I don’t always agree with the saying, “opposites attract,” but how could you not after watching The Cool Kid’s perform on Saturday night at D-Fest? First, we had Chuck Inglish, wearing a t-shirt, jeans tucked into high top sneakers, “Live 95” hanging down from around his neck, and a Chicago Cubs baseball hat. Then, we had Mikey Rocks, who rapped the whole set with his right sneaker untied, whether or not it was to his knowledge remains a mystery, dressed in a blue polo shirt, cargo shorts, and a Chicago Sox hat. After watching the set, it was nonnegotiable that Mikey and Chuck may have different styles but definitely jive very well together where it counts, and that would be the rap arena. The duo arrived on stage and immediately snatched up the attention of the crowd with lyrics like: “Cool Kids drop it like we put it in the water.”
Prior to the show, Mikey and Chuck took a break to sit down with ChinaShop and we kicked around a few topics such as how they are currently perfecting their 3rd “first” album.
Are you guys excited about playing D-Fest?
Mikey: It’s hot outside.
Chuck: Not too much. I’m not overly excited to do it because you want to be excited about the majority of the shit you do, doing songs and performing.
Have you been doing a lot of festivals?
Mikey: Last year was all festivals. A lot of summertime gigs.
Chuck: We did like 210 to 215 shows last year. This year we probably did like 20 or 30.
Mikey: We’re making music.
Tell me about some of the collaborations that you’ve done so far?
Chuck: The only collaboration that I think recently that we’ve done is Travis Barker and no one knows that yet. For the most part, everything else has been a remix. I don’t know that much about us to be perfectly honest with you. I do it and then people tell me what we did after that.
So is the stuff you did for Travis Barker for your album?
Mikey: No, it’s for his.
Chuck: We went down and did this track and Travis will probably take it and throw his magic on it.
Is there anybody that you guys would like to collaborate with in the future?
Chuck: I never really thought about it.
Mikey: We’re already collaborating with each other so it’s kinda all you need right now. Throwing too many other people in the mix, unless it makes perfect sense… We’re not really looking for that right now.
Chuck: I mean we’ve been collaborating with musicians. For this album, I’m really trying to display a lot of different things…instead of building hip-hop tracks, building music tracks…you know. I’ve worked with some trumpet players, keyboardists, really good musicians. I am going about it the old way. Obviously no one can advance what has happened so far. It seems like hip-hop has taken on a back seat as far as credible music to the rest of the music world. That don’t sit too well to me so I’m just gonna go apeshit and make some crazy shit. It’s not even a hopefully. I know we will have it. I just don’t see vocal collaborations really helping us out.
You have a lot of music that’s been placed in the media: a couple of video games and a song on Entourage. Has that done a lot for your career?
Mikey: Steppin’ Stones…especially when it’s stuff that you’re into. When it’s something that you actually do, you know it makes it a little bit cooler. We have songs on games that we actually play and on shows that we actually watch.
Chuck: Usually they step to us and they’re like, “I like this song, let’s do something with it.” It’s always a cool situation because we made the song not geared towards that and they still want it for that reason.
Tell me about the new album you are working on?
Chuck: We’re working on our first album, our first full length. We’ve hit some bumps in the road, you know whenever you do stuff on your own, it’s a little bit…we’re still trying to iron it out. We’ve made 2 first albums already and sometimes the expiration date on the content in the sound will start progressing and you think that shit is old, so we’ve scraped like two. This one is a little different. I’m not trying to capture a time period. I’m just trying to make stuff that everybody had already liked. Not just from us but sounds that people dance to and instruments that people really groove with.
Tell me about opening for M.I.A.?
Mikey: It was our first tour man. It was exciting. We got to ride on a tour bus for the first time. It was cool man. It was a part of us getting where we are now. It was fun.
Chuck: That tour is kind of a faint memory. I don’t remember too much about it (laughs).
Mikey: I would do it all over again.
Chuck: In life I would do it. I’m not trying to do that shit again now. There was too much of shit you didn’t know that you had to learn. Like you had to learn that you don’t wanna go back to the hotel 30 minutes before you got to leave because you gotta still pack your shit and packing your shit ‘f*cked up is really really bad. It’s probably the least fun thing.
Have you ever forgotten anything packing up under those circumstances?
Mike: Hell yeah! I’ve multiple things. I’ve forgotten shoes, clothes, phones.
Chuck: We did a festival in LA on my 23rd birthday, probably one of the worst nights…best times, but worst after effects of my life. We went to the airport at 7:00 and left the party at 6:00AM and we missed our flight and we were f*cked up on the plane going back to do another show right when we landed. That’s what I learned my lesson that maybe this shit isn’t for me. Maybe I should just go back to my hotel room and go to sleep after this (laughs).
Mikey: But you gotta go through thought it to learn.
They may still be learning the rules of the road, but from what I saw on stage Saturday, combined with the audience’s reaction to their show, and their determination to release a flawless debut album, the Cool Kids may just be what the hip-hop scene has been desperately looking for.
Words by Nicole Pajer, photos by Sidney McMullen
