Interview: Kite Thief @ Misery Loves Company
Kite Thief at Misery Loves Company Festival by John Bevan
When we first launched The Scene earlier this year, Kite Thief was one of the very first bands we interviewed. With the band on the bill for the inaugural Misery Loves Company Festival in their hometown of Bristol, we couldn't miss the opportunity to chat with the candy metal five-piece again.
A lot has happened for Kite Thief in the past few months - they've signed with Year Of The Rat Records, dropped a number of banging singles that hint at bigger things to come, and announced a headline UK tour for early next year.
Before taking the stage at MLC, we spoke to guitarists Max Harris and Josh Bailey about everything they’ve been up to since summer, their maturing sound, and writing new songs in cottage hot tubs.
We’ve not seen you since Trees and you’ve had quite a full few months. How’s it going?
Max: It's been eventful. We've released two singles since you last saw us. We have indeed.
Josh: And another on the way, very soon.
And you signed?
Josh: Yes! That happened too!
Max: Yeah, we signed and are releasing under a Year of the Rat. It's been going really well, really exciting stuff.
It's so exciting to watch! Tell us about the new single “Goldsick”?
Josh: We wrote it last year. We actually took a little holiday together; rented a little Airbnb in Devon, had a hot tub, it was adorable in a little cottage. And we turned the lounge into a studio for a long weekend. This was the first song we started working on. I think the working title for it was “Hot Tub Time Machine” because we were all in the hot tub.
Max: We got some dinner, drank wine, got in the hot tub at like midnight. Then later we thought, might as well go write a song. And in our drunken hot-tubby-haze we came out with this.
Josh: Don't forget the fish and chips.
Max: Ooh fish and chips, yes!
Josh: I think I lasted like an hour and a half before going to bed. Then you guys did a lot of work on it. And then by the end of the holiday we pretty much had the song. Although! It was originally swung?
Max: It was swung, it was like a shuffle.
Josh: It was very different for us. And I actually hated it and fought everyone until we could make it more straight forward.
Max: It was like a Kite Thief sea shanty!
Josh: Like a carnival! It’s not that now. It’s suitably angry in places.
Max: I think it's a hint of what's to come? It's our new sound, basically. Like a little dip in the pond of what we've got to offer coming up. It's a new direction for us and slowly introduces people into changing our sound. We want to keep people accustomed at the beginning, but we don't want to just stay the same forever.
Is this new sound more what we can expect from the upcoming material we’ve seen teased?
Josh: Yep, there is definitely stuff coming. Another single is on its way in October, a couple weeks time from now. And then some more…
Max: We’ll be touring next year, end of February into the beginning of March.
Josh: All headline shows too! I think our first headlines in a lot of the places, which will be interesting. Especially London, we’ve never headlined London before. Should be nice for me, I actually live in London so that's actually my closer one. Everything else we play is always in the south and takes me ages to get to. But we're playing some new places; Norwich we're never been to, Bournemouth we've never been either. We're looking forward to it.
And obviously we're going to try and make the Bristol show as big as we can. It's at Rough Trade and we’re working on getting some friends on the line up and making it a really good night.
If there's any song in the world that you could hear again for the first time, what would it be?
Max: Bohemian Rhapsody?
Josh: That’s a lame answer! What are you, 50? year old like, oh, it's not lame, but it's, you know, it's a little bit.
Max: Alright, do better!
Josh: The first time I ever heard “Regressed” by Polaris - I saw them live and they have this bit in the middle where the whole song tunes down a bunch. And it hits like nothing else. When I was in the crowd for that, the first time I heard that song, I literally screamed. That was a cool moment to hear a song for the first time.
Max: If we're going with modern stuff, I'd probably say “Grave Digger” by architects. That was a good one.
Thanks for your time, it was so nice to catch up again! We’ll let you go meet up with the crew and get ready for your set. We’ll be there!
Kite Thief is comprised of Elin Allan (vox), Max Harris and Josh Bailey (guitars), Henry Stone (bass) and Zac Lever (drums). Stay tuned tomorrow when Kite Thief release their latest single, “Judge Judy & Executioner”.
