LouFest 2014: Kins
What are you excited about for LouFest?“Seeing Future Islands. I’m also just really stoked to get back to the states. I feel like Americans are more critical of music, and so when they like it, they really like it, and they’re sure they like. You feel that passion at a concert.” - Thomas SavageWhat would fans be surprised to know?“The keyboard that’s smeared all over our debut album is a Casio I found at the market for about 30 pounds, or 50 American dollars. I just liked the sound better than the $2,000 one we already had.”
Kins is building a body of work, to be ingested slowly and deeply, not over the length of an album, but over the length of a lifetime. The U.K.-based band is in no hurry to assemble its legacy.
When Thomas Savage was 17, he started listening to Radiohead. It was all he listened to for years. He was fascinated by the concept of the band’s complete body of work and how, put together, it made a statement all its own. “Album by album, I just got deeper and deeper into the band’s music,” he says. “I fell in love with the idea that a band can have this entire catalog of work that people can discover, digest and delve into.”
Kins isn’t a fleeting project, and it’s not something the band members—Thomas Savage, Alex Knight and Rob Walters—will be talking about years later as their first big musical venture. Kins has only begun its catalog, and Savage expects it won’t be finished, ideally, for another 30 to 40 years.
This is a lifetime commitment, for better or for worse. Although setting out on that type of long-term journey would intimidate most musicians, Savage says that as he’s aged, he’s let go of his grandiose ideals of jumping ship when the going gets tough. Instead, he is humbled by the success Kins has started to feel and knows that it’s something he wants to hold onto as long as possible.
The band released its debut album KINS on iTunes about a year ago, and since then has exploded across the indie rock scene in both the band’s U.K. home and in the U.S. Bridging the traditional notions of rock 'n' roll with outbursts of modern zest is how Savage says his band has taken a hold in today's music scene.
“You want to stand out and be different, but if you’re too unique, then people don’t get it, which kind of defeats the point of music,” he says. “The point of music is to connect with people.”
And Kins connects with people by giving crowds exactly what they want. “Today’s generation … they like to dance don’t they?” Savage laughs. Up-on-your-feet guitar riffs are something that LouFest crowds can definitely anticipate at Kins’ pop rock show. Savage promises a thumping bass and a clomping drum will pace each track.
However, the listening experience Savage imagines people typically having with his music varies quite a bit from the live show. “Our music is like a personal friend,” he explains. “It’s one-on-one, headphones-in, have-some-alone-time type of music.”
He guesses that’s how the music is digested because that’s how he writes it and how he is inspired by music. He prefers music where it sounds like the artist is making exactly what they want to make, such as Jenny Hval, who he idolizes for her blend of crazy, mental and wacky Norwegian folk and Young Fathers, a Scottish experimental rap trio.
“Music that is important to me is the kind that when I listen to it, I get excited about music again,” Savage says. “That’s what I want in my catalog.”
