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One-woman band Kawehi has been blowing up across cyberspace ever since she posted a video of her cover of Nirvana’s song “Heart-Shaped Box.” So far, it’s racked up more than 740,000 views.
This extremely talented Oahu-born musician, who is now based in Kansas, has been showered with glowing reviews. Courtney Love raved about her Nirvana cover, commenting, “This is genius,” on Twitter, and after Kawehi posted her version of Michael Jackson’s “The Way You Make Me Feel” – with more than three million views – rapper Diddy featured it on his Facebook page, proclaiming, “She’s dope!”
Esquire magazine praised her cover of Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees,” declaring, “It will have you mesmerized.” And Elle hailed her as a “genius one-woman band.”
On YouTube, she’s posted covers of tunes by Nine Inch Nails (a brilliant “Closer” with 719,000 views), Gotye, Sia, Ellie Goulding and Britney Spears (an amazing “Criminal” with 453,000 views).
Last month, she uploaded a cover of Garbage’s “I’m Only Happy When it Rains,” prompting the band to rave on Facebook – “Thank you to the lovely Kawehi for this stunning cover of our song. You gave us the chills girl.”
“Most of the covers are part of my Kickstarter projects, which fund all my works,” Kawehi explains. “One of the incentives is I’ll cover any song you want. I get a lot of really interesting requests, a wide range of different types of music. One of my fans wanted me to do a Nirvana song, and I ended up doing ‘Heart-Shaped Box.’ I’ve always been a huge fan.”
So what was it like hearing Love was impressed?
“It’s crazy, it felt great,” she says. “I did the Garbage cover and they reached out to me. It feels really incredible to hear the creators enjoyed it, and not, this sucks. I always have this fear they’re going to be, ‘Why, why would you do it?’ I always come up with a different angle because it would be pretty stupid to do them the same way.
‘Heart-Shaped Box’ really opened up everything, and after that went viral, everyone went through all of my videos. It’s crazy to have a video that has that many views.”
Before she developed into a phenomenal one-woman band, Kawehi lived for a while on the Big Island and migrated to Los Angeles as a 19-year-old musician.
“I lived in Los Angeles for 10 years and did the band thing and then the solo chick with a guitar thing,” she says. “After that, I felt like I wasn’t getting any better and wasn’t learning anything new. I’ve always wanted to try looping. It was something I had seen when I first moved out to Los Angeles.”
Looping refers to the practice of repeating a small section of sound that can be seamlessly repeated throughout a song. In the early 1990s, dedicated digital devices were invented for use in live looping, where loops are recorded in front of a live audience. Employing looping technology, Kawehi has created richly textured, rhythmically intricate recordings.
“It’s really difficult,” she explains. “Essentially, I’m a one-woman band. I don’t have a band behind me to create every single sound that you would hear from a band. I’m not a good drummer and I picked up beat boxing, which I thought would be fun to do. And I use keyboards and electric guitar and ukulele, any instrument that will make a noise to create a band piece by piece, layer by layer. I will take a song and rip it apart and rebuild it from scratch.”
Watching her videos shot at her home, it’s kind of mind-blowing to see how she builds songs live, creating layer upon layer of sound.
“It keeps me on my toes,” she reports. “I’ve learned so much playing different instruments and come up with different sounds. It is hours and hours, days and weeks, tons and tons of practice. I found out that I sucked at timing. I didn’t know until I started looping. It really makes you a better musician.”
So it’s one thing to create in the comfort of her home with her pet dog at her feet, but what’s it like in front of an audience?
“It’s terrifying,” she says. “It’s scary as hell. When you’re by yourself, everything is up to you, it’s all on you. Sometimes I’ve started a song and started a loop and a minute and a half in, I realize it’s terribly off. I hope you guys liked that, because it’s going to start again, and the second time around it’s going to be better. It’s great that the crowd gets to see something created in front of them. I would just be at home creating all these different songs and sounds, so it’s great to share it with them.”
Completely independent of the music industry, Kawehi has built her career as a contemporary DIY artist entirely through the global reach of the Internet. With a significant YouTube presence, she’s funded her recordings through crowd-funding.
“I’ve had eight projects, and seven have been successful,” she notes. “The first one was a complete failure. I went in thinking I didn’t need a fan base, I didn’t need to do research, and it was terrible. It lit a fire and I went back to the drawing board. YouTube is a big deal, and video reaches everyone across the world. Having the Internet and Kickstarter, you can really be a DIY grass-roots musician, and do everything yourself that a label would do.”
Kawehi’s most recent crowd-funded recordings include the EP “Robot Heart,” and her current project in development, “Interaktiv,” which she calls her most collaborative EP to date. On her funding page, she posted, “You, the backer, has a say on everything. And by everything, I mean everything. The story will be ours to tell. You’re not only the supporter – you’re the creator.”
“Interaktiv” was just funded by 943 backers pledging $50,000. It’s a brilliant concept to completely dissolve barriers between an artist and their audience.
“We’re all vibing off each other,” she explains. “We’ve been having discussions about what kind of songs they like, what kind of messages, what type of music. It’s a huge interactive web. We already finished one song doing it as a collective, having a dialogue between supporter and creator. Ultimately, I am the creator and I have the say in the end, but it doesn’t mean that by people supporting the project they don’t have an opinion and can voice it throughout the journey. It’s really great to get them involved.”
*****
Violinist Andrea Walls, who plays with the band Soul Kitchen, severely injured her hand in April, preventing her from playing violin and making a living. A benefit concert will be held for her at 6:30 p.m. Friday at Mulligans On the Blue in Wailea.
Classically trained, Walls’ repertoire extends from classical music to jazz and fusion, along with Gypsy, Indian and Middle Eastern tunes.
This special concert features Soul Kitchen and soul rock band Scarlet Roads from Hollywood, Calif. Funds raised will help her cover medical costs and living expenses. A funding site has been set up at www.gofundme.com/Andrea
Medical. Admission is $10 at the door. Call Mulligans for reservations at 874-1131.
*****
A bunch of rising talent was on display Saturday night at Seabury Hall for the “Roots and Blooms” benefit show, which featured a spectrum of young creativity packed into 27 individual performances. There was classical and pop music, country, a cappella and Broadway, modern dance and ballet, and even experimental film.
Highlights abounded, but those deserving special attention include pianist Milo Turner pulling off a flawless performance of Rachmaninoff’s famous composition “Prelude in C minor Op. 3. No. 2” from memory; the soulful duo of Ruby Turner and Duncan Harrison interpreting Hozier’s “Cherry Wine” about an abusive relationship; Alexis Smith, Kaimana Neil and Rolando Berdal teaming for an impressive medley of Coldplay’s “Magic” and Miley Cyrus’ “Adore You”; a Fairy Godmother solo ballet from “Cinderella” by Ashley Krost; and a terrific rendering of the Cinematic Orchestra’s “To Build a Home,” sung by Neil (plus piano by Molly Schad), blended with a powerful, dramatic dance routine by Tatiana Ringsby and Kela Rothstein, who arranged their own choreography.
And finally, who could forget the short film “Existence” by Justin Ringsby and Sancia Nash, which managed to blend clips of Nazis, the Vietnam War, racing industrialization, and John Lennon and Yoko Ono protesting in a wild dream sequence set to a Pink Floyd soundtrack.