Originally from the Isle Of Man and recently relocated to London, KID BROTHER are a new emo grunge punk act that you should definitely give a spin to.Their debut single “Angst” will be released on Monday, March 30th, and I am super stoked to give you my interview with the four piece, telling their story and plotting some plans for the future. Their debut track sees them veer into some of the finest territories of grunge / 90s post hardcore revival, with the hints of vocals in the vein of TITLE FIGHT, MAKE DO AND MEND and the likes of similar reputable bands.
Band photo by Jennifer McCord Photography.
In order to create something great, sometimes you have to step completely out of your comfort zone, both metaphorically and physically. This is the case for London-based 4 piece, KidBrother. After growing up together on the Isle of Man the band upped roots and moved to London, a city 3 times the size of the sleepy island, and with nearly 100 times the population. Leaving friends and family behind in order for their music to reach a wider audience and to peruse their life-long ambitions is not something to be taken lightly but the decision was made with confidence, knowing that each and every member shared the same dream and was completely dedicated to the task in hand.
After years of playing in various bands together, touring the UK and Europe extensively they have honed their skills as song-writers and musicians meaning although the band is a new endeavour, their live show is filled with style and confidence. Their shared life-changing experience has provided inspiration for their up-coming, self-titled debut EP, which is overflowing with real-life emotion and passion.
After months of writing and rehearsing KidBrother are ready and raring to go out and show the UK scene what they are capable of.
Hey KID BROTHER! What’s up? How are you?
Hey! We’re great thank you, relaxing and soaking in the London gloom! How are you?
Oh I’m fine, too. Thanks! Lately it feels like spring here in Warsaw. It’s nice to get in the car, roll down the windows again and have even more amazing tunes to keep you going. I’m really glad we can discuss your work guys!
Ok, but first off, let me ask you this. Not that it matters or anything, but I’m curious. There are some many KID BROTHERS out there! How come you decided to name your band project KID BROTHER? (Count Your Lucky Stars’ collective; Ohio’s KID BROTHER; Oregon’s KID BROTHER; Pittsburgh’s KID BROTHER; damn there are even KID BROTHERS in Texas!)
That’s great, we’ll make it to Warsaw one day. Yeah there are a few other kid brothers than we’ve noticed, I guess everyone needs a kid bro! I think the name just really fit for us because we’ve been friends for so long. We really look after each other, ya know, brothers!
Ok, so who are you guys, where do you come from and how did you put this band together?
We are Jamie (vocals), Ffin (bass/vocals) Daniel (guitar) and Sam (drums/vocals). We all come from a little island called the Isle Of Man, but have moved to London together, because living on a tiny island is kinda boring. We’ve been in bands together before for years playing lots of different styles from hardcore punk to ambient stuff, but we think we’ve fallen into playing the music we’ve all grown up loving now with KB, it’s really fun!
Oh man, so how come you did not end being a Celtic punk act? :) How is the music scene on the island?
Haha well we’re just getting started. Bands like ourselves grow and progress daily, we may we’ll end up filling a celtic punk rock gap in the market eventually! For now though we’re happy singing sad songs and crying into our pillow. Believe it or not there’s not much of a music scene to speak of in the Isle of Man. Some others have up sticks to pursue music but it’s a pretty sleepy place and if you’re not careful you’ll find yourself playing to the same crowd every week.
I’m a bit of a space geek and I associate the name Isle Of Man with private space travel companies joining their forces in the Google Lunar X Prize competition. Moreover, the island was ranked the 8th wealthiest nation per capita by the World Bank. It doesn’t sound like a boring place, ha! Add a progressive low tax policy, some e-gaming businesses, extremely low unemployment and it really starts to sound quite interesting. Did all members of the band relocate simultaneously? Do you live all together now? :)
Haha! No the Island’s not boring if your tipple is online gambling or tax evasion, it’s pretty unsavoury really. As musicians with not much interest in poker or fraud the Island can be less than productive. We all live separately at the moment, all around South London, we can all more or less walk to each other’s places, we’ve lived together in the past which was really fun, then again it’s nice to have privacy and time away from band stuff!
Cool. So how do you like this part of the city and London in general?
London’s great man, South London definitely has it’s quirks, but it’s very charming. There’s always lots going on, lots of cool shows to go to. Then again it’s super expensive to live in London, most people are just living week to week, you can’t really save up much money, so sometimes trying to do music is difficult, then we wouldn’t have it any other way!
Tell us more about the London emo/punk scene you’ve learned so far. What inspires you in this city?
I’d say the emo/punk scene is spread pretty thin in London, it’s definitely alive in followers but in actual bands it’s a little sparse. There are some real promising bands around but we don’t really have anybody pushing the boundaries and playing to larger audiences like a lot of the punk/emo music coming from the east coast in the states. London is always inspiring for us though, you can find a show every night of the week if you have the time and money, and all the cool tours come through!!
Have you traveled a lot and had a chance to form your own views on other cities’ amazing music scenes? Do you have your own favorite places that you would love to travel to as often as possible?
We’ve only really seen the cities we’ve played in, and as for checking out their scene I guess it’s the same answer, we’ve passed through a lot of great cities, but only for the one night each time! Then our drummers wife is from Seattle, there’s an important city for emo music, the scene there is pretty cool, and obviously getting to the states would be a dream of ours! With KIDBROTHER we really want to explore as much as we can and visit all of the cities we’ve missed out on in the past, like Warsaw!
So what steps did you take to take to get you one step closer to making your dream come true? How would you call this chapter you’re currently in?
I suppose we’ve all had to sacrifice a lot, being in a band is financially demanding, it’s also pretty tough on relationships. KIDBROTHER is just getting into chapter one now, but to us it feels like we’re somewhere in the middle of the book haha!
Yup. You’re not a new band, right? Can you tell us more about your releases and touring experience so far?
KIDBROTHER is a new band yeah, but we’ve played together with different projects for years. We’re playing our first show as KIDBROTHER this month, then it’s pretty much gonna be all go from there all the way through summer!
About that touring you mentioned, is there already a string of dates booked for the coming weeks? How do you book your shows?
Our previous band and our experiences really helped us construct the frame that would eventually become KIDBROTHER, helped us develop our live performance and our creative writing process but it really isn’t a period we make a point of dwelling on. We don’t want to regurgitate what we’ve already done. We’re going into KIDBROTHER with a matured perspective and progressing accordingly. As for shows we’ve only announced one, our first show at the Tooting Tram and Social on the 18th of March. Opening for some amazing up and comers but we’ve been working very closely with Kieron Mccarthy at Pioneer Music Agency to line up some exciting things for spring/summer. We’ve been itching to play for a while now, can’t wait to get back at it.
Your new single “Angst” will be released on March 30th. Can you tell us more about your debut record?
Our first single ‘Angst’ is emotional closure for our friend’s passing that we never achieved. A grieving period in the space of a song. The upcoming record which will be released this summer holds a lot of similarly emotive music, a lot of wailing, stamping and big fucking chorus’.
Sounds tasty. When you are writing lyrics for these tracks, what are some topics that you really wanted to get people’s attention about?
What we’ve been writing a lot about recently is expectations. What we try to live up to for our closest and loved and what we expect from them. If you even have the right to expect anything from anyone. Subject matter for anyone that’s ever sought approval or felt they deserve it. Hopefully something an audience will really be able to connect with.
Ok guys. Thanks a lot! Would you like to add anything else? Are there some interesting facts we may not know about you and you want them out?
Well we just wanna make sure everyone checks out ‘Angst’ on 30th March, and if we’re ever passing through your town come and say hey! Thanks very much for talking to us Karol! Hopefully we’ll see you soon.
