IT’S A Sunday afternoon at Southampton’s Joiners. Kill It Kid lead singer, Chris Turpin is sat quietly restringing his Gibson Les Paul, while drummer Marc Jones is idly flicking through a local magazine. They’re sat by the bar, waiting for dinner but looking relatively fresh for band, that before yesterday’s break, had played 18 dates in a row.
“We went home,” Marc smiles, looking visibly refreshed, “and that was great!”
In the resulting months the Bath four-piece, completed with Stephanie Ward and Adam Timmins, will complete the recording of their second album then meet Jack White at this year’s SXSW Festival.
“We’ve done loads of gigs,” Marc explains, “but on this tour it has picked up. This is our biggest tour with the line up change, our violinist moved on to do other things, so we became a four piece. We did a little tour in November to sort of road-test the new album.”
“We know we can put on show,” he continues, “people are coming to see us which makes us more comfortable. People are there because they have bought our album and like it, so we have to please them and ourselves.”
Set for release on One Little Indian Records, the follow up to 2009’s self-titled debut is expected this summer, and the band seem eager to show it to the world. It will be their first record without violinist, Richard Jones.
“I don’t think it came as a surprise,” Marc says, “we’re really happy that he is doing what he wants to do. You spend so much time with someone that you care for them as a friend and we still see him and hang out.”
“He didn’t really want to be in a rock and roll band,” Chris continues, “the touring, sleeping away from his bed and playing venues. I think it worked out for the best.”
With the release of the debut album and the trend of faux-folk having an impact on the chart, Kill It Kid became lumped into the “crop of neo-folk bands”. When this quote is mentioned, it produces a giggle from Marc evidently humoured by the phrase.
“We really like what those guys were doing,” he concedes, “but we were very aware that because folksy stuff was doing very well we got lumped in with that. When actually, we’re playing bluesy rock ‘n’ roll.”
“In my mind, I always thought of us as a blues band in essence,” Chris says, “when we were being bracketed in the same sentence as Laura Marling, it just didn’t fit right with us as a group of musicians”.
The violin probably didn’t help their “non-folk” argument, insisting they used it as the hook instrument in their songs. With that gone the band have adapted the “less is more” approach making their material come alive.
“We’ve stripped back the acoustic guitars too,” Chris explains, “I’ve been told our debut album is too busy with too much going on. We needed to take out one lead melody instrument.”
“When you start off as a band you’re throwing all your ideas into the song,” Marc interjects, “and I think we’ve actually matured to understand what a song needs and creating a vibe and atmosphere. There’s less instrumentation, but we’re doing more.”
Chris claims that he had “probably 60 or 70 songs” for the second full-length but “a lot of them didn’t fit” into what he had in mind. The band headed to a studio in Central London and recorded songs in a week and with great “immediacy”. Songs set to appear on the album are said to have “less narratives” and showing the attitude that they feel were hidden underneath layers of melody on their first record.
The record is also more of a concept, using samples of 1920 and 1930’s speeches, including the Alan Lomax snippet opening new single Pray On Me. Chris points out that the band had the “opportunity” to release radio friendly songs but opted against to make an album that they were happy with.
“This might be our last bat in the music industry,” he announces bodily, “so we’re going to make an album we’re extremely proud of. We’d much rather be in the industry for five years and release two albums that we are very proud of than compensating and working around the trend.”
“There is defiantly a lack of honesty and sincerity in the charts,” he continues with a certain vengeance towards the Top 40, “we just don’t want to do that. We wanted to do it very quickly in London with a great producer rather than spending weeks in the woods like we did on our first album.”
mypace.com/killitkid
JACK GORMAN
