[vc_row column_padding=”false” css=”.vc_custom_1444309434496{padding-bottom: 25px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_single_image img_size=”full” full_width=”true” alignment=”center” image=”30284″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1445369766238{padding-bottom: 25px !important;}”][vc_column width=”5/6″ offset=”vc_col-lg-offset-1 vc_col-lg-10 vc_col-md-offset-1 vc_col-md-10″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1477301860897{border-bottom-width: 10px !important;padding-bottom: 25px !important;border-bottom-color: #0a0a0a !important;border-bottom-style: solid !important;}”]
Feature
Kamikaze Girls
It’s okay to be sad.
Words: Sam Taylor.
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”5/6″ offset=”vc_col-lg-offset-1 vc_col-lg-10 vc_col-md-offset-1 vc_col-md-10″][vc_column_text]Leeds/London duo Kamikaze Girls bleed DIY. It’s in their veins. From self-booked tours, to negotiating record deals, to their lo-fi slacker punk – nothing happens that isn’t entirely down to vocalist and guitarist Lucinda Livingstone and drummer Conor Dawson.
“We got to a point in our old band where we weren’t getting a huge amount of enjoyment from the music we were playing,” starts Conor. The duo have played together before, but it’s with their latest project that things are really taking off, picking up fans as far flung as Paramore’s Hayley Williams. “It wasn’t what we were listening to and it wasn’t what we wanted to play. Kamikaze Girls grew out of the ashes of that.”
The struggles they’ve faced to get to this point are key to their debut EP, ‘Sad’. It’s a release born from dealing with mental health, and it tackles difficult topics unashamedly. Opener ‘Hexes’ is about psychosis and figuring out what’s real, ‘Stitches’ considers anxiety towards settling down, ’Black Coffee’ touches on addiction, and ’I Hate Funerals’ is, well, pretty self-explanatory. Then there’s ‘Ladyfuzz’, about being rescued from an overdose by a super hero alter ego.
“’Sad’ is written about the last two years of my life,” explains Lucinda. “I struggled with a lot of mental health issues. When I was at my worst Kamikaze Girls started, and I guess I ended up using all of that bad energy and issues I was struggling with and channeled it into our music.
“One of the main things I was struggling with was Post Traumatic Stress Disorder throughout that time, so I wasn’t leaving the house often apart from to go to work or to jam with Conor. I’d never quite used music in that way to push myself through something.
“I was getting medical help for this stuff, but having an outlet to vent to really helped. We weren’t originally going to call it ‘Sad’, but I guess there just wasn’t any other way to sum it up.”
“After twelve years of playing in bands I finally found some confidence to speak about all of the awkward things no one acknowledged when I was growing up and playing shows in the UK,” she continues. “There’s so many bad attitudes towards women in creative industries, and there’s little awareness about getting support for mental health issues.
“These are two things that have affected me hugely and at the point we’re at now I’d rather point it out and talk about these things instead of sweep it under the carpet. It’s not all that the band is, but if we can help raise awareness about issues in our scene and in the places we live then we will.”
They’re currently part-way through a massive tour that has just seen them take on Europe and the UK, with the US next on their list. Dropping in on different cultures, and fans around the world not only helps them spread their supportive vibes, but it feeds into the pair’s music too. “I’m constantly on the move, even when I’m not touring,” laughs Lucinda. “Being able to see different things and meet different people is a big [inspiration]. I’ll write a lot about my personal experiences of different things in different places.”
“We’re playing next to the Werder Bremen football stadium [in Germany] tonight which we get to visit tomorrow before we move onto Kiel,” adds Conor. “We got to play in an Anti-Fascist Ex World War II bunker in Aachen last night. Stuff like that will never not be amazing.”
“We’ve had one single online and an old three-track for the last year and to actually have a record to tour has been great so far,” continues Lucinda. “We’re having people come up to us saying ‘Do you have records for sale?’ or ‘Where can I hear that song?’. I’m excited to not have to say, ‘Sorry we don’t have anything out yet’ every night!”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1445370422462{padding-bottom: 25px !important;}”][vc_column width=”5/6″ offset=”vc_col-lg-offset-1 vc_col-lg-10 vc_col-md-offset-1 vc_col-md-10″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1477301922627{margin-top: 15px !important;border-top-width: 10px !important;padding-top: 15px !important;border-top-color: #0a0a0a !important;border-top-style: solid !important;}”]Taken from the October issue of Upset. Order a copy here. Kamikaze Girls’ new EP ‘Sad’ is out now.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row column_padding=”false” css=”.vc_custom_1452681180219{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFVg5Lr7Do0″][/vc_column][/vc_row]
