Chloe Kim celebrated her 27th birthday in a way few people do: drumming for 10 hours. When I visit her just outside Hobart on Tuesday she’s sitting behind her drum kit, languidly tapping out a steady rhythm for a small audience. Next to her is a screen that shows she’s been drumming for 45 hours and 54 minutes over four and a bit days: her goal is to hit 100 hours by the tenth.
The clock ticks over: 46 hours on the dot. Kim, a slight woman with a perennially cheerful face, puts her sticks down and smiles. This is mostly directed at two friends who have bought her a cake on her break, but she’s also, always, thinking about her music. Forty-six hours in, 54 to go, and she feels like she has only just hit her groove. “I felt like that was a birthday gift to myself,” she says, of the set I witnessed, “because I felt so great while I was playing.”
