The Moshville Times - Headline Act: KaiserKillers

You may have heard of The Isolationists or Martin’s Dad quite some years ago. Well Johnny and Andy are back with a new project, and music slowly dripping out to tease you! With another release coming soon, the two gents took the time out to give our Headline Act questions a thorough going over…

Simple things first – where are you guys from?

We hail originally for Huddersfield in Yorkshire, which people always assume is like Coronation Street. It’s not. The outskirts where we grew up are semi-rural, on the edge of the rolling Pennines. And it’s the biggest town in Europe. And it has more listed buildings per square mile that anywhere outside of central London. Here endeth the lesson from the Huddersfield Tourist Board (laughs). Not sure why we left really…

How did you meet?

Me (Johnny) and Andy met through girlfriends that were best mates. My girlfriend turned out to be a psycho, when I ended the relationship, she hung onto the car door as I tried to drive off! That was illustrated in our previous single ‘Don’t be a Stranger (Than You Already Are)’. Andy’s girlfriend left him and moved out of their house. He didn’t heed my warnings to change the locks and he came home one day to find that she had cleared the house of every stick of furniture. Some good tunes came out of it though…

How long have you been playing as a band?

We were active in the 90s as ‘The Isolationists’ and then as ‘Martin’s Dad’. In Martin’s Dad we had ex Luddites’ Mick Stead on bass (brother of Dave Stead, also ex-Luddites and later of Beautiful South). On drums, we had a lunatic called Martin, who had a somewhat eccentric father, which is where our name came from. It all fell apart when Andy decided to go off to Bristol to become a dentist. I put my guitar in the cupboard and went off to study car design. About five years ago, after Andy had tired of sticking his fingers in people’s mouths, I put my felt tip pens down and we started making music again. And jolly good music it is too…I had also been in a band called Krankhaus for about five years prior to that as well. Perhaps some of the Martin Dad demos could be bonus tracks on the next album?

Before you get sick of being asked… where does the band name come from?

Funny one that. Band names are notoriously difficult and I have known band spend months trying to craft the right name. With the KaiserKillers, it was almost an instant thing. We’re both massive Beatles nuts and Andy initially ventured the Kaiser Kellers, after the venue where the Beatles played a residency in Hamburg, and then almost immediately changed it slightly to Kaiser Killers, as in a killer set at the Kaiser Keller. KaiserKillers were born!

What are your influences?

Certainly the Beatles, but everything from glam rock, mod, folk rock though to punk, the Smiths and Britpop. The Byrds were a definite influence, along with the Small Faces. T Rex, Slade I could go on. What is probably most significant, however, is punk. If punk had never happened. I don’t think I would ever have dreamt that I could be in a band and play music. Prior to punk, bands all seemed to have been to university and were signed to major labels. Punk democratised music and made it possible for oiks like us to think we could make a record.

Describe your music. What makes you unique?

We call it PowerPopPunk! Definitely guitar based, often quite fast, with multiple layers of guitars and vocal harmonies. ‘A driving stream of musical consciousness’ is how Johnny – probably quite pretentiously – labelled it. (Johnny interjects), “Oy, we’ll have a less of that!”) (both laugh).

If you like what we do, consider ing us on Patreon for as little as £1 per month!

Do you have any particular lyrical themes?

There’s a joke in the band that the songs always seem to be about a girl Johnny once knew! And whilst there is some truth in this, there is also a political element that comes to the fore now and again. As unreconstructed Northern socialists, we like to have a dig every so often. Our first single, “Saints Preserve Us”, was about the, then current, PM and how he was something of a stranger to the truth. Our second single, “Love Conquers All”, was about the futility of Brexit. Since then, we’ve settled back into a theme of girls, cars and motorcycles. And quite right too.

What’s your live show like? How many shows have you played?

We have made very few live performances as KaiserKillers. It started as a songwriting and recording project and the live stuff was back with Martin’s Dad and Krankhaus. I think that is going to change in the near future, though. A touring band is very much on the cards. It’s Johnny’s fervent desire to play in the USA.

What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen or done at a live show?

I don’t know about wild, but with Krankhaus, we once finished a gig with only one string remaining our leads guitarist’s instrument. He impressively managed to perform a full solo of MC5’s ‘Looking at You’ with one string. Wicked! I think there may be a video of that lurking around somewhere…

What kit do you use / guitars do you play / etc.?

Andy: I have a nice semi acoustic that I tend to lay the guide guitar track down with, but a Gibson SG is what you will see in the publicity shots and I also use Johnny’s Les Paul quite a bit, I christened it the Black Beauty!

Johnny: I have a rather nice Hofner Violin bass (naturally) and the Gibson Les Paul that Andy has already mentioned. I brought that back from America when I went over to visit a girl in the 90s and the exchange rate was particularly favourable. I also have an American Fender Telecaster that, in truth, I prefer playing. Oh, and if anyone would like to gift me a Rickenbacker bass, I’d be much obliged (doffs cap deferentially). I also theoretically have a Gordon Smith GS2, though I lent it to a mate in the late 90s and he lent me a motorbike. I blew the bike up and lost touch with him, so haven’t seen it since…

What, if anything, are you plugging/promoting at the moment?

I thought you’d never ask! We have a new single out on Friday March 22^nd, called “Gun Crazy”. It’s been a long time coming, it must be close to two years since we released anything, though there have been mitigating circumstances. The sentiment of the song came from the trip mentioned earlier to see a girl in Connecticut. I asked her whether the proximity to New York had a knock-on effect in of crime (this was the 80s and crime was a feature of the NY landscape at that time). She said that it didn’t used to be the case, but that crime was beginning to creep into sleepy Connecticut and that only the week before, a guy had been found dead in the trunk of his car, down by the shopping mall. That’s basically the first verse right there.

What are your plans for the next 6 months or so?

Now we’re putting out music again after nodding off for a couple of years, there are plans aplenty! After “Gun Crazy”, we are going to remix and remaster the first four singles and release them as an EP (we mixed them ourselves and – in truth – didn’t do that good a job, this will rectify that error). An LP is planned, with CD release and limited edition vinyl (maybe with some bonus Martin’s Dad tracks!) and the album will have a lead single of “Honey (One Day in Atlantic City)”, you guessed it, about a girl Johnny once knew…Then definitely some live stuff.

If you were second on a three-band bill, which band would you love to be ing and which band would you choose to open for you? A chance to plug someone you’ve toured with, or a mate’s band we’ve not heard of before!

Top of the bill would be the Beatles, but that ain’t gonna happen, neither is the Smiths; so maybe Johnny Marr. To open, we would suggest some cool folks we hooked up with a while back, called ‘rincs’, who describe themselves as LA weirdos (undeservedly so). Their track ‘Henry’ is awesome, Let’s share some love with them.

Don’t fancy Patreon? Buy us a one-off beverage!

If you want to check out more new music, then fire up our Headline Act playlists on Spotify and YouTube!