Music Q&A: Kaze

What informs your music and songwriting?
As with most songwriters it’s an emotion that starts the process. Amy loves to complain about things and fight against injustices so the lyrics can often be anger-driven. I likes to write music with a slightly theatrical edge – a catchy pop song with some unexpected twists and turns. Once we’ve got the song, we put everything into performing and conveying the song’s message so that hopefully the finished product makes people go “yeahhh” with a sort of down-turned mouth and nod of approval.

How have you evolved as an act over the years?
Continually experimenting with new ideas and building on what we think are our strengths. Amy has evolved to become the frontwoman storyteller and the performance incorporates a female dancer, costumes and props while still telling a story and not being pretentious (we hope haha!). I’m the spokesman between the storyteller and the band and help hold the music together. On the songwriting side, I continues to try to find the right balance between interesting musical ideas and mainstream, accessible ideas, so we don’t alienate audiences.

What are you up to at the moment artistically?
We’ve just released the video for our single, Fierce. It’s a powerful, eery track. We are also planning for our second release of 2018 in June. The video has been completed and we’re getting the artwork together next. Non-artistically though, Amy’s thinking about her next meal and fretting over world politics and I’m making a coffee and still chuffed with the new tyres I got on my car three weeks ago.

What’s on your rider?
Sun dried tomatoes with mozzarella balls. Irn-Bru (obviously for me). Lager (which Amy used to spell “larger” until about six months ago). Pistachio nuts.

Tell us your most embarrassing or surreal experience.
*Not for the faint stomached* We were recently rehearsing and I was feeling a bit uneasy, my left ear was making a rattling sound, an alarm to any to musician. Anyway, I continued to play and get on with the rehearsal, until all of a sudden, this HUGE chunk of ear wax comes out of my ear, so I kept it on the keyboard and showed everyone. Amy’s instant reaction was: “That is sick – but also quite amazing.” Haha.

What song do you wish you’d written?
Radiohead – Weird Fishes/Arpeggi.

What’s your worst lyric?
“A narrow minded view, puts you in a grump. Things looked bad in June, and then they voted…” *US national anthem* To be honest, we bloody like that lyric.