Kalu and the Electric Joint hail from Austin, Texas, but their sound spans continents. Spearheaded by frontman Kalu James, the band is composed of a rotating cast of musicians including guitarist JT Holt, guitarist and keyboardist Pearl Z, drummer Greg Clifford, and bassist Yohan Valles. All together, these musicians craft a sound that’s both psychedelic and grounded.
Over the years, this five-piece band has earned “hometown hero” status, playing shows all around the central Texas region. But it’s not just Austinities who flock to their gigs. Fans from across North America take road trips to see them in action.
The band’s live performances feel less like concerts and more like hippie church services. Listeners sway and sing with arms outstretched, echoing James’ spiritual lyrics about love, acceptance, and peace. The outfit’s most recent album, 2023’s Garden of Eden, weaves religious metaphors with modern lyricism. Like the subject matter, the music sounds both old and new.
James’ musical inspiration spawned at an early age, as a child singing in a choir in southeast Nigeria. His dad was the chief of the Igbo tribe, and as the chief’s oldest son, James was sent to the States to go to school, work, and send money home. It was in Austin that James formed “Kalu and the Electric Joint.” You can hear classic rock and blues float over intricate African rhythms, creating a sound that’s all their own.
I recently sat down with Kalu James to learn how the band cultivates creativity and community.
What is the collaboration process like with every member of your band and how do you get to your unique sound?
I am constantly writing lyrics and melodies, and JT [Holt] is one of the most prolific musicians I know. He amplifies everything that I come up with, so it makes it really easy to present ideas. It goes from this really cool cowboy chord stuff to inversions and all the other beautiful things that come out of it. We’ve been writing together for 14 years now, and it’s just a blessing to have that amount of trust, not just in your life, but within a project that you’re working on.
How do you know when a song can stand on its own?
What I’m looking for to find out if a song can stand on its own is very much, does it move me? Like, I think at the end of the day, in so many ways, we are trying to do that for ourselves. The viewpoint of writing songs personally is for me to put out what I want to hear. Viewpoints and how I’m feeling about certain things. Knowing fully well that we are so well-connected humans, that it very much is a voice for someone else who potentially may not have the platform we do.
So it’s, at the end of the day, can I do that either with a guitar or keys or a harmonica? It doesn’t matter. Like, can we bring it down to the basic bones and have the soul of that music move you in whichever way?
I love how expressive and smooth your voice is. What is your vocal training background?
I think I got a lot of my studies when I was still a kid. Born and raised in Nigeria, I grew up in the choir and got kicked out of the choir because I couldn’t […] stick to one voice. So, I feel like in so many ways you could still hear that in my singing where it’s like you can go from alto to soprano and drop down to tenor and then have the low baritone just because you can.
I’ve always had that range and I feel like I got all those trainings when I was quite little and didn’t know in so many ways what I was doing. And then it went from getting kicked out of the choir to creating my own a cappella group. So, the a cappella group is where the harmonies […] came in.
I love, love, love harmonies. I love layering. And I am blessed and thankful to be in a band, or to have created a band, where the people who are playing in the band equally have the voices to be able to do all the voices in my head that I could never possibly do at the same time while I’m performing.
I want to circle back to what you were saying with your choir days. And you grew up in Nigeria, right?
I did.
Have you gone back home and visited recently? How does that impact your creativity and your songwriting?
It sure does. I mean, I’m going home actually in December. It’s been my first time since 2019. I usually go home every three years. My mom still lives there. I have family there. But with COVID and everything, it kind of took a while.
And yes, when I go back home, it’s just a different world, right? At the same time, a lot of things are still the same. Very similar. And then you catch different vibes. So it’s so cool to be able to, especially having grown up in the African choir, to be able to go back and tap into the motherland and touch the earth, take in the air and the African sun and everything else that is happening around.
It brings me back to purpose. It brings me back to gratitude. There is a lot that in our worst days in the United States is someone else’s best day. And it’s someone else’s day that they have dreamt of and have never gotten to. So it really does bring me back to, oh man, I am grateful, thankful and highly favored. And I feel like when you are rooted with that, regardless of what’s coming your way, just knowing that you woke up today and some other people didn’t, and it wasn’t on their choice or any doing, neither was it on yours, there’s a lot to throw your hands up to and say, I’m just going to be where my feet is at.
I’m just going to be here right now and interact with the people around and spread that love, spread that kindness, spread that tolerance and have a stance for the good in this world. I believe that that is our currency in the biggest way. People is our currency.
I moved here and really didn’t have a community here and I have gotten to where we currently are with a lot of grace and kindness [from] people. And I feel like at the end of the day, we’re all just kids in a sandbox trying to play. And it’s like, can we […] play nice, please?
Can we get off our high horses sometimes and just pay attention to what someone has to say? I think there’s just so much we can do together. And no one is coming to save us but ourselves.
Wow, that’s really beautiful. I was going to ask you about that because I feel like your music has a strong message, but it’s also really uplifting. How do you stay optimistic these days?
I stay optimistic by being careful of where I put my spotlight. Yes, there’s a lot of madness. The world goes up in so many ways. If I can wake up, and if you do get the luxury to wake up the next day and breathe this air, it’s like, where am I going to focus that on? In everybody’s house, no matter how clean your house is, there’s a corner that’s got some dirty shit. Period.
If your spotlight is on that, that’s what you’re going to think the house is. And we have to find and we have to shift our focus to the good that is happening all around us because it does exist. And most times, I believe it’s greater.
The world, like James Baldwin said, the world is held together by the love and the passion of very few people. I strive every day to be one of those people and I strive every day to create avenues where people can show up and do exactly that. We’re all signaling each other.
This […] is so cliche: Life is a highway. It really is and it’s like, use your blinkers. Please use your blinkers – else you’re going to get into accidents all the time.
Ask questions. Create spaces where we can actually ask questions with no agenda other than just to hear what the other person is saying.
There are so many viewpoints that [are] quite different from you.
And yeah, that’s how I stay optimistic is there’s so much that I don’t know. There’s so much I would love to know. I can have my opinions but having your opinion is very different from voicing your opinion.
Having your opinion is very different from when you voice your opinion, if you’re asked to voice your opinion. I think most times there needs to be just a lot more listening. And we got to do better.
We got to do more of that. There’s just so much that binds us together than divides us. And you have to be able to separate politics from the human being, the person next to you. And transcend all the labels that we are trying. I personally feel labels in so many ways can also be lazy. You can use labels for [the] intangible. You can use labels for things that are not living. You have the closet or the drawer where you know that’s where all my socks are. You can’t use that for human beings.
We are changing every single moment. And while it might be great to identify, we just need to make sure that we’re not also using that to imprison what we think people are. Because I can tell you, what I am today, what I’m like today might very well change tomorrow. And we have to be malleable enough to just listen to people.
You mentioned unity and how it took a minute to find community. I feel like your shows are its own kind of community.
Thank you for mentioning that […] And I do believe that, you know, there is so much going on in our world that we are seeking solace. We’re seeking companion[s]. We’re seeking someone to affirm that you’re not just crazy in what you’re thinking. And what you see is what’s happening and people have other viewpoints like that. That’s what music does for me. That’s what movies do for me. That’s what […] art does for me.
And there’s no better compliment than seeing that in other people. You know, as you’ve been to a lot of the shows, you’ve been to my shows and I’m very active when it comes to moving around on stage. And for me in so many ways, it’s just to signal that you can do that too.
Like […] if I can act a fool on stage, dancing and still connecting with you, then you can do your little dancey dance. Like no one is judging you, you know? And I think that that has always been, that’s all.
What’s your most memorable fan interaction?
It just blows my mind when people, you know, travel far to come see us perform. Like for me […] it affirms that we are connected and that’s such a powerful thing. That’s such a powerful thing.
Where’s the furthest that you’ve heard somebody has come to see you play?
I think Canada. […] They knew we were playing a show and they just routed their trip, you know, went and saw whole parts of America and had a great time.
I love that. Anything else you want to add?
Anything else I want to add is: just be curious. Follow your ear. If it smells good, eat it. If it sounds good, listen to it. Just follow your intuition.