Kid Millions, aka John Colpitts ’95, has played with the experimental rock band Oneida for 15 years. His current solo act, Man Forever, incorporates local talent from the locations where he has performances. The Campus had the privilege of speaking with him before he began his weeklong residency at the College, during which he taught classes and worked with student bands. As the culmination of his week at the College, Kid Millions will be giving a performance with students Erik Benepe ’13.5, Joel Feier ’13 and Nick Smaller ’14 Friday evening in the Kevin P. Mahaney ’84 Center for the Arts.
Middlebury Campus (MC):How big of a departure for you was your solo album Pansophical Cataract in comparison to what you’d been doing with Oneida?
Kid Millions (KM): The reason I did something outside of Oneida was because I was asked by a label that’s part of the Secretly Canadian family. That family of record labels puts out Oneida records, and they asked me to do something different. And, yeah, I guess it was a big departure in some ways because it was just me and I called all the shots.
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MC: How did you come up with the name Kid Millions? Did it come from the old movie?
KM: The name came from the movie, but not because I saw it. Our band was touring in Salt Lake City, and I saw a poster somewhere for the movie and was like ‘OK.’ I’d wanted a new name when I was traveling because I felt like I was kind of shy and not outgoing enough. I’d actually named myself different things with other bands, so it just made sense at the time.
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MC: You try to get local talent to accompany your new solo guise Man Forever when you travel. How does this manner of performing differ from having a set band play with you?
KM: With preparation it’s like a whole different game because when you travel with a band you’re basically rehearsing every night. With this, I have to start from scratch every night. I have to see what kind of musicians I get. I usually like to get two hours with them. I try to send scores in advance, but even then they might have different expectations of what I want. It’s very different, but the cool thing is I get to meet so many people — I meet like five or six different people everywhere I go and we get to hang out. That’s one of the biggest positives. For the most part, people are thrilled to do the pieces.
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MC: Is there a certain philosophy that informs your music-making or does it just come about organically?
KM: I’d say there’s a philosophy. The people I’ve worked with tend to be rock and experimental people. They’re not typically conservatory musicians, not used to just getting a score and playing it. People in this world are more about expressing themselves — that’s the assumption they take with them to the stage. What I really wanted to do was to get people to stop expressing themselves because I was really sick of it. I was getting sick of the jamming aspect of live performance, and I wanted the music to be more of just one sound. Of course there’s a lot that goes into it, but the general philosophy for me is to simplify. ... It’s useful if you have facility on some instruments, but it’s not everything. All of that technique is removed, and it’s just about the music, I hope.
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MC: When does your residency officially start and what kind of things will you be doing?
KM: I get [to the College] on Tuesday morning, and I’m going to be working with a couple of classes. One is [Professor of Music] Su Tan’s composition class Music 209 and the other is [Christian A. Johnson Professor of Music] Peter Hamlin’s Electronic Music 212. With Su Tan, I’ll be talking to students about the practical steps and choices that you would want to make to have a career in music. I want to demystify it a little bit. I want to just give people a set of resources and tools to look up and use in order to bridge the gap between academia and life outside of that because it’s hard to really know anything when you’re in school.
When I was at Middlebury it was wonderful. I had these great teachers, but I was really on my own in terms of conceptualizing how to make music part of my life outside of school. It didn’t feel like it was possible. That might have been in my head, but it also felt like there were assumed pathways that my professors were aware of and then there was a whole pathway outside of that that I wasn’t aware of. I want to talk about that so people will be focused on their studies but also know what it would take to be part of a musical community outside of that.
With Peter Hamlin’s class I’m doing a remix project. I’ll be talking to students about that, and I have a few tracks that haven’t been released yet that we’ll work on. Potentially, the artists whose tracks these are might use what we make if they like the remixes.
I’m also doing workshops for bands. That will happen for all the days I’m there. I think the idea is for me to hear students perform and I’ll just talk about it with them — hear what they want to get out of performing and doing music. From there I can give them ways to develop that.
Also, at night I’m working with three Middlebury students to play my music. We’re going to rehearse the music and play a show on Friday night at the school in room 125 in the Center for the Arts. The group that I’m working with will also play in Montreal on Saturday and Burlington on Sunday.
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MC: How does it feel to come back to your alma mater to teach and give a performance?
KM: Well I don’t know yet. I’m excited though. It’s complicated, honestly. I’m nervous because I feel like the caliber of student is going to be really high and I need to address that and hold my own. But no, I’m really excited. Middlebury was a really perfect place for me when I was that age. I was getting my bearings with music. I knew I wanted to get serious about music, but I just didn’t know what kind of place I was going to have with it. I think Middlebury is such a small community that it’s safe enough to explore and figure out your own taste. I’m really curious just to see what things will be like. When I was there, it was hard to find people who were into crazy music like me. I’m curious to see what is compelling to students in college now.
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MC: What can people expect from the performance Friday evening?
KM: Well, I’m not 100 percent sure. It’s going to be something we develop while I’m there. I think it will be something really exciting. I think it will definitely have the hallmarks of American minimalism crossed with say punk. Perhaps even some improvisation within limited boundaries. It should be fun.
Musician Alumn Returns for Residency
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