KIM ZOMBIK- Singer-songwriter
1) What is your name? Kim Zombik
2) What genre of creative are you?
I am a singing artist, a vocalist. I also have aspirations to be a writer!
3) Where were you born, and where are you living now.?
I was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. I am from the States and moved to Quebec in 2004.
4) Did you take certain programs, training or go to school for your artistic endeavours.? Any mentors?
For my singing, I have taken very little consistent training. I have taken, say, 4 classes with someone and then I wander off. Money gets tight. It was only last autumn when I travelled to India to study Dhrupad, a meditative form of classical Indian music that I actually began any kind of long term and thorough training. We had class nearly every day and were expected to practice a few hours each day as well. It was great! And I continue.
For teaching yoga (my other “trade”) I have taken several teacher trainings and they were pretty great: hard work and deep work. I hope I honour my teachers through my own teaching and my singing.
5) What are the creative mediums that you use/used express yourself.?
Before college, my aim was to illustrate children’s books. I found a lot of inspiration in the drawings of Trina Schart Hyman and Arthur Rackham; I was a fine arts major, since I had been drawing since I was young....but, over time, I chose music.
I had been singing, too, since I was about 10, and when I was 15 or so, I began singing in public. Once I landed in college, I would sing acapella at different events. Benefits, fundraisers, coffee-houses, talent nights... I wasn’t too shy to sing in public, but I was too shy to find and accompanist! And then reggae bands I would go dance to began to ask me to come sit in, and that is how the choice was made: I said YES.
6) How did you get your start in the creative field/medium ?
In my teens, I joined a neighbourhood kids choir. Do you remember “New kids on the Block?” Joey Macintyre? He was in the choir too. He was 6 or 7, and his sister Carol and I were the oldest kids in the group. Once in college, as I mentioned, I hopped into singing a capella at events...
7) Was there a defining moment when you realized that you wanted to follow your creative passion ? When was that and can you briefly describe it?
When I saw the movie “A Star Is Born”, I was star-struck and from then on, I had the sense that music/singing would always be part of my life.
8) Who or what inspires you or influences your work?
Writers Ntozake Shange, Van Morrison, Billie Holiday, Hafiz. My teachers in India: the Gundecha Brothers., Poets Mary Oliver, Jeffrey McDaniels, Sheri D Wilson and Cat Kidd. Tall pine trees, streams and rivers, people on the metro, my own dad.
9) As a Jazz vocalist, who are some of the singers or songs that have influenced your creative life or perhaps your life in general.
I can tell you some of the songs that I need to hear when I feel busted and have little inspiration “Run Away” by Georgia Anne Muldrow, “Jekyll”, by Hiatus Kaiyote. Pretty much anything Mary J Blige. My ex-husband told me once me that when I was listening to a lot of Mary, something serious was about to happen! “Soldier of Love” by Sade. The whole “Carmen sings Monk” album. Betty Carters’ artistry.
10) Why create? What is the purpose for you?
I would say that I create not necessarily ‘out of necessity”, but it does seem to be how I have rolled my whole life. If I couldn’t sing, I might end up a visual artist, a writer, a potter..... Expressing outwardly has been my way of meeting and resolving what goes on inwardly. As a vocalist, I have felt clear that my voice is a sort of channel for all of us. My voice expresses what many of us feel, and in that way, it brings some sort of healing to the world.
11) Do you have a general theme or subject to your work?
I have felt ridiculously self-oriented as an artist. My theme has most often been working out my own kinks and issues in a way that I hope is also global! My new project “Stories I Heard” really is about mining the world of secrets, of hidden stories that make or destroy people. Some of them are my own stories, many are from others....things I heard from ABC about XYZ person, et cetera.
12) Can you tell me a bit about your process? How you go about creating? Are you an early ris- er or do you work late. Do you like to work alone, or in a crowd? How to you find inspiration? Do you write? Meditate?
Most recently, I start my days with the meditative singing that I began to study in India. Kharaj practice grounds me and brings me closer to my heart. When I write lyrics, I can be almost anywhere, but I like being in cafes....nestled into the bustle around me, and writing. I borrowed a great book from a dear friend called “Writing for your Life” which is giving me exercises that I love. So, I write. But the all important next step is bringing what I write to rehearsals with my compadre, bassist Nic Caloia. What I write may not survive, as such, once we start playing with melody, rhythm, and sound textures. Some written pieces find a musical home right away, others go back and forth from music rehearsal to my notebook as they are hashed out.
13) As an artist, what do you find is the biggest struggle? And how do you move through these struggles?
For most of us money is a problem! We need money in order to have time to do our work. Like the singer songwriter Greg Brown sings “Time ain’t money when all you have is time”
When I have blocks, I get really hard-headed and somehow muscle through it with the help of a Hafiz poem, perhaps. But I think I should dance more.
14) Can you tell us about some of your most recent past projects, as well as what you are working on these days and what you have on your future horizons?
The “Stories I Heard” is my big project at this time. Meeting my real father for the first time two years ago inspired it. It was a precious and intense occasion that neither of us thought would ever happen, and he gave me an autobiography he had been working on. What luck that I would happen to meet my real dad who just so happened to have written a little book telling me all the things I would want to know!? So, I had the idea to do something similar, writing autobiographically, but using the medium of music and voice, since we are both singers.
15) What are your dreams for your artistic life or dreams in general?
I hope to continue my training of Dhrupad in Inda and become fully skilled in that style. The full training is something like 5 years, if I understand correctly, so it’ll be awhile before I am any good! For the Stories I Heard project with Nic Caloia, one dream is that the songs we create then can be evolved into a small theatre production.... Like Ana Sokolovic’s Love Song Opera. It was a duet: saxophone and voice, all choreographed and just beautiful!
16) There are always plenty of times in a creative process where we ask ourselves why? why am i doing this? Has there ever been a period in your life where you second guessed why you pursing an artistic career and potentially wanted to stop it all together?
Geez, so much of my life has been a field of second guessing! What does one do? You keep getting up and going on until you get some serious sign to not be doing it. The root of every reason why we create HAS to be that is fulfills our hearts in some way, it transforms us or else why do it?
