Interview: Kodakid
Posted on 28th Oct 11 by Alex Millar | 
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Drop-D’s James Hunter talks to Waterford’s funk/soul group Kodakid…
Kodakid are a funk/soul/rock outfit from the badlands of County Waterford. Their sharp yet gritty mix of genres were put onshow at Cork’s Cyprus Avenue last Tuesday night and Drop-D were on hand to chat with the band ahead of their first ever Cork show.
You’d think that because they were only playing their first gig out of home they’d be somewhat bushy tailed as regards the music industry and their place in it. But that is definitely not the case as the band already have their sights set overseas. “We’ve got a tour starting next year in Germany”, bassist Johnny ‘Shoebomb’ Duignan tells us. “That was only confirmed a few weeks ago but we think it’s the kind of place that we’d go down well. There’s potential there.”
Their knowledge of where they want to go is suprising, but perhaps indicative of the state of Irish music, and new music in general. “To be honest I don’t think you can make a career in Ireland as a band. You’re just too limited and it’s mainly a population thing.” Guitarist Alex informs us. The band seem to think, and it’s coming across more and more, that Ireland is just too small and too genre-specific for some bands to properly make a go of it. “We think you have to go to the UK or Europe in order for Ireland to truly accept you” he continues. ‘I can’t think of a massive band to have come out of Ireland in the last, five or six years”. Duignan chimes in, “And wherever there’s a couple of hundred people willing to listen to us, we’re happy to play there!”. And that seems to be the case in Germany.
That’s a big task to have set themselves and as any musician will tell you, starting a career in a new country is daunting. But Kodakid seem confident at their decision, and their confidence is somewhat startling from a band that have only been together about a year. “We’ve only been played in this setup since last December, but we’ve all been in other bands so we’re fairly experienced”.
An area that they’re not quite as experienced in is recordings. “We record bits and pieces, I mean, we all record at home, but the idea has always been to release singles. We’re stockpiling lots of songs, building up our fanbase and hopefully next year we’ll release an album”. So no definite first album on the horizon yet as the band seem to want to thrust themselves fully into the live scene and build up the fans before tackling a full-length release.
Luckily for them though, one of the few pieces of recorded material they have was featured on the controversial unsigned bands episode of the Apprentice last Monday evening. Amidst nervoud laughter the band admit, “We weren’t fired anyway!” A snippet of their track _ was featured on the show and the song was included on the winning CD that came out with the Irish Daily Mail last Saturday. “That was the real prize”, says drummer Tony Browne “If half the people that buy the paper, listen to it, that 50,000 people which is great”.
So it appears the band have their head’s screwed on correctly. With their knowledge, and their playing skills, we here at the D wish ‘em luck. But it looks like they won’t need it…
Tags: apprentice, Avenue, Backstage, Cork, Cyprus, Funk, interview, Kodakid, Pass, soul, Waterford
