Black Kids Interview

• 15th Oct 2008

Florida –based indie-rock/indie-pop five-piece Black Kids have received much acclaim since their formation in 2006. Last year’s Wizards of Ahhhs EP was adored by critics while the international blogeratti has been busy documenting their every subsequent move. After the infectious singles ‘Hurricane Jane’ and ‘I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You’, this summer’s Partie Traumatic long-player crashed into the UK album chart top 10: suggesting that the band’s upcoming date as part of Liverpool Music Week will be one notable highlight. Before that, Drummer Kevin Snow had a chat over the phone.

So how are you?

Good. I’m in Boston. In a hotel lobby right now. We’re in the middle of our American tour. But we’re really looking forward to playing Liverpool. Just really looking forward to going back to the UK, in fact. I mean, people over there really picked up on us early and I always feel that the UK audience really understands what we’re trying to do. But we’re also going to be playing all over Europe and then travelling to Japan.

So the shows are going well?

Yes. Really well.

Only Reggie (Youngblood, Black Kids vocalist & guitarist) has been really apologetic about the band’s live performances in the past. So what’s behind his criticism: honesty, humility or some kind of hang-up?

[Laughs] Well, I think we’re actually much better now. I agree with what Reggie was saying then: we were a new band and we really hadn’t been playing together very long. I think that showed. But we’re more comfortable. We are still learning all the time but we’re much more confident.

Because you were thrust into the spotlight really early, weren’t you?

Pretty much after our first gig. Other bands will get the opportunity to develop before they’re in the public eye but we got this huge amount of coverage immediately after our debut show. Our second ever interview was with the NME.

I suppose the other problem with being ‘the next big thing’ at that stage of the band’s life is that you’ve just started out and you’ve already got this backlash just waiting to happen?

Yes. Especially on the web. People are suspicious of the hype.

Was there also the suggestion that – as a new band – you hadn’t, in rock & roll terms, paid your dues by spending years on the gigging circuit?

That’s what some people thought. But some of us had been in bands before. Before Black Kids, some of us had done that thing of living in a van and playing these little venues all over the place. I had. I had done that for years. But the internet is funny like that: someone puts this opinion across and it becomes “fact” overnight simply because you can find it on Google. Even in terms of what Black Kids is – like, what we sound like – we’re constantly coming across these comparisons that I don’t think are accurate but just because someone wrote it on a website and it’s up there people keep going back to it.

Which comparisons?

There’s Arcade Fire, for one. I don’t think that we sound like Arcade Fire.

Maybe it’s because you share the same management or because you can occasionally stray into fuzzy, epic territory?

That’s possible. But I think we’re more of a party band. Our influences are, like, The B-52s and Blondie. Those are the kind of band’s that really inspire Black Kids.

Some journalists have placed you alongside the Go Team. Is that any better?

That’s okay because they’re another party band. And there’s also something that pretty irreverent about them which is something I think is part of what we do. Reggie and I used to go out to indie-dance clubs all the time and that really left an impression on us. We want people to dance to our music. We’ve been lucky enough to have had some really cool club remixes of our songs but I’d like to think that even in their original versions our tracks are still ‘dance records’. Maybe in the same way that Blondie and New Order or even The Smiths could make dance records.

Reggie’s constantly cited Morrissey as an influence. Can you hear that in Black Kids’ song-writing?

I think there’s a similar kind of emotion there. Some sort of melodrama. Definitely. Plus I think that we also have a similar twisted approach to writing a song. The ability to make something that’s perhaps a little subversive lyrically.

As in the way Reggie’s subverts gender and gender roles in the songs?

Yes. In fact, that’s something that the fans really latch onto. Apart from the question about why we’re called Black Kids, that’s something we get asked the most. And it’s something that I know Morrissey does: he’s created a lot of interest because there’s a certain sexual ambiguity within his lyrics.

But surely, for Black Kids, it’s not just a contrived approach? I mean, you’re not quite Katy Perry, are you?

Not at all. That whole Katy Perry thing is just so calculated. I think what we do is far more subtle than that. It’s more about looking at a song in a different, non-stereotypical way. Great if what we do creates some discussion but we’re not just about creating some kind of hype.

Black Kids perform at Nation on Saturday 1st November with support from Ladyhawke and Magistrates as part of MTV Liverpool Music Week. Tickets on sale now: £10+BF / link / Tel: 0151 256 5555 / Info: link