Breakout star looks to find his own soul
For Vincent Fenton — better known as FKJ, or French Kiwi Juice — music is all about the groove.
“I always loved to groove,” he says. “It keeps following me, the groove.”
It’s that groove that put FKJ on the lips of tastemakers, landing him a spot on the coveted Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival lineup in Indio (Riverside County) this weekend and garnering him a strong and growing international fan base.
But while he’s toured all over Europe and the United States, Fenton particularly loves San Francisco, crediting the city for rich creative inspiration and some of his favorite crowds in the world. He’s excited to re-
turn on Friday, April 14, for a headlining show at the Warfield, sharing the bill with DJ Dials, ahead of his Coachella debut.
“San Francisco is probably one of the top three cities in the world for me to play — one of the best crowds and best fun days I have are in S.F.,” he says, crediting his success to a shared appreciation for smooth beats and rhythms between himself and his audience.
His California appearances are in support of his debut album, the 12-track “French Kiwi Juice” released last month, which was made through what he described as a personal and emotionally cathartic process. “These are the songs I’ve made that mean the most to me,” he says.
Fenton plans to play popular singles from the album like “Go Back Home” and “Skyline,” but mix in memorable tracks from his SoundCloud days, back when he was first starting out as FKJ.
FKJ is the product of Fenton’s lifelong love for music, rooted in his family and his early teenage years, when he discovered his parents’ record collection and picked up his first guitar. Even his chosen pseudonym, French Kiwi Juice, is a nod to his French and New Zealand heritage (”Kiwi” being a nickname for New Zealanders).
He’s typically billed as an electronic or French House act — that particular genre is even his label’s MO — but when it comes to his creative process or writing new music, he doesn’t limit himself to a single type of sound.
“I’m doing it right now, on tour, and finding new sounds,” he says, in reference to his experimentative work style. “Really, it’s all just transference, like a mix between the stuff I learned before and heavier production technique now.”
This approach seems to have struck a chord with crowds. Fenton’s rise was sudden, a total breakout in almost every definition of the word. He guesses he’s played as FKJ for three or four years now; in that time, he signed with the Parisbased Roche Musique at the behest of a friend and within six months was a full-time musician.
But even while he heads to one of the more popular music festivals in the world, the 27year-old producer is extremely self-aware that he’s only just starting off on his musical journey; he has no plans to stop.
“I don’t want to be like, ‘I know enough musicology’ and only work with what I know,” he says. “I want to learn more by listening to more music, getting inspiration wherever.
“My goal is to get as close as I can to my own soul,” he continues, “... to learn more, but make something completely unique.”