INTERVIEW: KID CUT UP
THE DJ OPENING FOR P!NK AROUND THE WORLD
It’s one thing to DJ in nightclubs; it’s another altogether to play festivals. But what about sets at basketball arenas? What about Wembley Stadium?
I’ve known Kid Cut Up since I was a teenager. Back then, he was a member of a respected local scratch crew and I was a disrespected local rapper who played at punk shows. Even so, he worked with me on my first real EP. We’ve collaborated on music many times since, and I’ve seen him grow from a Midwest indie rap staple into an accomplished Los Angeles club DJ.
In 2018, Kid Cut Up caught a major break: A single last-minute gig opening for P!nk in Milwaukee led to a roughly 150 show run as her support DJ. It took him around the world and put him on stages that few DJs touch. It even facilitated a tour with Cher in Europe. I’m sorry, but it’s hard not to get all Malcom Gladwell about this shit. Cut Up put in the time to master his craft; when the stars aligned and P!nk needed someone to warm up arenas in America and stadiums in Germany, he was ready.
The DJ is back on tour with P!nk right now. A few weeks ago, we connected over Zoom to talk about his experience on the first go-around. We went deep: This is the longest interview I’ve ever done here, and we didn’t even get into P!nk’s insane, Cirque du Soleil-esque live act.
I've done a lot of support. Obviously not on your level, but I've done smaller support tours, and I don't think I've ever been brought along to pad out ticket sales.
Yeah, exactly. I'm there to corral the kids before game time.
It’s cool to have a skill where you don't have to—I was never really popular, but I would still occasionally get support tours because they knew I was a good warm up.
No, I mean, that's one of the beneficial things with this gig in particular. They saw what I did. They liked what I did. And they said, Hey, come, come join us. It wasn't like, Oh, you think this guy's going to move a lot of tickets, you know? It's just like, keep doing the thing that we just saw you do. That's all we want.
So it was just like one show…
The first show was at Summerfest. I was going there for a Tuesday gig and they called me kind of last minute and I ended up doing the P!nk Show on Saturday, maybe Saturday or Sunday, a couple of days before I was supposed to be out there. So I just changed my flight. I flew in early, did the P!nk show, didn't really think anything of it because I'd opened up for so many people out there and nothing ever came of any of them, whether they went good or bad, right? Like just nothing.
And yeah. They kept in contact with me and they had me do a second show at Tinley Park in Chicago. What I didn't know was that for the Beautiful Trauma tour, that Summerfest date was like one of the first promo dates.
OK.
I was randomly there at the beginning, like the actual beginning—just happened to work out that way. And then when they finally had the tour up and running, one of the last things they did was she sang the National Anthem that year at the Super Bowl in Minneapolis. So they were doing a performance the Friday before the Super Bowl and they had me out to do that one. And when I was there for that, it was fully like, OK, this is on. That was kind of like my confirmation that it was good to go.
Then you did like an absurd amount of shows with her.
It was about 150 shows. Yeah.
Crazy.
We did the US twice and we did Europe and we did New Zealand and Australia.
I mean, what's the learning curve on that? I know you’ve played Summerfest, you played big shows, but this seems like a brand new job.
I imagine you actually would probably have some amount of knowledge of this, but it wasn't even, the main learning curve wasn't on the stage. It was getting to the next stage. It was all the travel stuff, all just the logistics and coordination. And I've never been on a bus tour before. I had never just done all of that stuff. And so most of my learning I felt like was in that realm.
I'm actually glad that the DJing portion was like, oh, I'm good at this already. This I can handle. This will be fine. I was glad that that was kind of taken care of. That way, I could focus on all the other stuff.
You were riding on a bus with crew?
Yeah. I was embedded in with the crew, mostly the backline and wardrobe. And it was great. And all of them were like vets. They were all super knowledgeable. And everybody in that camp was so just nice and welcoming to me. And they don't have to be.
Yeah.
But a lot of them took time to just kind of put me on game on big and little things.
Yeah. I've never toured on that level. I just assume that of course you put in a lot of hours of DJing to get yourself to this place where you're very comfortable wherever it may be. But still, just like you said, the logistics of this scale, there's got to be so many things.
I told someone the other day, I was like, I think I'm more nervous to go out this time for this one because I know what it is. I think last time I was almost protected by my ignorance, where I didn't really understand the scale of what it was that I was jumping into. So, you know, as far as being on stage and having it be so many people and all of those sorts of things, after your first couple thousand, it's mostly the same sort of situation. Like you're not drastically changing what you're doing anymore.
There's definitely a step up between a nightclub gig and then like a stage show performance, you know, 5,000 people instead of a thousand people in a big nightclub or something. There's a level up. But once you get, like, 5,000 people is really similar to 25,000 people. Like, as far as what you're doing on stage and presenting out to people.
I heard a quote. I forget what musician said this, but they said, I love club shows and I love stadium shows, but I hate arena shows.
OK.
I don't even know what the fuck that means.
I wonder why that would have been.
It maybe has to do with the vibe. Or the sonics. I don't know if you found a difference between, like, Wembley Stadium versus some basketball arena.
Yeah, I tell you what, this is again, where I got really lucky the first time out on a tour of this scale. The guys who set up the audio gear were incredible, impressive in their work ethic and just the amount of hours they can put in in a row and then sleep on a bus and then get off the bus the next morning and do it all over again. I was impressed. I don't think I would be cut out for that sort of schedule.
It's full pro, you know, like I think you and I are probably used to more—I'm used to DIY or maybe what they call low-pro or whatever.
There's generally some amount of difference between the locals and then the people that are traveling. And I think part of it comes down to the good ones, the good ones get scooped up and removed from the situation, right? So there's a bit of a talent drain in that way. The first stadium show that I did with them was in Dunedin in New Zealand. After my first set, I went to the front of house guy and I was like, “Hey, do I need to bring the music down lower when I'm on the mic? Can you hear me clearly?” And he was like, “Yeah, that's fine. Just do exactly what you've always done.” I'm on stage thinking it's gonna sound echoey and way different, right? Because it's so much bigger. Those guys had it dialed in and it sounded exactly the same.
The stage sound and front of house sound, they're two different…
Sure, sure. But that's what I'm saying. Like, I was worried that maybe my mic wouldn't be as intelligible and stuff. And whatever they were doing was working because everything was just standard business. You go from like 15 to 20,000 up to like 40 to 50,000 in a stadium, you know—doubles or triples in size. And it was fine. I was surprised and I was really impressed.
These venues too—you did so many basketball arenas in like, kind of like smaller cities in the south and the west.
Yeah, those are the buildings they have.
Yeah, no, for sure. No, but I'm just curious—there's this book I read by the drummer of that band Semisonic. There's like a chapter about him going on some major tour and kind of the joke is that these places just start to blend into each other.
Oh, they do. No, no, they absolutely do. It’s all just concrete walls underneath, like concrete block walls and they all look the same. And a lot of times you're on the bus or you're at a hotel and you go straight to the venue, you walk in the venue, you do the gig, and then you go back out to the bus and then the bus drives to the next city. So you've spent all day in white cinder block rooms, just like you did the day before and the day before and the day before and the hotels blend together, you know? Yeah, it's really easy to have your hotels really start to blend together. But I tell you what, there are a lot of things that are, I mean, travel is travel, right?
Like being away from home is being away from home. There's not that much that I minded that badly. You would do some of the sports arenas and sometimes backstage smelled like a sports arena, right? It's like, that sucks. But like, whatever, I don't know. Every bar I go into smells terrible, you know what I mean?
That environment, it’s almost romantic to me how sterile it is, compared to DIY shit. Like from the hotel to the backstage to the stage, you know?
Look, I felt well taken care of and, you know, no complaints.
And you had access to a decent buffet line…
Catering was fine. Yeah, you know, and I tell you why: I think a lot of it has to do with like, these men and women are doing just a really hard gig. And you got to keep their morale up.
For sure.
If you feed them terrible food, they're just gonna quit on you. And a lot of these people have important jobs as far as safety, right? Everyone's got to be on point and on top of their game, and that requires a decent hotel to sleep in.
Yeah, yeah.
There's a certain amount of like, you get out what you put in. So, yeah, I feel lucky. It was a great group, and I felt like, all things considered, it was fine. And again, travel is travel.
It seems really fun, actually.
Did you find it fun in a DIY sort of sense, or was it stressful and annoying to you most of the time?
I think that sort of changed as I aged. It was fun at first. Well, you know, I think my attitude towards this stuff kind of ebbs and flows. A lot of artists have a very linear trajectory when it comes to their relationship with underground music. They do it for a few years, then either they stop or they level up. I sort of went in and out of it. I would kind of like, you know, bump my eyes up to see the daylight for a second, then I'd go right back down.
Yeah, no, I feel that.
In Europe, that's gotta be like a slightly different situation, too. I mean, I wanna talk about your actual DJing, obviously. But I'm more interested in talking about European hotel accommodations.
This is just a lifestyle blog you're doing. I get it! Yeah.
But no, I'm serious though, touring on that scale in Europe… In America, I have some general idea of what it's like. I'm sure it's not that different in Europe, but you know, things are different. The rooms are different.
Yeah. You got, you could tell I'm packing to go. You got these joints. You got to deal with the little plug adapters and all that. There's always that. Yeah. Things are less air conditioned in Europe. But not in a bad way, just in a maybe more reasonable way.
Sure.
You know, America likes to supersize everything. And we definitely supersize our air conditioning. We want it as cold as possible. A lot of times over in Europe, it's like, it's just not hot.
What European cities went off the hardest?
You know, like you were just saying a minute ago, it blurs together.
You were playing these like, I have a little bit of experience in Germany and you were playing some of these like third-tier German cities, right?
I don't know. Like I wouldn't know what all the rankings are, right? We did big markets and smaller markets and every show was sold out. So it's almost like they were just like spacing them out equidistant so that people wouldn't have to drive further.
Yeah.
So, yeah, for my purposes, I'm just as interested in the small town as the big city. Like I had a really nice time hanging out in Berlin. We actually got a little break and it was really cool to hang out in Berlin and actually get to see the city for a couple of days before we left and stuff. However, in Germany for example, everything is closed on Sundays. Like, everything is closed. So, if Sunday was the day that we got in the city, like if we only get one day and it happened to be a Sunday, it was a little bit of a bummer.
You probably could have hit a rave.
Just a random rave. Yeah, there’s people raving right now.
Yeah, I don't think they ever stop raving in Berlin. Probably could’ve found a techno club. It would have been like five in the afternoon and people would have been on their 40th hour.
Maybe I'm the most boring person to do your lifestyle blog, but I actually didn't go out as far as nightlife stuff a lot on tour.
No, it makes sense.
First of all, we would leave, right? After the gig, we were rolling out. We weren't spending the night and then leaving in the morning. So that keeps everybody out of trouble. Myself included.
That level of touring, there's not much margin for error.
Yo, it's fucking game time. And it wasn't that it was a bad time, but it was time to do serious work. You know what I mean? And for me, I felt lucky to be out there. It was my first time in that sort of situation. But I'm aware it's a bit of a unique situation. It’s not like tons and tons of DJs are getting asked to do these sorts of things.
For sure.
I was just so kind of wide eyed about the whole thing. But it was still game time, it's still time to do work.
Were you switching up your sets every night?
No, not at all. Like not even remotely close.
Yeah.
Because what city wants the B show? Yeah, if I've determined these are the best things for this audience…
For sure.
Why do I want to give somebody else the worst meal?
Was there some R&D early on, though? Or did it take like 10 or 15 shows to kind of lock into like, OK, this is really what works for this crowd?
A little bit. I think I was the right guy for the gig. So there wasn't like a ton of adjustment that had to happen. I would say my sets, over the whole course of the two years, they just evolved as things came up that were better. That stuff stayed and something else had to get kicked out. You know what I mean? So I would try to cycle stuff through, especially the early sets because I would play in between all the opening acts. And I would play stuff in the early set and kind of feel out how that did. And then if it did well, I would try to figure out, how do I incorporate it creatively in the later sets?
I see.
So, yeah. And the other thing is, some of those sets were 15 minutes before she went on.
Yeah.
It’s hard to do something in 15 minutes.
Totally.
To have a beginning, middle and an end to your set in 15 minutes. Especially if it's not planned out ahead. You would just get up, you'd play four songs and be like, cool. Thanks guys.
Were there any instructions at all to you?
At the very first show, they were just like, play classic rock and old school hip hop. And I was like, cool, I do these things. So, you know, again, in this case, it really felt like it was the right gig. And after that, nah, not really, they left me alone to do my thing. The variation in the set would come from which city we were in, I would always try to find something local, at least one little local moment to be like, we are here specifically.
I was actually surprised that the variants… Like, when we were in the United States, I was surprised there weren't more variants in what people responded to. It was by and large just all the same stuff, the same kind of crowd would come out, it would be all the same stuff.
The region didn't matter so much.
Not so much. It really didn't. Now granted, I was playing kind of the panned-out cultural nostalgia bombs.
I mean, the greatest hits of all time.
Yes. Yeah. What I was doing was I was trying to figure out, how can I recontextualize this? This is all so familiar. How can we just put a subtle twist on this? So people still get the satisfaction they were expecting from it, but also kind of hear it in a fresh kind of interesting way. So like I said, songs would come in in the first set, I would test them out, then they would get kind of graduated into the later sets. And at first they would just get put in the set by themselves. And then I would spend time and try to figure out like, okay, is there anything I can do with this?
And were there any semi-obscure regional songs you put in? You're playing for a very general interest audience, but like, were there local rap songs you ever played?
I wasn't really playing anything new.
Yeah.
So when you think about local rap…
Like if you're in the Bay, are you playing some Bay rap?
I think I did play like “Tell Me When To Go” in the Bay. When I was in Atlanta, I played like, “Welcome To Atlanta,” and then Usher's “Yeah.” But I played Usher's “Yeah” in a lot of cities. Like, that's not an Atlanta record, but that is a worldwide hit record. But I did make sure to play it in Atlanta. When I was in Boston, I played like New Kids on the Block, which I didn't play a lot of boy band, girl band stuff. I was kind of… I guess the aesthetic was just a little bit raised beyond that.
I was doing more of the all time classics: Bowie and, you know, Prince and Queen and like, if you go too kind of bubblegummy, it's hard to go back. And of course I wanted it to be fun and everybody had a good time. But I think there's a seriousness about fun, right? Like I'm not, I wasn't going to get up and play like a “Barbie Girl.”
It's a delicate balance because you want to hit them with the hits, but maybe, yeah, you don't want it to go into a different realm. Then maybe there's some confusion about intention.
Yeah, and I don't want to see it come off as silly. So I would rather just focus on like, this is what over the test of time is generally regarded as good. I think the other thing is when we are putting music in context, there's not just what it is in a really basic sense—there's a lot of connotation and I would not want people to think that I was being jokey. Jokey stuff is hard. It is hard to be like a jokey in bigger and bigger spaces.
No, I mean, just like the idea of the stadium rock performer—your gestures have to get less and less subtle, the bigger the space.
You know what? Absolutely. And in fact, some of the really, really best records in those situations are just a couple of elements that are all very significant and important elements, but it's just the one element. The most obvious is maybe a “We Will Rock You,” right? You have this kick, clap. There's the guitar and then this voice. And that's the whole thing, but everything gets to take up all this space.
It echoes around the room, too.
And there's time for the echo, right? I would say for people who are aspiring to write a song that'll sound amazing in that context, I think that's part of a thing to do, right? Think about a song like “Jack & Diane.”
Yeah.
It’s just really sparse elements that really stand out and all the individual elements are pretty big, but there's space for them to be because there's not a ton of stuff happening.
You play ”Hollaback Girl.” And that one is similar.
Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, it's a lot of nostalgia bombs. And I really look at my role there as I just want to create a collective moment so that everybody's in the same place and feels like they're in that same moment. And then I just hand it off.
Yeah.
To the show that they’re all are actually there to see, right? I'm trying to herd everybody. Emotionally herd them into the same space.
I just assume that P!nk’s crowd, they're going to be more receptive to that than some band playing songs that they've never heard before.
Yeah. I don't see a ton of concerts and I don't see a ton of concerts on that scale, like arena concerts. I still go see more club shows and stuff. But I don't know what the current temperature is of people's willingness to discover new music. I kind of feel like it's zero. I kind of feel like people only trust new music if it comes to them through some sort of curated feed.
I’ve been watching some footage of Turnstile opening for Blink-182. Turnstile’s probably the most popular hardcore band of the past 20 years, but in front of Blink’s audience, it's like, they're not getting booed off the stage, but it doesn't seem like so much fun either.
The old kids that are there, they just want this nostalgia trip, right? They're like, I remember what it was when I was in college. They are not interested in discovering new music. They're just like, I wouldn't even have time to listen to this band. I got my kids with me all the time.
A band like Turnstile, they're so visible that maybe they get in people's brains and then the next time they release a record, there's more brand recognition or something. It's also probably a pretty good payday for them, I would assume.
When we were in Europe, there was a band out with us called Bang Bang Romeo. I had never heard of them before, but they really tore the stage down every show. And they had the opening slot, like I would play a little bit as people were getting seated and people would still kind of be filtering in while Bang Bang Romeo was playing, but they just handled it. I was very impressed because they had a really hard gig in that time placement. And yeah, I think what you're saying as far as that brand recognition thing, like, yeah, if they put out a record that was kind of like a minor hit record, maybe that helps it upgrade.
You also went out with Cher. How many shows was that?
So, that was just Europe. And I think it was, I'm gonna estimate like 20, 20 shows. That was kind of a last minute, a last minute call for me to be on that. And so I went out there and caught it in progress.
Oh wow. And I assume that was a bit of a different set.
It was, it was. Like I said, it was kind of in a rush that they tagged me in. And so I made a couple phone calls, one of which was to DJ Shawna, actually. And I was curious what she would play for that thing. And she and I had a conversation about it.
What I didn't account for was how many people had a variety of reasons to be at a Cher show. Because she's just, she was just an icon, right? Like not even super tied into the music. Like obviously they're aware and they’re fans of the music, they're coming to a music concert. But there were a lot of people that seemed to be there in attendance just because of who she was overall. And I was also in Europe and it was an audience that is notably older than P!nk’s audience. So what I ended up playing was a lot is what I kind of call family disco, like disco records.
You would hear it at some sort of family function, a wedding—that was kind of the basis of it. And there really wasn't a ton of room. It was more about the selection in this case because the audience was definitely less engaging. But again, some of these people had probably never seen a DJ in a nightclub. Had probably never seen a DJ mix records, right?
Yeah.
That's still a thing where people would be like, I've never been to an event where that's been happening because the only time they see a DJ is maybe at a wedding. So it was definitely a different situation, but I would say by the second show, my set was probably about 90 percent solid. And then I kind of just touched it up from there.
Were you on the mic at all in those shows?
Like a bunch. Absolutely on the mic a bunch. I think a lot of people's idea is that I'm the intermission and it's like, I understand the role that I facilitate, you know. I facilitate getting the other bands on and off because I'm a smaller rig, but I try really hard not to be the intermission. Like, I want to be part of the show. I am well lit up, brightly lit up, and there are a bunch of people sitting, so it's like, yeah, you got to give them the show. So, a lot of that is mic work and communication. I was actually running through an old set on my Twitch stream and I realized how much of my set, the transitions were kind of crowd response sort of transitions.
Yeah.
And I was just like, this sounds really stupid on Twitch because nobody’s in the same room together. So that was interesting, just like the change of context. But, if anything, that really speaks to the fact that different situations require different types of engagement.
Yeah, I can assume you got to recalibrate once you…
For you, would you say that you would talk more in between your songs in certain situations and then other situations you would be like, no talking just run through the songs and get the show done?
Some of the support tours, I feel almost like I have to be a bit combative towards the audience, because otherwise they're just not going to take me seriously.
When you say combative, what do you mean by that? Like, how does that actually manifest?
A little bit of humor, maybe, but also just a little bit of that kind of “pissed off intensity,” or whatever… I think I always had to prove to people that I was supposed to be on that stage.
I get it. Actually, as a DJ in a rock concert setting, I actually feel kind of similarly where it's like, if I want to exceed their expectations of me, which is, oh, this guy's the intermission, right? Yeah, I feel like I have to earn it. And I got to stake my claim and be like, No, I’m going to talk to you. I'm going to engage with you like, we are in this together. That's an interesting point to make—I think every opening act needs to do that in any situation on some level.
Yeah. You know, I don't think the P!nk crowd is gonna like… They seem like a fairly hospitable crowd, ultimately.
Yeah, I would say so. I don't know, man, I feel like so much of what I think about human interaction is watching people say things to each other online, and it's the worst interaction in the world.
Yeah.
And then you go to a thing where it's generally like-minded people who are all there for the same reason to celebrate our interest in this thing. And everyone's just kind of nice. Like, it's not the internet. I would say the audience was—I felt like I always got a warm reception from the audience. I feel like I had to work for it. But by the end, it was always just like, Wow, I got a nice little cheer at the end. And it seemed like people enjoyed it.
I mean, there were certainly people that, again, back to the internet thing, would find me online and say terrible things. I'm sure you understand.
Oh yeah.
The first couple I was really fixated on. But after that, I was just like, I should not disregard all the other people, like the literal arena-sized group of people that had a good time. And I'm sorry that this one person didn't.
You're getting a real sample of America, I think. You know?
Yeah. Well, well, I don't know. I think there's a large part of America that doesn't want to go to a P!nk show because she's a decent human being.
I don't know if I can even conceptualize what a P!nk crowd looks like. And it's even harder because there's so many fans.
I would say it's 30s, 40s, you know, mostly 30s and 40s. I wonder what the actual average age would be. It's probably 40-ish. Her first hit records were in the 2000s era, right? The first like real breakout smashes. So it was like, that's almost 25 years ago at this point. So yeah, it's an older audience. Definitely heavier on the women side. And then there's a large contingent of LGBTQ people as well. And yeah, I would say it's a fun—it's an audience that's kind of, and I feel like this is maybe a reflection of her, but it's kind of rowdy in a fun way.
Sure. That's kind of her brand.
Yeah. And yeah, people go there to fucking get a little sweaty and you know, fucking sing, and you see an incredible show. Cher's audience, just being older, was less interactive and they were more like, we are sitting to see a show, you know.
When I met you a long time ago, you were very involved in like, essentially the underground Midwest backpack rap scene. And you're still, I mean, you're still involved in that, but what did you learn back then as a DJ specifically that has somehow carried all the way on to you playing these giant shows?
The common thread is actually DJing as art and the creation aspect of it and the artistic presentation of it—not just just presenting it in exactly the same way all the time as anybody could, right? But to realize that the choices and decisions you're making, there's art in those choices and decisions if you choose to see it that way and do it that way. And those choices become specific instead of arbitrary.
And that to me, it's the specific choices that are kind of where art lies. So coming up in the kind of like indie rap scene—it was stages, right? It was stages and performances and people being intentional on what they're presenting. I would contrast that to nightclub work, which is more just like the DJ is off in the corner. Maybe he's not even lit up.
And it's just a completely different sort of facilitation of these things. And so I feel like I carried that mindset all the way through. And I feel like it's why the creative moments in my set are there. And it's why I'm comfortable on a stage. Summerfest, you know, booking me often meant that by the time I got on that stage with P!nk the first time, I had done it a bunch already. So I knew what it was for me to have a beginning to my show. And I knew what it was for me to have an ending to my show. Like my show ends and it feels like an ending.
And the only way that happens is if I'm being specific about how I put it together and what I'm creating. I started DJing and a couple of years after, that Scratch movie came out with the turntablist groups. And that was a big kind of eye-opening thing for a lot of people that maybe didn't know about that stuff beforehand. I was involved in that moment, right? The kind of turntable as an instrument sort of thing. And I feel like that has served me all the way through because I don't want to get up and just do the thing anybody could do. You know what I mean?
Well, I mean, there's a million people in the world that DJ hit songs… Anybody could play these songs, in theory.
These songs are not secret songs, right? Like, they're the obvious songs. And it just comes down to the programming. And it comes down to, really, the setup and punchline of it. Like, it really is similar to a stand-up comedy thing in that way—the way that they're programmed and edited down, it’s just a matter of getting the timing right so that the setup is there and then it lands in a way that's satisfying for the audience.
So, yeah, but even giving a shit about any of that stuff, like even taking the time to be aware of, like, no, I should edit these two bars out of this song. It’s actually taking the time to do it—because for me, the specifics matter.
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