Sharp Pins: Pop Outtasight!

So you've heard the news that it's a mod mod world, but have you heard it's also the year of Sharp Pins? The latest pop sensations direct from Chicago's youth scene. Things have been moving fast for Kai Slater's brainchild from the teenage bedroom daydreams to a full-fledged rock 'n' roll happening. With the latest LP Balloon Balloon Balloon, Slater delivers 21 technicolor blasts of pop reverie that sounds like a transistor radio cutting across decades. You get a mod snap that brings to mind The Action and Thirteen ("I Don't Have The Heart," “(In A While) You'll Be Mine”) and a burst of psychedelic pop awakenings reminiscent of July and Faine Jade ("Popafangout," "Stop to Say Hello"), all stitched together with Slater's jingle-jangle wits and pop-art collage spirit. A reminder that rock 'n' roll belongs to the true believers bold enough to make it their own. It's fab, it's now, it's youth revolution on wax. Don't call this guitar music. Sharp Pins aren't just another footnote in the scene. They're one of the few pushing the whole thing forward. Right now and not later.

Hot Sounds: Last time we talked, Radio DDR had just come out only on cassette and Sharp Pins was mostly still a recording project for you. Now you have a consistent live trio with bassist Joe Glass and drummer Peter Cimbalo (Alga) who also accompany you on some recordings from time to time. How did you meet those guys and how has it been reshaping your music out live as Thee Sharp Pins?

Kai Slater: It's mostly remained the same, Sharp Pins is still at its core a recording project and essentially — my stage name — but having the live outlet of Thee Trio has been great as a songwriting catalyst and a way to get my kicks out. Joe Glass and Peter Gemstone are great cats and can play pop like no others.

HS: The Hard Quartet tour earlier this year seemed like a moment where the trio version really tested its live chemistry. What lessons did you take away from that run?  

KS: Well we were playing to a lot of old heads who tend to stand still and stare at you without much reaction — so we really had to give it to 'em kick out the jams, you could say. Just to get some reaction — when you're doing that you grow a lot of unity as a band. You have to convince a lot of people of the songs every night. Every show I did the splits and Peter did the twirls and Joe gave them some tude. Besides that though The Hard Quartet guys are downright gentlemen and treated us right. Great group that is. 

HS: For readers unfamiliar, how exactly did the Sharp Pins moniker come to be and for the die-hards, what are some fun super statistics about yourself?

KS: I just wanted my fanbase to be called PINHEADS I guess. I don't know really, it just seemed like a punk rock name to have. I wear size 9 Florsheim boots, I've got roughly #2C1608 colored hair and eyes, I drive a 2-stroke 1980 Vespa P125X, I've broken my foot two times in the last 14 months, I was born with a big bump on my head but it's gone now — it turned into songs.

HS: What can you tell me about how the 21 toons from your new album Balloon Balloon Balloon came together and what insight can you share about when/how the album was recorded at both your home in Chicago and the Mobile Control in Olympia? 

KS: I got back into a very ritualistic recording process on this record of just filling up cassettes of songs every day, usually at a certain time in the day when my brain was the most hyperactive. I started doing that during Covid and I hadn't done it in a while but wanted to have a more everything-goes rock-n-roll record. We did a few songs live with Thee trio with Hayes Waring at his home studio in Olympia and that was a cool new way to work for the project. I probably wouldn't trust anyone else to engineer my songs.

HS: What's the meaning behind the title Balloon Balloon Balloon? 

KS: Sharp Pins + Balloons = Pop [music], I suppose? My girlfriend came up with it. I thought it was a good bombastic and psychedelic album name which are kind of the two words I would use to describe the record. 

Photo by Grace Bader Conrad

HS: Today you've shared with us the poppy jolt "I Don't Have The Heart." What can you say about how it was recorded and what it was like putting it together alongside Joe and Peter?

KS: I wrote the song with Peter and Joe in mind and had been playing it a lot live so it felt like a natural thing to do it as a trio. We did it on an Otari 8-track reel to reel and all sang around one mic. It's a straightforward rocknroller, I can't think about that sort of thing too hard. It just rocks ya know.

HS: I'd like to ask you about a few of my favorites now on the new record. "Popafangout" is really the perfect opener, ranging in sounds from Faine Jade to Kaleidoscope. What did you envision when piecing it together?

KS: Those are all big influences for sure. This one was an especially Cryan Shames or Gremlins inspired one too. And the end is pure Who Sell Out in my mind. The wah guitar was reintroduced to me by the band July — their first record might be the biggest influence on me recently, it's even better than SF Sorrow. So you can thank that wah guitar for July. As for the song itself the melody came into my mind as I was just walking out the door to go out somewhere. I had to run back inside and write the song. Originally it came to me as a ballad about Bobby Vanga — instead of "Oh popafangout..." it was "Oh Bobby Vanga" — until I realized that wasn't a real person and was kind of a stupid name and I had found a good excuse to instead make a vampiric hook/song title.

HS: "(In a While) You'll Be Mine" has a very British Invasion charm to it and is my favorite Pins song to date. What did you imagine for this one?

KS: I've always wanted to make a song like this from the start of the project but I guess I had mental roadblocks so maybe this song is my ego death or something. Anyway it's very Pebbles and yes — British invasion-inspired, The Who/Smoke/Move, etcetera. With this song and others you can hear how my 4 track was starting to die during the recording of this record. I would be bouncing so many vocal tracks down to 1 track that it would actually overload every other track and warble the shit out of it. I think this song has the most tracks recorded on a Tascam Porta One ever, probably. 

HS: What were you chasing when you approached track 20 "Crown of Thorns"? 

KS: I wanted a good psychedelic comedown song for the record. I think on a lot of songs on this record I let breathe more and this is a good example of that. I was planning on it fading out but it actually worked better just crumbling apart a bit like it does. I did the same with "Stop to Say Hello." I figure both Robyn Hitchcock, Vic Godard, and the Television Personalities were at the back of my mind when I wrote those songs.

HS: Overall, what did you want to do differently on this record compared to Radio DDR? 

KS: Radio DDR is a very focused succinct sunshiney album which was recorded over a very short amount of time and this is a sort of blustering ridiculous tape collage album that I did over a longer period of time in my room. I was a lot happier when I was doing this record. I also had formed the live band when I started this so it's a bit more rocknroll.

Photo by Jolie M-A

HS: Even though it came out last year, a lot of people will likely include Radio DDR on their best of lists for the year due to the wax release on K. What are your thoughts looking back on the making of that record now a year later? 

KS: I wrote it over a much longer time during a year of playing solo shows every week so the recording process was a lot less creative. I restricted myself to a week of recording for it because I knew the songs had been sitting too long to fret over too much. So I think it's a good album with good songs but I feel a bit more connected to/excited about Balloon Balloon Balloon. It felt more like an encapsulation of myself — if that doesn't sound much too naff.

HS: Your debut album Turtle Rock was also given the wax treatment by K this year. How do you see that record now? How have you grown from those recordings? 

KS: That was a really fun record to make and the process was closer to Balloon Balloon Balloon although I hadn't adopted my psychedelic lense quite yet. I made it when I still lived with my mom and I have a lot of good memories of recording it. I would sing into my '60s Sear guitar pickups a lot back then and ate a lot of candy.

HS: Your other group Lifeguard has been getting a lot of attention too with the new record out on Matador. What lessons or inspirations do you take from that group into Sharp Pins and how do you separate the two? Have there been parallels before?

KS: I've been in Lifeguard for like six years or something and have learnt a lot from it, especially having started it at such a young age and with low stakes. They have felt more separate in the past (besides the obvious separation of solo project vs. band) but I feel more open to bringing pop song ideas to that band. The title track of Ripped and Torn was originally written as a Turtle Rock outtake for example.

HS: What's next after Balloon Balloon Balloon?

KS: I think I want to go baroque. Or go Hollywood. I just don't want to get drafted mum. 

HS: Any advice or last words you'd like to share with our readers?

KS: Clothilde, man...what a voice.

Balloon Balloon Balloon is out November 21st on K Records.