Introducing: KURSES
Linn Branson
KURSES - Kirstie Shannon and Dan Coley - have just marked the release of their debut self-titled EP. You can stream the 3-track release -'WDWD', 'Hearts Apart', 'All You Want' - below.
But who are this Birmingham pop pair, who started out at the end of 2012, and is that name going to be more of a 'kurse' than a blessing? We asked some questions - and got a lot of answers.
Hi guys. We've heard the EP, but what's the story behind it, abd who or what are KURSES?
Kirstie: We actually met at a mutual friends birthday party. We were both discussing our interest in music. Dan wanted to originally manage a girl band and I wanted to write and sing my own music.
Dan: Once we met up we found we had a similar writing style and ideas on music, so scrapped the girl band idea - haha! - and started sending demo phone-recordings of songs to each other, which was the early form of KURSES.
Had either of you played with other bands or artists, or is this a first?
Kirstie: I had been in one band when I was younger with my brother and two other guys.
Dan: I had been bobbing around in a few other indie bands and doing a bit of session playing before this, but nothing crazily cool - haha.
Kirstie: This has been the first thing for us both which has naturally made 'musical sense' to us both where it didn't seem like we had to chance how we wrote or try and fit into a different style or set or rules of being.
The rather curious name 'KURSES', how did that come about?
Kirstie: The name we kinda fell on after a bit of time searching. We tried anagram our names, try them in different languages but nothing fitted.
Dan: There was an old movie from the 1930's called 'Kisses and Kurses' which I stumbled upon. Kinda like how they spelt 'Kurses' and no one on Facebook had used it yet so we kinda ran with it!
Can you define what the KURSES sound style is?
Dan: When we began to produce our music we did not aim towards a specific genre, but we ended up with some kind of pop.
Kirstie: Although we understand that there should be consistency within the music we produce, we share a common belief that a band shouldn't have to stick to one palette of sounds. We are both inspired by various types of music and like to produce songs that contain influences from different genres.
Coming from Birmingham, which seems to be such a hotbed of good sounds in last few years, have you been caught up in the whole Brum
wave thing?
Dan: Yeah, Birmingham has become quite the hotspot for bands recently: a lot of diverse talent, from Laura Muvula to Peace and Swim Deep. There is a real strong 'B-Town' scene knocking around with many great bands which are part of it, but our sound is the polar opposite to what's going on at the moment - not in a way where we're trying to be cool and different though! We're yet to explore the outside music scene from being cocooned in our little studio here in Great Barr.
Kirstie: As a band we sort of have inflicting tastes in music! Every week Dan's always trying to show me some new band he's found on the internet who he's claiming will be the next best thing! We have managed to agree on bands such as CHVRCHES, Bad Suns and Imagine Dragons.
Dan: Concerning the West Midlands, there's been some great bands come from here over the years but there's none that we can say are a direct influence on what we do, nevertheless there has has been some great stuff out recently. I'm really digging the the last Editors album, its so beautifully dark and how they've incorporated all these 'eastern feel' riffs over the most monstrous sounding bass lines!
Your debut EP just out, talk us through each of the tracks. How long did the writing and recording take?
Kirstie: We've been spending the last year hidden away developing our tracks, we felt that the selection of songs we chose for the E.P. were a good introduction to what we are.
Dan: We recorded the E.P. ourselves between a little home set-up and sneaking into this studio I was working in, at night, when it wasn't booked! We would sample and record as much as we could before the morning rolled in.
WDWD
Dan: This was the track that we wanted to be our own little anthem in our kinda way. Its quite cool that the acoustic guitar on the track was recorded on an iPad when we demoed it, the lo-fi broken sound was just way more vibe-y than what we came up with in the studio, so we left it in the final mix.
Kirstie: I had in mind that it would be a nice dreamy, beachy track with a really strong summery vibe and a sensational feeling of freedom!
Hearts Apart
Dan: This was the melancholy heart break song of the EP that is disguised in a contradicting up-beat backing track. We started with this heart-string ballad which came from Kirstie.
Kirstie: I had the lyrics and the chords ready and Dan attacked it with hard hitting drums and glockenspiels. I wanted to create something that was powerful that people could really emotionally connect to.
All You Want
Dan: This was a really mad miracle, it was a wired combination of this tap-dance beat with 'honky-tone' cowboy piano line that ended up being a positive, fun track!
Kirstie: With this we just wanted to have something really upbeat that would be really fun to play and we had a lot of fun recording it, layering drums and putting some strange Japanese instruments in it.
Have you played live or have plans to imminently?
Kirstie: We are currently preparing for our live show which will begin in the summer. Our focus up until now has been more on attacking the online world and are at the moment spending our time planning and producing our music videos.
You have been picked up by a few radio stations already, how did they come to hear of you?
Dan: We uploaded our tracks to BBC Introducing and Amazing Tunes and we're just lucky enough that they chose the tracks for their shows, but even more lucky that they got requested again! Thats quite mental! Up until three weeks ago no one but our nans' had heard the tracks!
What's next on the agenda for KURSES?
Kirstie: We are gearing up for our first music video and some other treats we have in store. We're also starting to put together our live show and we will be putting the last finishing touches on the next set of releases which we are really excited to share! So plenty to keep us busy!
And, a final question: If Kurses falls through, has Dan got his eye on any girl bands he'd like to get to grips with?
Dan: Haha! Well I've had the idea of a female Bee Gees covers band called 'She Gees' - *TERRIBLE-PUN-ALERT* - if it doesn't already exist, or failing that, maybe have a go at training parrots to sing the hits of Cher and Whitney Houston. This could easily sell out arenas!
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