Meet Fleece Kawasaki

Fleece Kawasaki is the musical project of New York City born, LA- based indie artist Kiazi Halpern. Originally only picking up guitar as a vehicle to learn songwriting, he cut his teeth playing bass in various local bands while building an impressive repertoire of both covers and original songs. After these projects fell apart and after a particularly bad breakup, with nothing holding him back he decided to move out to LA – ironically to give up on his dreams. While working as a busboy in a popular West Hollywood restaurant and feeling unfulfilled, he decided to start busking in the LA Metro and it was here that he met his producer Layne Smith (lead guitarist) of Glass Beach and together they began bringing to life the songs that Kiazi had been crafting. The Desert Flower EP is a catharsis of all the angst and loneliness felt before, that a fundamental change needed to be made, the songs are about drunken nights, existential pondering, aimless sex and romance, leaving home for sunnier sights, and ultimately accepting one’s own culpability for the damage inflicted during tumultuous breakups – scored with bombastic sounds, and beachy reverbs inspired by the likes of Death Cab for Cutie, Mac Demarco, Radiohead, Susquatch and The Pillows. Beyond busking he has gone on to perform at many private and corporate events, played with his band venues like The Fonda and The Roxy, as well as doing session work, songwriting and guitar workshops with the LA Public Library and restaurant residencies. In spring of 2024 Kiazi and his band will be joining Arcadia Gray with opening up for Glass Beach on their 20 city USA tour. He is hard at work completing his debut album Fake Frowns From Happy People.