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K interview

K rose from the ashes of Larrikin Love, The Treatment and Marner Brown. The band was approached by Films4Life a charity headed and run by Mickey De Hara who worked with Guy Ritchie on the scripts for Snatch and Rock n Rolla. The charity offers young peopled the chance to pursue their passion of film-making by letting them take charge and in this instance they created a music video for K.

EF caught up with them to talk about music and what the future beholds.

So where does this Q&A find you?

Well because im an international bad ass lead singer of a rock n roll band…I’m currently looking up hoovers and mops on line. We had a cleaner come round recently to blitz the new flat and realised we had none of the above. She looked at me politely like I was a right tit so need to remedy that one. I thought I’d done well cos i got new sponges, j-cloths and gloves and everything. Bugger!

Could you tell us how K came to be?

K was born out of the ashes of three bands. Our guitarist was from a band called ‘The Treatment,’ My brother Cathal was in ‘Larrikin Love’ and myself John and Jacob were in ‘Marner Brown.’ For various reasons they all ran their course or relationships did but through that we all fell together due to circumstances and timing so…every cloud n all that!

You’ve just released your first single ‘Too Young To Die’ how has the response been so far?

The response has been great generally. A few four out of fives (including your good selves so ta for that) which is nice and might hopefully mean people are warming back to proper rock n roll but we’ll see? You get the odd negative comment but find if you bother to dig a bit deeper that that journalist doesn’t like or listen to your sort of music anyway so it takes the sting out a bit and the ego still in tact. Its like me reviewing a boy band. I don’t care how good a boy band they are, cos they’re a boyband and they don’t write their own songs, they’re gonna get a one out of five regardless…and the one’s just cos they’re breathing.

Can you tell us what the song means to you and how it came about?

It’s basically about not accepting ‘no’ for an answer, not accepting to lay down and die. Its meant to be an empowering song to keep fighting for what you believe in and what you’re passionate about regardless of people telling you you shouldn’t or you can’t or that you’re not good enough. I wanted to stir up a kind of rebellious feeling with it. I wrote it quite a while ago and my memory’s not great but i would imagine It was probably born out of frustration of another bad meeting or some over opinionated music man telling me i should be playing female fronted electro pop or some shit. It’s a ‘stick it to the man song.’

Your album is set for release later this year. Could you tell how long it took to write and record?

I couldn’t tell you how long it took to write to be honest cos it was made up of songs from various stages in my life, for example ‘Save Me’ was one of the first songs i ever wrote and recorded when I was about seventeen/eighteen that kind of just lay dormant for years waiting for a chance to show its face, i knew we’d do something with it I just didn’t know what or when? Then at the other end of the spectrum you’ve got songs like ‘Tell It Like It is’ and ‘The Colour’ where the lyrics were literally finished in the studio and recorded the same day and then the rest anywhere in between. The album was recorded over a period of about three months with breaks for Christmas and just to check our producers sanity and stuff.

Could you tell us how the writing process works for K?

Well generally i write the songs. Sometimes I’ll come to rehearsal with a pretty much finished song in my head, sometimes i will have demoed a rough version in the studio with John which is usually better cos it’s a bit more black n white and easier for the band to get the idea of and sometimes like in the case of ‘Rise’ someone else may have been messing around with a riff (in this case Jacob our bass player) and we’ll jam round it and build it from there. I write all the melodies and lyrics and most of the music but it’s no dictatorship, if someone’s got a song or ideas or can take something I’ve done and make it better then I’m all for it. I always say…”for the greater good of the song.”

Your music blends rock and blues; would you say that you’re inspired by American artists?

I think if you’re into rock or blues in any capacity you have to be inspired by at least a few American artists, although i’d like to think we’re a bit more rock than blues. Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Crosby, Steels and Nash to name a few. My fundamentals as i call them are generally British it seems, The Beatles, The Stones, Led Zepp and from there the rest are formed i find. The Stone Roses, Primal Scream, The Charlatans, Ocean Colour Scene, Oasis, Kasabian, the list goes on and on.

You’ve been on tour with quite a few interesting people. Do you have any anecdotes you could tell us about? Disasters? Surprises?

Too many unfortunately. I woke up in the hotel foyer with blood on my hands once on an OCS tour? Still not really sure what happened that night but no one came to arrest me for murder so I just left that one?

An armed German Police man had it in for us big time once…I say us, I mean Jacob really. We were on our way to Frequency festival in Austria when Jacob was spotted getting out of our tour bus like Bambi on Ice. Long hair past his shoulders, a beard, tracksuit bottoms on with no shoes or top on, just a crown medallion and a cigerette strategically placed behind each ear. This bloke was convinced Jacob was a crack head and that there was bound to be drugs on that bus and to be fair looking at Jacob…he sort of had a point. All our bags were taken off and checked as well as the bus but due to his particular interest in our bass player he didn’t spot me rehiding my weed in the mattress. He begrudgingly let us go. Haha! K. 1 German Old Bill 0

Festival season is upon us will you be playing at any?

We certainly hope so. Our agent is booking as we speak so as soon as we know you’ll know. We pride ourselves on being a tight live outfit and there’s no better outlet for that than doing festivals. Great opportunity to gain new fans and its a real buzz converting people that may have missed you up to that point. And they’re just good fun aren’t they? music, booze, drugs and women in wellies? Does it get better than that? I think not.

Is there also a tour coming up? Are there any places you particularly look forward to playing?

Again, there will be a tour and it’s currently being put together so watch this space. But places we look forward to playing have always been Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Edinburgh…well, anywhere that will have us really. The further up north the better. We do of course love playing in our dear old London but there’s something great about the people and vibe up north that’s infectious and honest. But we’d have a good time just playing down the park if they had plugs?

What’s next for K?

Well I’m gonna email this back to you’s lot then have a bit of left over spag bowl from last  night and watch a documentary on aliens and space n stuff!…oh yeah, i might write a song or something too if I’ve got time?

K recently released their single Too Young To Die in anticipation of their debut album RISE, which is due to be released this summer.

Sarah Bargiela
Sarah Bargiela
Sarah aka Bargi is the Assistant Editor and Music Editor for Entertainment Focus (EF).
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