Feature Articles

Young high school Dunedin band the George Kay Experience which is comprised of Adrian Ng on lead guitar, Sam Valentine on bass/ backing vox and Richard Ley-Hamilton on guitar/vox talk to dunedinmusic.com about their influences and the future expectations for their band and other things in between. Read on to discover why GKE should be your next favourite band. Tracks can be found on their myspace page, lastfm, you can become a fan on facebook and they also have a profile on this fabulous site. Get amongst the George Kay Experience.

[ www.myspace.com/thegeorgekayexperience]

[http://last.fm/music/The+George+Kay+Experience]


DMC: Who is George Kay and why did you name your band after him?

RL: George Kay was our History teacher at school, he's the man. He is a music journalist too, he writes articles for Real Groove and he's interviewed some "massive names" in the business, Mick Jagger and David Bowie. Mr Kay was a sweet teacher, and really easy to distract. We'd always end up in lengthy musical discussions in class, which would piss everyone else off. We once had a massive debate with him about who sucked more, Oasis or Greenday. Yeah, he's cool.


DMC: How would you guys define your sound?

RL: Ugh, defining our sound....When we were young and obnoxious we used to say our sound was 'like the Arctic Monkeys being beaten up by Queens of the Stone Age'. But now we are slightly less young and obnoxious we'd probably just say post punk. Less of a mouthful too.


DMC: Any musical influences?

RL: THE MINT CHICKS!! Um Nah, we all are into pretty different stuff which is kinda why our style is hard to pin down. Mostly alternative indie stuff though. We all like the BJM, BRMC, the Mint Chicks, Wilco, 3D's and that but it always changes...


DMC: Where do you see yourselves, as a band, in the future?

RL: Right now we are all trying to figure out what to do with our lives. Music is a passion and excuse for us at the moment. We'll just have to wait and see.


DMC: What does it feel like to have originally set out to do Rockquest but end up recording an EP?

RL: It feels really good to have recorded an EP, it kinda proved to us Rockquest doesn't mean much. Not to discredit any bands that made it big through Rockquest, it just wasn't for us. We've improved a lot as a band since then. It actually bettered us not getting through the heats. Made us get our[selves] sorted.


DMC: What do you think of the Dunedin music scene?

RL: I guess it’s fairly mixed, like everything. I mean you've got the really good and the really bad, haha.
On the whole though, it’s a good community to be a part of. Generally everyone is willing to help you out and give advice which is good. People like Dave Local y'know? Willing to give you a shot . It’s people like that who really contribute to the Dunedin music scene. And Craig Gemmel too. People helping young bands to start gigging regularly, organising gigs for young bands to play at. Without them young bands wouldn't really get the shot they might deserve.


DMC: What are your favourite Dunedin bands?

RL: Were all fans of of TFF, they're going places. Richard really likes Knives at Noon, they opened for the Checks in October. He only heard one song so that’s testament to them! Brains too, they kick ass. They've definitely got the right attitude, I love how there is no bull with them. Matt calls it how it is. I mean like that Dr Glam video -haha, I've got that thread bookmarked.


DMC: What did you draw inspiration from when writing your new EP?

RL: Various fruits and vegetables really...Nah, it was mainly Richards six year old brother haha. He gave us the title, he drew a captioned picture of a talking door swimming. We liked how it implied that not all talking doors love swimming. We try not to take ourselves too seriously, but there is meaning there if you want to hear it.


DMC: How long have you all known each other? How did you meet?

RL: We met at school, haha. Sam and Adrian went to primary school together and then we met Richard when we went to Otago Boys. We met through common interests I guess, not sure there was a specific moment when we decided to all be friends, it just progressed that way. And like all teenage boys we wanted to start a band, so we did.


DMC: Do you have any upcoming shows?

RL: We just found out that we are playing at Chicks this Sunday (22nd November), unless this isn't published before then and then our next gig is the 12th of December. You can check on our MySpace for upcoming gigs, we update as soon as we know


DMC: What’s your ultimate direction for your band?

RL: Well, hopefully forward. But I guess we'll meander around in this state of gigging for a while. We're recording another EP early next year and we are in the process of making a music video. Things are still happening.



Rosa


Related artists: Taking The Fall, KNIVES AT NOON, Dr Glam

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