Kill Kenada

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Kill Kenada
Left to right: Danny Williams, Eldge & Tim Smithen
Origin	Bognor Regis
Country	England
Years active	2001–present
Genres	Alternative rock Hardcore punk Post-hardcore Indie rock
Labels	SUBverse Recordings
Members	Tim Smithen Danny Williams Eldge
Past members	Stoo Fairhurst (2001-2005)
Website(s)	killkenada.com

1 Biography
2 Band Members
- 2.1 Previous Members
3 History
4 Discography
5 External links

[edit] Biography

Kill Kenada are a rock music group from Bognor Regis, England, formed in 2001 inspired by Fugazi, Pavement, Sonic Youth, Pixies, Urusei Yatsura, At the Drive-In, and many more.

The band name is a reference to a character named Shotaro Kaneda or Kanada in Akira - possibly the reason why 'Kenada' was chosen was that it was somewhere in between the two different translations.

[edit] Band Members

Tim Smithen (bass/vox) Danny Williams (guitar) James 'Eldge' Eldrige (drums)

[edit] Previous Members

Stewart Fairhurst (drums) 2001-2005 'Stoo' features on 'Choke', 'Red And Black', 'Massachusetts Murder Medallions', 'The Pink Album' & (B-side to 'In Your Throat' single) 'Eastern Sun'.

[edit] History

Kill Kenada's first success was winning a battle of the bands contest in Portsmouth. They then went on to record some songs with Gordon Raphael (well known for producing popular indie band The Strokes). Their first release was a limited edition 7" on SUBverse Recordings - a record label set up by the band's manager. The single, 'Choke', (released on July 28, 2003) received high praise from many media critics:

A video was made for the release which was found as "cringe-worthy" by the band and in the end, wasn't sent to MTV to be aired.

Their next single was the self-produced 'Red And Black' (with a Gordon Raphael-produced b-side 'Hit The Floor') released on November 10, 2003. The single, released with a video and on formats CD and 7", shot the band to success and underground fame - the band reaching the top 10 in the MTV2 Chart and receiving radio airplay - as well as a Radio 1 live session with Zane Lowe where it emerged that Lowe was a huge fan and ended the session by saying this, "I feel very honoured to be involved with the band this early on...[we] love them!".

Through January and February, 2004, the band went on tour with local friends, and relatively unknown band, Bloc Party and Swedish band Span.

The band were then invited to play a special MTV2 show - Gonzo On Snow with Million Dead, Goldie Lookin Chain, Jetplane Landing and a few others on the 24 March, 2004 (by this time the video for their next release, 'Massachusetts Murder Medallions' was receiving airplay on MTV2).

'Massachusetts Murder Medallions' (once again produced by Gordon Raphael) was released on May 10, 2004. The single was made available only on CD format and was also given a promo video. The video received many requests on MTV2, more radio airplay and a small fanbase. To converge with the release, the band went on tour with Ikara Colt, Bloc Party and Yourcodenameis:milo from May - June in 2004. The band also played with Jetplane Landing on May 26, 2004. A live recording of this whole gig exists but only a few people have the Kill Kenada set, with Jetplane Landing's set being used on their 'Courage/Danger' EP release.

After taking a break from touring (as the band always find it hard to write whilst gigging) they returned two months after their June tour to play 93feeteast with Yourcodenameis:milo on 5 August, 2004 debuting new songs, of which none have been heard since.

The band then learnt that Steve Albini was very enthuisiastic in regards to working with the band and Kill Kenada set a date to record with him. They made some new songs which were supposedly a departure from their 'mental' old style, yet was more foccussed and aggressive. In August, 2005 Tim and Danny received a phonecall from then-drummer Stewart Fairhurst (aka 'Stoo') who told them he would not be able to make their next practice, or the trip to Steve Albini's 'Electrical Audio' studio in Chicago.

The band's scheduled date with Albini was in six weeks time. The band rapidly found a new drummer, known as 'Eldge' and practiced for 4 weeks solid and just made their Heathrow flight to Chicago. They spent 10 days recording with Steve and came back with 8 songs.

With an absence of 10 months, the iron went cold for Kill Kenada and had to work at retrieving their fans' attention. They did this by first releasing a CD-album (on 28 September, 2005) crammed full of Gordon Raphael tunes which were from 2003. They did their best to make it clear that this release was to hammer the final nail in the coffin for those songs (which should have been released ages ago) and to illustrate this, the release was very modest (the album was simply a pink CD in a pink wallet - no artwork, no lyrics, no tracklist) - only 500 (each were numbered) were made and the album was only able to purchase from their label's website - SUBverse Recordings and from [1]Rough Trade].

During this time, the band returned to touring through September-November, 2005 and were unexpectedly feautured on Channel 4 news where they reported Kill Kenada as being an aggressive art-rock trio from Bognor and claimed they released their singles entirely independently through their website, which isn't strictly true - however they had released The Pink Album solely on their label's website and still sell their entire back catalogue there.

Their next release wasn't until 27 March, 2006. The release, 'Fly', (featuring new drummer, Eldge and recorded by Justin Lockey of Yourcodenameis:milo) was a politically-charged offering, with both their aggressive and soft, reflective modes both employed to great effect. The music of the single is organised in a timelike state to reflect the thoughts and feelings of anti-American terrorists (most notably those involved in 9/11) and took on-board their perspectives.

The video for the song is viewable on the band's MySpace page and was made by Red Snow Studios who also made a video for the Kill Kenada song, 'Sado Maso' (a song from the Pink Album) which has never been seen. Due to the song's lyrics, it was a hard release to promote and the excitement behind promoting the song and single died down.

After touring extensively in short bursts, Kill Kenada released 'In Your Throat' on 7" vinyl format only. The video reaching #1 in both the MTV2 NME Chart Show and MTV2's 'The Rock Chart Show'. The single also received radio airplay from many stations, most notably Radio 1's Zane Lowe who affectingly stopped the backing music to introduce the band's return. A live session on BBC6 Music's Tom Robinson show followed where the band performed 'In Your Throat', 'She's Red' and then premiered their forthcoming single 'Saline Drip'.