Katalina Kicks profess to playing simple and direct heavy garage rock’n’roll: power chords and pummelling rhythms, fuzzy guitar and throbbing bass, big riffs and shouted choruses, pin-balling between grunge, punk and heavy blues. In Ian George Katalina Kicks also have a songwriter who can’t help but use his band as a platform to air his anxieties about the world around him.
“I would never pigeonhole us as a ‘political band’,” he explains. “I just write about things I see and hear that upset me. We’re not preaching at anyone or trying to change the world. We’re just saying these are the things that affect and worry us. They’re too important not to talk about, whether in conversation or in rock’n’roll. That’s all we try to do.”
Their new album, Vices is set for release next month and presents Katalina Kicks at their loudest, scuzziest and most politically aggrieved yet. But then opening with a 'cameo' from Donald Trump, how could it not be? The Seattle-sized quake of Guns was written after watching Obama’s tearful reaction to the Sandy Hook school shooting. “It’s a song of despair,” says Ian. “The most powerful man in the world, and even he can’t stop the gun madness in his own country. And then after the Paris attacks, Trump said that terrifying quote about if people had guns, less people would have been hurt. So we sampled that just to show the absurdity.”
The ten tracks of Vices are reassurance to anyone fearing that contemporary rock may have lost its conscience. In their musical echoes of the past, Katalina Kicks speak volumes about our present. A volume the world needs turning up louder than ever.
Katalina Kicks are: Ian George (vocals/guitar), Nadia Silverstone (bass/backing vox), Jase Wilkinson (drums/backing vox).
VICES TOUR
Thu 4th May - The Spinning Top, Stockport
Fri 5th May - Paul Smith store, Birmingham
Fri 5th May - Scruffy Murphys, Birmingham
Tue 9th May - Trillians, Newcastle
Wed 10th May - VICES LAUNCH PARTY at the O2 Academy2 Islington, London BUY TICKETS
Fri 12th May - Paul Smith store, Nottingham
Fri 12th May - The Shed, Leicester
Sat 13th May - Retro Bar, Manchester
Sun 14th May - Paul Smith store, Leeds
Sun 14th May - West Street Live, Sheffield
Tue 16th May - Horns, Watford
Thu 18th May - Paul Smith at Beak Street store, London
Sat 20th May - 'Beardsterdam' Festival, Het Sieraad, Amsterdam
Sun 21st May - Paul Smith, Amsterdam
Sun 21st May - The Waterhole, Amsterdam
Thu 1st June - The Dulcimer, Chorlton
Sat 10th June - 'Camden Rocks Presents' at Proud Camden, London.
