Kim Aston "Electric" - Celebrity Zones

Kim Aston is the super powered vocalist for San Francisco psych band Revolushn, who has just released the explosive song and video, “Electric.” The song is a sign of the times and an inspirational rebellious piece of insanity.

Kim began singing along to her mom’s Joni Mitchell records at a young age, followed by her singing on a local children’s TV show. A teacher at The School of Rock, Kim works with bands as she continues to sing and write music.

Revolushn is composed of frontman No Mansfield (one of the best guitarists on the planet), David Kendrick, the drummer from the iconic band Devo, Neil Nyberg bassist, and Olga Ilene Schubert, video master and keyboard prodigy. Kim and I traded questions and answers regarding “Electric”…..

How did you come to get involved with Revolushn?

No contacted me about laying some tracks. After doing some sessions he asked me to give his wife some singing lessons, He said her name was Olga but that he calls her bundles. And I thought, “Well this guy’s got his priorities straight.” She came over for lessons. Then we all just started hanging out. I went to the island they live on and saw how they truly live a rock star lifestyle. She paints and has her work up all over the house. She also happens to be one of the top rock videographers of our time, she’s like the Andy Warhol of modern day video! No asked me if I wanted to join the band and I said yes. I started learning back up vocals to all their songs. No didn’t tell me he’d played with these other big bands like Devo, Rod Stewart, No Doubt, Aretha Franklin and Berlin. I ended up finding this out later. No downplays himself. He’d rather you know him for who he is right now than for what he’s done.

What was your part in producing Electric?

No is the mastermind, but he said he liked having my input on the vocals. As far as vocal parts go, he had wanted me to do several different harmonies and the melody line an octave up in parts. I offered to lay down the entire song in each harmony part and that way he could keep and remove whatever he wanted but that would give him a lot to work with.

What is your view point of the song’s message ?

No and I never talked about it. But it’s clear he’s sending a message to the world about the corporate takeover through AI. About how the gap between the have’s and the have not’s is widening. We as a species are from the same source and if we don’t come together in this realization, our separateness will be our undoing. They keep us distracted with things like what some famous person had for breakfast because that makes everything seem okay. But that’s not so in the world of many of us. Things are not okay. Ask a homeless person. Ask a single mother trying to make it on minimum wage who’s day care bill takes up almost her entire paycheck. Ask the child who grew up in those stressful conditions and has no chance of going to college without becoming a slave to the system and that’s if going to college is even an option at all. The takeaway is, don’t give up and lay down because they can’t stop us!! We are Electric, dynamic amazing benevolent people when we’re not threatened by living a disparaging life. Greed creates this threat.

Is it too much to ask that all people on the planet have the ability to walk barefoot in grass without too much worry and be surrounded by people who have a vested interest in their health? Think maybe if terrorist’s families didn’t live in squalor they might spend more time on the grass instead of the streets of America? The planet is desperately out of balance. Any virus unleashed by mother earth is her bug spray…but then again she’s so tolerant of our abuse I’m more inclined to think it’s from the destructive humans who regard each other as pests. How did we get here?? Anyway…The message should get out on mainstream radio because the song is cross over rock. Besides Revolushn has players who are already steeped in radio. Streaming on Spotify will do too.

Aside from being in this band what projects are you involved in separately?

I’m a song writer myself and my own band that I front will eventually tour with Revolushn. I’m also working with Dawn Of Morgana which features heavy metal and myself doing lead symphonic vocals.

What was your biggest challenge doing “Electric” and how did you solve it.

I don’t recall any challenges per say… everything seemed to flow so smoothly… but I do recall dutifully showing up to rehearsal one day refusing to infect the band with my flu by singing outside the door with my mic. Haa! Olga being the homeopathic doctor she is, got out her medicine. She didn’t care that I was sick. I told her to stay back but She decended on me with some kind of contraption and said, “sit down”, And when Olga Shubert tells you to sit down, you do it. And she says in her wonderfully thick Russian accent, “Now when I count to 3 I want you to breath in and I’m going to shoot the medicine up into your sinus area and it’s going to make you feel much better, but not at first… at first you’re going to feel like sheet.” Well I’d been sick forever so I was willing to try it. As soon as she did it, I felt like my brain was was going to come out through my nose, it was a powerful surge of burning fire and I thought I was going to die!! I hugged a garbage pail and all the bad stuff just started leaving me. I’ll spare you the details but practice got canceled and they said I laid there for like 4 hours. But it did get rid of my flu. Olga is truly magical and very caring. She healed me. Btw, growing up in Russia her mother made her get up and have piano lessons every morning for something like 14 years. She was so done with piano till No convinced her to play again.

What was your biggest triumph connected with Electric?

Recording and Performing it with greats like, No Mansfield, David Kendrick and Scott Page. Just makes me feel grateful that something’s looking out for me and allowing my path to merge with these guys. And it confirms that my efforts to match that successflul creative frequency through work and meditation is attracting into my life what I’ve asked for. That said, I didn’t specifically ask the universe to put me with monster players, I merely requested that I carve out a career at my age touring and making videos of songs I’ve written and finding a balance between that and family. So, playing with Revolushn is the beginning of that manifestation.

If you could have your ultimate stage fantasy what would have to happen?

My Ultimate stage fantasy would be performing some song that I wrote and the entire audience knows the lyrics and is singing along to it. That would be the ultimate you know? That and having a career in music and balancing it with family. My family is the foundation for inspiration and they need my support as well. I have a very large family and a lot of it includes friends.

What is your favorite thing about being involved with Revolushn?

Playing onstage with them!! It’s insane fun! Talk about a rush!! The music is alive and wild and moves through you!! Aside from that it’s just hanging with them. Every single person in or around the band is a unique and special character. These are not your everyday working stiffs…they are highly energized, intellectual creative, musical individuals living on the edge and in the moment with dreams and who glow with a certain knowing that they’re living the history of Revolushn.

Take our bass player Neil Nyberg for instance, such a genuine soul who’s mission is to bring humans closer together through love with his own message. These are the kind of people I like to hang out with. Oh and yes, there is a lot of partying going on…what do you expect? This is rock and roll… but it’s on a wholesome, intellectual, stimulating and thought provoking “partying” level… I notice a movement in this tech age for bands to have their members scattered all over the country and even the world. They only meet a few times, then they record, do a short tour and go their separate ways again. I think it’s good for time management and you’re opened up to a larger pool of players but I have to wonder if the younger generation is overlooking that intense connection from practicing live together and developing that certain mental communication that comes from physically playing and hanging together a lot. They’re getting it backwards.

Great bands are not great because they are best players. They are great because they are a unit of cool people that express themselves as one through music. They have a culture that oozes from them onstage and the people get them. if the music happens to be good then they become iconic and timeless. This is what Revolushn is.