Dawson’s clique

“You were the guy who rang when I was on the toilet last time?” Kimya Dawson immediately clocks me for the pesky phone interviewer who interrupted her when she was otherwise, ahem, engaged. “I’m older now I’ve better control,” Kimya asserts. “I can hold it now. I’m not a child any more. I’m a lady!”

In addition to writing much of The Moldy Peaches’ kooky classics, Kimya’s burgeoning solo career sees her visit these shores with some other like-minded souls for Anti-Folk nights in Dublin and Cork. She first played with The Moldys supporting The Strokes in summer 2001, a show that seemed to disgust some observers and one which, unsurprisingly, I loved. This year Kimya and friends rocked Whelans. “It was so much fun,” she smiles. “I don’t know how you get your audiences to synchronise like that. We can’t do that here! It was so nice. There was such a positive feeling. Sometimes the audience would be drunk and agrressive but that was the kind of drunken togetherness that we like.

“It’s scarier for me when I don’t have my friends onstage with me,” Kimya says of her solo shows. “It’s a quieter set because my stuff is a lot quieter. It’s always interesting to watch people who don’t know what to expect from me as a solo performer when they are familiar with The Moldy Peaches stuff. I think at first it’s kinda shocking for them. They’re like, ‘Hey, what are doing? Do something weird! Say something gross!’ Then they realise that it is still good music. Just different. It takes people a few seconds to adjust to the difference.”

Kimya relishes the opportunity to be able to play both sides of fence. “I think of it in the same way that it is important to go out and socialise with friends but then it’s time to go home and it’s important to have alone time. It’s a similar thing musically and it’s sort of like my alone time. But it is exciting that I’m doing the tour with so many close friends so I get both sides of it. The performance will be my personal space, but then the rest of the trip will be sleeping on people’s floors with everybody around. It’s a bit like a travelling circus.”