“Every band starts wanting to be their favourite band, and you can hear that influence, and it’s pure caveman moshing riffs.”
ACT hardcore outfit Kid Presentable are riding high – and rightfully so – on the success of their recently released debut long player Modern Living Fear.
A blending of everything that is good about hardcore music with the basic sensibilities that define heavy metal, Modern Living Fear is an album that should set Kid Presentable on course for global domination in their chosen genre, if not just for the sheer intensity and unflinching fire that permeates each of the nine tracks.
Guitarist Zac Bailey joined HEAVY to chat about the album and what Kid Presentable have planned for the next few months.
We start by asking how the early response has been.
“It’s been unreal,” Bailey enthused. “The local reception’s been fantastic. The release show was two, three weekends ago and we were pleasantly surprised to see a lot of familiar faces of course, but also a lot of brand new faces that I, at least personally, did not recognize. It’s always good to see new people showing up in the scene and the nationwide reception has been awesome. Friends from other bands have been sharing it and also album pre-orders from names we don’t recognize. I guess that’s always a good sign is when you’re not just selling to your mates.”
Musically, the album is a good representation of where Kid Presentable are at with their music at this stage of their career. It is an album that is truly the sum of all parts, and one which Bailey believes showcases the band’s sound perfectly.
“We were going for a pretty broad sound overall,” he agreed. “We didn’t want to pigeonhole all ourselves into sounding – not that it would be a bad thing – but sounding like any of our contemporaries – but we wanted to try to find a way to stick out. That stemmed from a love of a wide variety of music. You can listen and hear a lot of metal influences, and a lot of hardcore influences, and there’s some other stuff in there as well. I think we were shooting for something that would stick out as a moment in time that is an important release. We’ve done EPs in the past and while they are important as well, we felt like this was our chance – for lack of a better term – to flex our musical muscles and let it ring true to who we are and what we are capable of.”
In the full interview, Zac talks about the short running time and why it is important, the mix of the album and allowing each instrument its natural breathing arc, the sold out recent launch party and how the songs went down live, next year’s tour, how Modern Living Fear differs musically to the band’s debut release Disposable Culture in 2018 and more.
