One of the names off of Ambiviolent, the debut EP from KITE THIEF, is called Judge Judy & Executioner. The name came about “because a lot of the lyrics have symbolism of being in court or on trial. In my head, I thought it could be called The Trial or something along those lines,” explains vocalist Elin Allan. “It was all about a time where my ex boyfriend took me on holiday to see if our relationship could work, despite us being together for five years.”
She took the song to the rest of the band – guitarists Max Harris and Josh Bailey, bassist Henry Stone and drummer Zac Lever – who agreed that it didn’t have the ring that Elin thought it would. She decided to call it Judge, Jury and Executioner, which she says is how her ex boyfriend was acting at the time. “Josh was like, ‘well, wouldn’t it be funny if it was Judge Judy & Executioner, like in the film Hot Fuzz?’” Elin explains.
“The more we said it, the funnier it got,” Max agrees. The band got together by attending the same university in Bristol. Elin says she started scouting potential band members, looking at who was working hard and turning up to lectures, as they all studied music together. She messaged them all and they ended up getting together for a specific performance. After auditioning for and winning a performance night, the band decided to stick together.
“A lot of the writing was done in the practice room when we first got together,” Max says, explaining about their first few writing sessions. “The first four or five songs were written all together. However, I pioneered recording the demo songs on a computer and sending them to the others. We’d get to the point of them coming over to my house. We started as an in-the-room band, and then transitioned into an online band.”
Whilst the COVID-19 pandemic caused bands to have to work out interesting ways to work on new music, KITE THIEF continued doing what they were doing by recording music over the internet. They still work like this to this day, because they don’t always have the money to go away on writing retreats. Although they’ve also experimented with writing demos without certain instruments, such as the drums or bass, being recorded, so that the other members could work on their part.
“We get a lot more done remotely because we can experiment more,” Elin adds. “We much prefer to piece it all together rather than sitting in a loud recording studio. Plus, we live all over the country. Max and I live in Bristol, Josh lives in either Surrey or Surbiton. Henry lives in Street, which is next to Glastonbury. Zac lives in Brackley in West Northamptonshire. We’ve come up with new ways of writing, and they work a lot better.”
The band were playing the singles game by releasing individual songs. However, they were ready to do something different as the songs they were writing sounded different to anything that they had released before. “It was almost like a new chapter for us,” Max explains. “We then thought that we should start doing a body of work. We don’t want to write an album yet until our profiles are a bit bigger.”
“We put off doing an EP for a while as well,” Elin adds. “We decided that we wanted to release the odd song whilst we found ourselves and we played loads of gigs. I remember we had loads of different demos, and in one of our weekly meetings, we decided to release an EP.”
In the band’s heads, they envisioned that the EP would be released in six months from that weekly meeting. However, it is instead being released two years later. “It was still quite daunting,” Max admits. “Although our EP is only five songs long, it’s the first time we’ve done a collective body of work. We had about 20 or 30 demo songs, which were enough for an entire album. We went through all of them and decided to find the ones that worked together as a journey and a listening experience. We’ve still songs that we wrote in our writing retreat to Devon last year, when we were in the crux of getting this whole thing together.”
Musically, the band describe themselves as pop-metal. “We’re angry in a happy way,” Max explains, with Elin adding: “We’re very tongue-in-cheek, metal with a hook. We’ve got the big riffs, and we have the odd heavy vocals, with the addition of very pop melodies and synths going on.”
“We’re probably quite exciting,” Max says. “I usually take into consideration our live shows as well. When I think about the band, it’s not just how we sound. It’s the whole vibe we bring as well.”
A lot of bands can sound a lot better in a live setting rather than a studio version, due to the fact that a live setting is rawer. This is the case for KITE THIEF. “When we started, we didn’t make any social media or record any music for about a year or a year and a half,” Elin explains. “That’s because we wanted to find our feet live, and we love playing live. It’s why we do it anyway.”
“It’s the best way to experience us,” Max adds. “On Spotify, a band’s music can not sound as polished due to a lower budget, but their live shows can be insane and memorable. That’s why we focus so hard on the live shows. We want it to be the biggest thing we can offer, instead of just getting up and playing a gig.”
Ambiviolent is out now via Year Of The Rat Records.
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