TV on the Radio has become an alternative-rock sensation, with a blend of musical styles that’s not only innovative but also brilliantly authentic. For vocalist/guitarist Kyp Malone (who just released the debut CD from his Rain Machine solo project), keeping it real, however, has its limits.
“It’s pretty old. It’s on the bedbug list,” Malone says, complaining about the prewar building in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where he’s lived in a one-plus-bedroom, sixth-floor walk-up for the past four years. “I’ve seen people cycle through. They spray and bomb and all the things you’re supposed to do, but it doesn’t work.”
Despite the building’s bedbug misfortune (a bullet he’s managed to dodge), the apartment, which Malone has shared since December with his artist girlfriend, Jessie, has served him well through multiple redecorations.
“It’s gone through a couple of different paint jobs,” says Malone, 36, of the decor. “It had some real McDonald’s colors: bright reds and yellows. Then things got more blue and light green. Then when Jessie moved in, things got white.”
We talk in Malone’s modest-sized kitchen, which sets the tone for this eclectic home.
Next to the kitchen window, with its panoramic view of the East River, hang several pieces of art: One depicts a nun with bunny slippers; one is of a couple engaged in a vaguely discomforting intimate act; and another is of Batman and Robin possibly, though not certainly, doing the same.
“This is the most uncomfortable sexual imagery,” he says of the painting of the couple. “It looks more like shame than ecstasy. I don’t know if that’s what [the artist] was going for, but it cracked me up.”
Nearby shelves hold a ceramic bear sculpture, antlers Jessie found out West and, hanging from the ceiling, a string of blue and red construction paper hearts left over from a recent birthday party for Malone’s 9-year-old daughter, Isabelle, who lives in New Jersey.
“Oftentimes we’ll draw or do watercolors in the kitchen, especially when my daughter is here, because my daughter loves to draw,” he says. “That’s something that’s constructive and can occupy a lot of time, and it’s inexpensive.”
Malone is asked about the kitchen’s cracked tile, which appears to be screwed into the floor.
“We asked them to do something about [the tile],” he says about the building’s owners. “So they sent someone up with a drill and some screws. That is the nature of this building.”
Across the hall is a room that fits a bed and little else: It serves as a guestroom or his daughter’s bedroom when she stays over. It’s also the music room, with several instruments hanging on the walls. Among them is a tambourine on which Jessie drew a stork person and an owl person, in tribute to the TVotR song “Stork & Owl,” which Malone wrote about himself and Jessie.
Malone pulls a large white bowl about 3 feet in circumference from the closet. It’s a crystal singing bowl, made from crushed quartz.
“It’s formed into a specific note. I think it’s D or F-sharp,” says Malone. “It’s a New-Agey vibrational medicine tool, but I’ve used it as an instrument. You go around the outside [with a mallet] like a Tibetan singing bowl, and it builds a tone and reverberates for a really long time.”
The next room over was the living room before Jessie moved in, and now serves as her art studio. There’s a long working table on one side, and various drawings and sculpture parts — including a bust of a woman’s head with braids creeping through her eyes — on the other.
“She would love more room,” says Malone. “A lot of what she’s done has been scroll drawings that are 30 feet long. That’s where her mind is, so this is definitely not enough room for her.”
Their bedroom is filled with clothes, books, plants and on the wall, the arms of a giant creature Jessie created for an installation called “The Shadow Creature.”
With all their artwork, instruments and records, the couple would love more space, as well as a roof that could be used as a garden. They are hoping to find a larger place nearby before year’s end.
“[It would be nice if] this was a building that would lend itself more to community and not just commerce,” says Malone. “It would be exciting to use the roof for something besides running from the cops. I’ve seen that happen a number of times.”
Kyp Malone’s favorite things
* A crystal singing bowl
* Jessie’s art
* His records
* His National Resonator electric guitar and Portuguese guitar
* A chair he found at a warehouse sale