Conversations with Keveen Baudouin

Today we’d like to introduce you to Keveen Baudouin.

Hi Keveen, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I was born in a small town in the southwest of France called Brive. After a fairly normal childhood and teenage years, during which I started playing music at the age of eight (I had a dream that I was playing music one summer and decided to start that following month out of the blue). I always think music chose me in order to escape what was in front of me. I needed to be a part of the bigger picture and the arts are one of the ways to get there. So I moved away to pursue my craft and enrolled at a music school in Nancy — Music Academy International, which was affiliated with the Berklee College of Music.

After earning my degree, I decided to move to Paris to begin my career as a professional musician, while teaching guitar on the side.

After several years of recording sessions and collaborations with various artists on the French music scene, I decided to take a year off to travel and explore the world — something I had only glimpsed through my tours in France, Europe, and Asia. I first settled for a few months in Chicago, where I took different classes in the arts: film, musicology, art history, and philosophy. My journey then took me to South America, mainly Peru, where I spent half a year in 2010 teaching music and language to locals, and traveling throughout Peru, Bolivia, and Chile.

Feeling ready to dive back into the professional music world, I moved to Los Angeles, California, in the spring of 2011 to pursue my own artistic projects and join various bands.

Since then, performing in the U.S. has taken me on multiple tours across the country and into Canada, as well as South America, where I performed with the French-Mexican artist Adan Jodorowsky.

Active in the Los Angeles music scene for the past fifteen years, I am currently writing and touring with Low Hum, Dream Phases, and About You. I also co-founded the conceptual musical entity CARRÉ with my creative partners Jules De Gasperis (based in Los Angeles) and Julien Boyé (based in Paris), as well as my own solo project SIDE DƟƟR, a psychedelic, ethereal pop-folk exploration of self.

As a side gig, and something that always interested me, I started to tutor French for the last 10 years of my life. Working privately as well as for a school in Los Angeles called Coucou. That allows me to take some distance from music at times in order to keep a fresh eye on what I really want to pursue on an artistic level.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I’d say I’ve had a pretty lucky star, as this journey has been incredible for the most part.

Since the pandemic, I’ve taken more time to explore the world. A few years ago, I spent some time traveling through Europe — visiting places I had never seen before or never truly taken the time to appreciate: Finland, Scotland, Sweden, Germany, among others. I also spent a month in Thailand and Vietnam, which was an unforgettable experience.

This year, I decided to travel to Japan for a month — a truly life-changing trip. I was there with my girlfriend, who’s a photographer and model and had lived in Japan ten years ago. Together, we discovered places I probably would never have explored on my own, especially thanks to her ability to speak the language and connect with the culture on a deeper level.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been working on more personal music for the past ten years or so, dedicating most of my life to giving a platform to my better self — through my own compositions, but also through photography, which I’ve slowly been embracing as another form of expression.

As a musician, I play guitar (my first love), bass, and keyboards; I produce, write, record, and tour — constantly trying to balance all of it as smoothly as I can. I wouldn’t say I specialize in one particular area; instead, I evolve within the worlds of pop, rock, electronic, psychedelic, and industrial music.

I’m probably most proud of my conceptual band CARRÉ, which began during the pandemic as an attempt to bridge a musical universe between surrealism and non-Euclidean geometry. I have a deep fascination for painting, literature, and poetry, and I try to infuse as much of that inspiration as possible into my art.

How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
I’m always interested in meeting new souls. I have a deep love for people — that’s one of the main reasons I play music. It becomes a platform to connect with like-minded individuals who share a broader perspective on the world, those who look not only at what’s in front of them, but also at what surrounds them.

People can always reach out to me through my social media or my bands’ pages. Coming to shows, sharing our music, and purchasing our art — on any platform, though Bandcamp remains the fairest one — are the best ways to support what we do as artists.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://carrecarre.bandcamp.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carrecarremusic/
• Facebook: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7MTrulKawXpzL4LyC2tn2Z?si=yCXvYKhoRCWfMvVGhAP7BQ
• LinkedIn: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7AfmYGPRYiNkwKfV8LrqLd?si=Zmc4MlrLSxmHSvIi1I2few
• Twitter: https://sidedoor.bandcamp.com
• Youtube: https://www.instagram.com/kveeen/
• Yelp: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4q2s8zkhFaUXEV8i8hFFhS?si=Raootr4gQr6KKpNWnFHFTw
• Soundcloud: https://www.instagram.com/low_hum/
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6TN3btKQrSRW2KG6D7LpID?si=26EXDgmeQN2-7z_dDoWjqg

Image Credits
Maria Knofe
Amadou Kante
Andrew Narvaez