By 
Kid Astronaut has been a busy man, recently dropping an album that our reviewer praised quite highly — I wanted to know more about what makes this familiar face in the Denver music scene tick, and what he has been diving into as far as his philosophy and beliefs. So, I met him at the Whittier Cafe and decided to have an earnest conversation about life on a sunny winter afternoon.
Anthony Cross:
Kid Astronaut, tell me about this last year — a new album, starting a new decade, the colorado music scene — everything.
Kid Astronaut:
It was really hard. Honestly, I really got into like a lot of personal relationship drama and kinda had to separate myself from people that I grew up with — I have this thing where I’m like: “I’m gonna hold it down and stay with people,” but sometimes, you got to let go — that was the biggest lesson of 2019 — just being able to let go, and trusting that everything will work out.
AC:
At a certain point was it one of those cases of hitting a certain level of notoriety? Or was it just more personal growth?
KA:
I would say maybe a little bit of both, to be honest. In reflection, I think there are people that aren’t going [down] my same path and I have to recognize that. And then I think not so much the notoriety, but just the personal dynamics and being really focused on me and my art.
AC:
What you’re saying is that it is more work ethic related right?
KA:
I really want to dive in and just be my best self you know — there you go.
AC:
The only way you do that is by cutting out any distractions — anything that doesn’t have any use for you. . .
KA:
It was hard. It was hard.
AC:
Yeah — And you have kids as well, right?
KA:
Yeah, I got two boys. That’s been crazy too, just co-parenting and I was in polyamorous relationships and had boys from those relationships — those kinds of relationships aren’t the dynamic that I want to be in continuing forward. I really want to be in a committed, healthy partnership with one person.
AC:
That’s a huge amount of personal growth and discovery for yourself, do you feel like a completely different person?
KA:
I am a completely different person now. The person I was at that point is not who I am now.
AC:
How do you find that? Balancing time for your art, with time with your kids, and then also work and everything else that goes into that?
KA:
Luckily, I’ve had a lot of support. I’m 29 and I still have a lot of life and a lot of goals ahead of me and I think I actually turned up on my goals this year. When I had my sons, my goal was that I wanted to be my best self and commit to the impossible. And, to me, that meant that I don’t want anything to stop me and I don’t want anyone to say, “you can’t do that,” because of whatever. And I wanted to show my sons that they have that option as well.
AC:
That’s interesting because you don’t look at having kids and raising a kid as an obstacle to your art, you’re integrating that into it, right?
KA:
Definitely. I think I’m an artist at my core and I think that’s also a part of my purpose here on Earth. So much of it hasn’t been the kids, it’s been just the forces trying to push me down and work against me that have been the obstacles.
AC:
Are you making enough to make a living or is it still working other jobs?
KA:
I’ve worked other jobs. My manager recently bought us plane tickets to New York and LA. So, I’ve had a lot of support because I definitely did not have the money to pay for those trips. I’ve just lived a blessed life and I try to just be a good person at the core of things. I have a lot of people who see my heart and want to support me. And every artist that I know, or every artist that inspires me, has gone through these really difficult, challenging moments that really define who they are — and I think this has just been my year.
AC:
So, do you look back on an album that you created before these intense moments of growth and see it as outdated or do you just see it as a marker for something that you once were?
KA:
That’s kind of hard to say, I think with Alchemy, it is an album so specifically for the moment, whereas Full Moon — that was more like, “I’m just living my life and making music,” and kind of creating out of these situations. But Alchemy was very intentional — I didn’t really have anyone to talk to on the more level-to-level personal stuff. I think also just losing those childhood friends that were kind of attached to the situation —
AC:
You just shed them?
KA:
Yes, I had to, yes — because I don’t want to keep harping on the pain, you know? And I want to turn into something better.
AC:
Does that play into this idea of you trying to take more frequent trips outside of Denver? I know there was a brief moment where you were wanting to move to London. Tell me about what happened there?
KA:
I went out to London. It was great. I have some family out there, so it was good to spend a lot of time with them. But it was a lot like New York. And I was expecting — I don’t know — like, Harry Potter? It just wasn’t that. It was very compact — maybe I could live in the UK countryside. Or Paris, I was really inspired by Paris.
AC:
How long did you spend there?
KA:
I was there pretty much for the whole month of April. I needed that trip to get out of town and I was just going through ending one of the relationships that I was in with one of my son’s moms — it was a transitional period. This year has definitely been one long transition. I think I do have to acknowledge the situation that I put myself into, even though I was very genuinely in love with both women and we had kids that I love. It also has come with challenges — I’ve had to step up to the plate in a different way than before I had boys.
AC:
I mean, there’s a certain level of recognizing the ‘you’ of before, and recognizing where you’re going — and if anybody doesn’t fit in that plan whether they are relationships or people in your life; that’s not necessarily a bad thing — because you’d be doing them a disservice by sticking around. You’d be a problem to them just as much as they are a problem to you.
KA:
The way you put that just now was so, like, it’s the most simple thing but —
AC:
It is and it isn’t though, right? It is the most simple thing when you think of it logically but it’s not always that easy. Yeah, there’s a part of you that still wants, but as you grow that can change — So, tell me, since you dropped the album, which was only two months ago, what has happened since then?
KA:
I’m very intentional. I’ve always been an intentional person and I don’t do anything without considering it first. So when I was writing this album, I wanted to be honest. I wanted to talk about the changes — it’s my most personal project for sure. We ended the EP with The Alchemist, which was like a prayer. Because I feel personally, I was doing Tarot and studying spirituality. And that’s kind of led me more into, I wouldn’t say Christianity, but just like a more faith-based lifestyle.
AC:
So, it’s sort of Christianity adjacent?
KA:
I don’t like dogma, and I don’t ever want to be the person who says: “I’m gonna hate this person because the Bible told me to.”
AC:
Or because they don’t believe in my God —
KA:
I want to be accepting and open, but also follow what feels right to my faith.
AC:
It’s very personal for you —
KA:
As it should be. I would always consider myself spiritual but now I would say the reason why Christianity and Jesus, specifically, has been impacting this chapter of my life is because I was dealing with a lot of anger and a lot of frustration and rage over things that I couldn’t really control — I’m still kind of having a hard time with the whole “believing in a deity” thing but I do love the idea that there is someone who’s not only died for your sin, but also died so that you can live a life of peace. If you have this battle that you can’t overcome, there is a God that will take that for you. That was the biggest thing for me because I honestly didn’t know what to do — I would do yoga but I was still feeling anger and it was not something that I could handle on my own.
AC:
Do you find maybe that also one of the factors in this is a sense of community?
KA:
Oh definitely — that’s so huge, also the character of the people that I’m around in church, I discovered just based on my own personality I was a lot more open to whatever — but now it just feels like we’re working towards this mission of not only serving God, but also serving others, and it just always what I wanted in my heart. But I was never able to find the community that could really tap into that, like everyone’s like, “I want to serve others,” but when it came down to the brass tacks it was like “I’m kind of just for myself,” you know?
AC:
Do you think that altruism, true selflessness, at its core exists?
KA:
I mean — I would like to say that I am hoping to get closer to that. It’s a goal to strive towards. What I’ve learned through faith, I would say [is that] Jesus is the only person that’s really been altruistic.
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AC:
So it stands that if they’ve achieved true altruism then they’re enlightened probably?
KA:
Yeah, exactly. Through this process — talking to my church people and giving my testimony of like, “Yeah, I was into Tarot — I was polyamorous — I have two boys from two separate women like — I’m not perfect.”
I don’t want to be either, but it’s also been really cool because they’ve also told me their stories of that too like “Oh yeah, I was dealing drugs.”
AC:
Sounds like a tight-knit community —
KA:
It’s nice because it feels like I don’t have to change my past and I don’t have to be ashamed of where I come from.
AC:
So what’s next for you?
KA:
I’ve been studying math and engineering — know science, physics —
AC:
Say what now?
KA:
Yeah! Kid Astronaut is a real thing to me where I have this whole timeline of Kid Astronaut coming from the future and landing in this dimension and into this reality. I had spaceships and all this kind of imagery in the album. Yeah, but now, in this new reality, in this new timeline, and this new dimension, I have to build all that stuff because I forgot all of it. The idea is that Kid Astronaut and his team . . . we build tech.
Anthony Cross:
That’s amazing —
Kid Astronaut:
That is something that I’m really interested in. I was horrible at math—I’m a lot better now. I just have dreams of making my own cars, and I think flying cars are not in the market yet, and I really want to step into the realm of what hasn’t been built and what would innovate the industry. A couple of years ago, people were laughing at the dude who made the Autonomous Vehicle Technology — he was literally laughed at. And now it’s a reality. That is kind of where my brain has been. Like, let me see what people aren’t doing and just try and figure those dynamics out.
