that. I didn’t feel the pressure to cut it down, but did I feel uneasy? Yes. Because I think it was scary. And I remember I've had so many conversations over the years — even like two, three years ago — with my friends. I would legitimately just ask them, “Would you listen to a 20-track album?” And a lot of them would be like, “No.” And I would be like, “Oh, okay, cool.” But the thing is, I'm just trying to [purely] go off feeling these days, you know. If you think too much, I think you're kind of gonna step on your own toes.
The way that I ended up tracklisting the album was just continuing to listen to it. At one point it was much longer: maybe 50 demos or something, created over two or three years. I would start with one track, then two, and then three, and just kept building. I knew I had like a nice tracklist when I could listen to 19 songs and it felt natural. I didn't feel excruciatingly bored at any point. It was a cohesive thing I had.
LUNA: Is 50 songs a lot for you?
KERRI: I just make a ton of music all the time — every time I'm bored, which is a lot. I just sit around and make a beat on my laptop or something. It’s honestly what I do for fun.
LUNA: Conversation about the tracks: How do you decide which track is going to introduce a project and which track concludes it? Are you creating with this intention of filling those slots, or does the organization happen more naturally?
KERRI: It's different every time. Like for projects… For this one, I didn't plan for those two going into it. When I finished the first song, “Untitled,” I was just like, “This would really be a hard-hitting opener with the themes of the project.”
I think how it ties into the themes of whatever project is important too. And then the last song, maybe halfway through making it, it had this crazy closer feel to it. It felt like a nice send-off. It’s all mostly based on feeling.
LUNA: Speaking of themes, what do you hope people who listen to the album take away from it?
KERRI: If I had to boil down this album into one theme, it would be that trying to do better is worth it. I think that's probably it. There's a very long conversation about what got me into the zone of making this project, but it's largely about motivating yourself to have some self-growth and how it's not this simple process, either. It takes a very long time, just as making the album took a very long time. And the name Finish What You Started is a multi-meaning, self-referential kind of thing to call it. I started the first song about two years ago.That was a time where I was going into therapy for the first time, so it's just kind of about that: self-improvement.
LUNA: If you could open for any artist, whose tour would you want to hop on?
KERRI: Probably EDEN. He's an Irish artist [who] I've always been a pretty big fan of. I’m a bit more R&B but I think we align in a neat way, which is kind of cool.
LUNA: You see your discography as your own coming-of-age film. What’s one of your favorite coming-of-age movies?
KERRI: I would definitely say Lady Bird is a huge one for me. I really like that movie a lot. I think if you took any scenes from Lady Bird and put my music over it, they would just be chef's kiss — it would be perfect.
LUNA: Someone needs to make an edit of Lady Bird with your music.
KERRI: Actually, fun fact, I have done that. But I keep them on my computer (laughs).
