When I first heard “Parables” by Landslide the vocals stopped me in my tracks. I discovered the vocalist was Kate Tempest and was immediately riveted by videos of her performances. Kate Tempest, aka Excentral Tempest, is a spoken word artist, poet, writer and rapper, performing solo and with her band Sound Of Rum. Inspired by everything from Wu tang, to Shakespeare and Blake, Coltrane and the Bible, her visceral style and lyrics at once strike at the immediate truth while providing plenty of deeper symbolism. She is a huge and wonderous talent, and I look forward to hearing much more!

Are you more of a fan of spoken word or rap? (or do you feel there isn’t much of a distinction)?

I’m a fan of both. I came to spoken word through rap and still make sure I take time to sit down and connect with the rap lyrics I grew up listening to and that inspired me. I spend a lot more time at spoken word events than I do at rap events, for no other reason than that spoken word pays better and books me more often. I miss the urgency of rap ciphers, but I enjoy the complexity of spoken word. There’s definitely a distinction between the two forms, although I don’t quite know what that distinction is. I am a huge fan of both, as long as the rap or poem I’m engaging with is written well, and is from a genuine place. I think as long as lyrics are authentic then I can get a lot from listening to them, however they’re performed.

What got you involved in each?

One of my best friends was a rapper when we were kids. I used to make beats and just sit around and listen to him freestyle. One day I wrote a piece and I called him up and spat it to him down the phone. And he was so into it, he took me down to this open mic at a record shop where all the London rappers would go every Friday, and I spat my one rhyme – looking like the female Harry Potter or something, I had thick glasses, and a duffle coat, and my hair all scruffy – I didn’t look like a rapper at all – everyone was laughing at me when I got on the stage, but everyone went nuts for it after I spat my rhyme, and I haven’t stopped since. Then, years later, when I was a proper rapper and gigging all the time and making tracks, I was in New York for a week, and I went to check out the Nu-Yorican poetry café, and I entered the slam there, and won it. I’d never seen spoken word before, or slam poetry and I found it dead exciting and welcoming. I went home and a week or two later another friend of mine told me about a slam in London where you could win £100, so we went down there, and I entered. And I won. Loads of the poets that were there to compete were impressed and took my details and booked me for their nights, and then, all of a sudden, I was a poet too.

I notice you cite great authors and classical works as some of your influences. in addition to writing words for performance, do you also simply write poems or stories?

I write loads of different things, poems for the page, and plays, and prose and half-finished novels, but I’m best at writing lyrics. I take inspiration from the literary greats and use that inspiration when I write rhymes. I enjoy literature, in all its forms, and that helps me as a poet and a rapper, but I think that the most important work I do is writing raps, it’s the most natural form for me.

How did you meet your bandmates? and How does the creative process work in writing the songs?

Archie, the guy that plays guitar and bass, used to play bass in another band of mine, and I’ve known him for years. There’s a community of musicians in south-east London (where I grew up, and still live) we all know each other from gigging together and parties and stuff. Archie and I have played together loads of times before we formed Sound of Rum, but never so closely or with so much commitment. Ferry, the drummer is from Southport, near Liverpool and he came to London to find musicians to play with. He started gigging with some guys I knew and I saw him play a few times, and thought he was brilliant, so when I was putting together a new project, I thought of him, and he was up for it. Initially it was going to be a much bigger band, but on the first rehearsal only the three of us turned up, and luckily we realised we could make it work as a trio. The creative process changes all the time, mainly we write together. They’ll work an idea out while I work an idea out and then we’ll put the ideas together, sometimes though they’ll write music for a specific lyric, and sometimes they’ll write the music and I’ll sit down and write the lyric to what they’ve written. We work out the breaks together, we’re open with each other and have as much or as little input into the structures of songs as we want. Every time I play with them it’s amazing, I’m always so impressed with them both and feel so happy to be on stage with them.

Looks like you’ve got a nice tour across the UK going; any interest or plans for the US?

I’d love to come to the US. I’m not sure when or how we’d get there, we need to sell a few albums first I suppose and then get some gigs. But if anyone wants to book us, that would be incredible. Definitely at some point we wanna get over there, hopefully for a long period of time, I would love to spend a year in the states but who knows. we’ll have to see what happens.

http://www.myspace.com/katetempestwords