2018 has been a big year for Kobra and the Lotus so far, with the highly-anticipated Prevail II completing their double album series and kicking off a North American tour in support of the release. When the band came through the East Coast and made a stop at The Kingsland in Brooklyn, NY, I sat down with Kobra Paige before the show to discuss what’s behind the Prevail I and II records and the band’s latest unique music videos, as well as Kobra’s background as a lyricist and musician, digging into what it is that motivates her in studio and on the road. 

Just to start things off, you recently released the completion of your Prevail series, Prevail I and Prevail II, just a couple of weeks ago. What made you set out to do the double album series in the first place?

It was actually a cast away idea my father had, he said, “You guys should do a double album, I was just hearing Bruce Dickinson talking on a podcast about how your generation doesn’t do it anymore, so why don’t you guys?”, and I really rejected it hard immediately…but then after five days, I wanted to do it, and I asked the guys and everyone jumped in. So here we are, with the double album finally released for everyone to hear as one piece. 

And I heard that it was actually all one body of work that you created a couple of years ago at this point, so did the fact that it was all there already build a lot of anticipation for you guys when you were stretching it out over all this time for the two records?

I mean, I know it did for me, I couldn’t wait for the second record to be out, and I couldn’t wait for us to play the new songs that I knew we had. I was dying to just refresh the setlist, period. So it was wonderful to finally have Prevail II out. I did find it hard to sit on our material for that long, but at the same time, I’m very grateful that it happened that way, and it was very smart that Napalm had suggested that. Because it would have been a lot of great work that we had worked so hard on lost in the shuffle of a big body.

Right, so spreading it out had everyone appreciating it a little more is what you’re saying. 

Definitely, definitely. People are really vibing with Prevail I or Prevail II more than the other in some ways, they’re finding their songs that speak to them the most, and I think that that also has been aided by them being separately released, so that they can digest the first one, and now the second one is there for them to have space with. 

Nice. I want to dig into the songs a little bit, one that was a great and very unique music video, I thought, was “Let Me Love You” – you had that Anime music video thing going on, so where did that whole concept come from, why’d you guys decide to do that?

Well, Japan always gets a special track, or a bonus, and there’s no way around it in the industry, so I thought, “Let’s do it in Japanese as a bonus”. The video just turned into something that was a really fun idea, and also a way for us to share it with the rest of the world, because the bonus track for Japan will never be on an album for sale in any other country but Japan. So people that do want that single are going to have to import someone selling their album off of Kijiji or eBay or whatever, which sometimes they do, but this video provides the opportunity for people to actually hear it everywhere without taking away the special aspect that we were trying to give to Japan.

Do you actually speak Japanese, or did you learn just for the song?

Neither, actually, I worked with a coach for around a month specifically for this song, a Japanese woman, and she was amazing because we had to rewrite the song so that it made sense for people in Japanese. It still doesn’t flow quite normal, I’ve heard, even from her, but she finds it interesting because you can hear that I’m not Japanese. So the most important thing was that the words made sense, and that they were still beautiful and convey the right message. So we worked really hard on that and I worked really hard on making sure I pronounced it as best as I could. We did several Skypeing sessions for weeks, I was very diligent about it, and when we did record the track, I had her on Skype in the booth with me for six hours. So we stopped, we did several takes of the song and we stopped after every like, half line, making sure it was making sense, that everything was right, then going through it as a full line, making sure there were pieces that were right…yeah.

Sounds like a really intense recording session there! 

It was very tedious, but it was well worth it. 

Now, is that along the lines of how you do typically record vocals, that stop-and-start, or do you prefer to just go in and streamline it, how does it usually work with you?

It really varies, actually. Sometimes I’ll do four takes only and that’s all I’ve got – songs like “My Immortal”, basically I just did four takes and we just cut from that stuff. It puts a little bit of mental pressure on you too, if you know that there’s four and you’re not going to do any more on that during that day. Of course you can come back, but we usually don’t, and I appreciate having a producer for the very reason that they are objectively telling me, “No, we really got it”, because sometimes I won’t know myself. I could keep going and beating a thing to death, when it really is there, I got something that is presentable enough and representing me. 

Something else I thought was very unique for you guys to be doing was your cover of “The Chain”. I love the video, it’s also a little out of the ordinary for Kobra and the Lotus, but very cool. 

Thank you!

So why that song? What does that song mean for you guys to have covered that, and how did you approach putting your own unique twist and spin on it?

Well, “The Chain” was picked by me, I’m massively in love with Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, and I wanted to have a really fun and strong closer for the Prevail II chapter, and something that unified both albums together, just ended on a note of unity and oneness. That was very, very important to me with the messages that I was conveying on both albums, and in music in general, with this band. Martin Wolff knew that we wanted to do this, he’s a Danish songwriter that we were in the studio working with, so he really worked the ideas around musically changing it, and he made a different riff. And that was it, we had that and Jasio recorded that, then I went and basically just cut up the shit out of it with Pro Tools in my kitchen in Denmark, and made this crazy-ass little blip that was just like a song you couldn’t recognize “The Chain” from, and Jacob thought it was nuts. He thought it made no sense to his brain at all and he said, “This makes no sense, blah blah” and I’m like, “Just record it, it’s going to make sense as soon as we do this and you see how the layers are actually going to come together”. It’s pretty much like there was dough, and I came back with a decorated pizza with candy, popcorn, and he was like “What the hell?” and I’m really happy that we stuck to it. And Napalm ended up loving it, so they suggested we do a video, so I thought the synopsis would be really cool if it was very, very natural, the guys were dressed in their natural state, like how you’d find them on the street any day, and just a big feeling of community and bringing it back to what the true nature of the music is about. 

So now, of course, you’ve been on tour with Texas Hippie Coalition, which track from Prevail II would you say you’re having the most fun with bringing from studio to stage?

I think everyone is really vibing with “Velvet Roses”, actually. And we’ve noticed that it really does get people going in places, which is really cool because it’s the next video. 

Ah, good to know! Nice little preview there. 

*laughs* Yeah, little tidbit. So that should be pretty fun to see how people respond to that. But otherwise, yesterday we heard people at the top of their lungs singing “Let Me Love You” and “Light Me Up”, which was really cool.

Awesome, and it’ll be cool to see what people vibe with tonight as well.

It will, it certainly will. Actually, a girl came yesterday dressed in my outfit from the “You Don’t Know” video, so it’s been pretty interesting, people have different stuff that speaks to them. 

Yeah, definitely. And in terms of things speaking to people, I think from the lyrics point of view, you’re very proficient in expressing stories and emotions and things like that. There always seems to be a message of some kind that comes across. So I’m curious, before you were doing Kobra and the Lotus and being a professional musician signed to a label, were you always writing stories and lyrics, or is that something that developed for you over this time?

I guess when I was younger, I would write short stories…but not really. I was into musical theater, but I think the most relational thing to this feeling that I have in music, for me specifically, is that I was just involved with a lot of volunteer work of different kinds when I was growing up. Just getting involved with different communities and seeing what their walks of life were, my parents also exposed us to a lot of new cultures that didn’t have what we had in our first world culture, and that was very impactful on me. So that is really the reason that I’m in music now, because I think it’s something that is really necessary for connecting people in a separated world. That’s the strongest purpose I find within this. Everyone has their own thing, but mine is definitely how it connects people together. 

And I think that shows, it comes through clearly. Also, during the recording process for the albums, I think especially for Prevail II more so, you were blogging during the process…so how was that for you to be opening up and showing people that inside look? 

I mean, it’s great. I wish we had time to do more, it actually was a ton of work, so we couldn’t keep up with it. We have a ton of GoPro footage that will never see the light of day, but I think it’s great, I wish that we could show people more, I wish we could actually show them what the road is like, and just see what it takes to even get here, where we are at this point. Just to see the lives and the work and everything, it’s just interesting. I am all for authentic experiences, as much as possible, so I am definitely the opposite of the artist just trying to make things look cool when I just want them to be seen for what they are. *laughs*

That’s great though – genuine, I like that. And fans like that too.

It is, and I’m not sure, but it makes me happy. *laughs*

And speaking of getting a look into life on tour, I know you have to be getting ready to go in there soon, so I will wrap things up now by just asking you your thoughts on the show tonight and just an outlook into the near future of Kobra and the Lotus. 

Well, I’m really excited. We’re in Brooklyn, New York, I think it should be a really good show. It’s really tight and hot in there in the Kingsland, so I think it’s going to be pretty packed, pretty warm, and make for a really fun time. And I expect to see a lot of familiar faces, we’ve always had a good time in the New York area, yesterday at Dingbatz in Jersey was really great, and probably one of the strongest crowds we’ve seen on the tour so far, so I expect it to be similar tonight. It’s going to be really fun. We’re still working on tours because we have a lot of promoting to do for this new album, Prevail II, and we are definitely looking at plans for a sixth album to start on.

Wow, already in the works.

Definitely! We’re young, there’s a lot of ideas floating around, everyone’s got a lot of energy, I think it’s time to just harness and take advantage of it while we can.

Awesome, and sounds like a plan. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with me. 

Thank you for having me.

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You can keep up with the latest on Kobra and the Lotus via: http://kobraandthelotus.com.