[Kevin Snow wonders in and is dragged into the interview]
BCR: So I know that you Owen, have said, and I don’t know if you agree, Kevin, that the music you make is absurd…
Kevin Snow: Yeah, I think that’s a pretty fair assessment. Have you read the lyric book? It’s pretty ridiculous...
BCR: So I know you guys all started off in Sunday school and you came from Evangelical backgrounds… Is there anything of that in the music for you?
Owen Holmes: Oh, first of all I’m a non-believer personally…
Kevin Snow: There’s definitely no Evangelicalism but certainly, having been raised on a lot of those ideas it informs a lot… maybe the lyrics more are referencing that as opposed to preaching the gospel.
BCR: Of course, I don’t hear of that in there but maybe if I played a 7” vinyl backwards it would say “praise Jesus”…
Kevin Snow: Oh no! Who told you…? The secret’s out…
BCR: But were those first punk and Ska bands maybe the beginning of the rebellion that turned into the pop?
Owen Holmes: Yeah, those were all what we call Christian bands. In terms of the first bands that each of us had. But now I feel like I’m defending myself when I shouldn’t… but that was the mid-nineties.
Kevin Snow: Yeah… Christian lyrics…
BCR: Give me one… just one…
Kevin Snow: Oh… They’re really bad… “God Is Awesome”, um…“On a mission from god”, that was one.
Owen Holmes: Without getting defensive, let’s just be clear that that was… in the past.
BCR: I only mention it because a lot of the bands I talk to who come over from the States have refuted faith and made fantastic music, probably because of it.
Owen Holmes: Because they were raised that way and they changed?
BCR: Yeah…
Kevin Snow: I remember someone telling us once that they could sense that when you come from a faith based environment or background you believe in something bigger than you and they could sense that in some of the lyrics… I can’t really speak for Reggie because he wrote the lyrics but…
Owen Holmes: There’s a lot of sexual repression in that whole lifestyle so maybe because once you get out of that you’re oversexed and then you write great songs… Maybe there’s a connection there….
BCR: Have you been thinking about any new songs while on tour? Have you written anything?
Owen Holmes: Yeah, in fact we’re planning to record some new music in January, which will probably be an EP or at least a single or two. We’ve been using our sound checks to…
BCR: Fiddle?
Owen Holmes: To fiddle…
BCR: Are they in the same vein?
Owen Holmes: Yes and no. We’re kind of at a cross roads but then again Partie Traumatic is so all over the place. I think it works and none of us see why we can’t be all over the place. This one is a guitar song and another funk song… Personally I’d like to go more in that direction. Give me something to do while on stage…
BCR: So what’s your side project, Gospel Music, all about? And don’t say Christian music and refute everything you’ve just said…
Owen Holmes: Well, before Black Kids and after Mata Hari was a band with just Reggie and I called The Kettles which was… um, Folk music... It’s such a cliché; we’d get drunk and play folk songs. It was really fun. We were going to make a record but Reggie didn’t have enough money so I just said fuck it and recorded – I was writing and singing in that - so I just went it alone and recorded the songs myself. A six song EP… I hope to record some new music over Thanksgiving, over the break.
BCR: That’s not really a break though…
Owen Holmes: No but hopefully you’ll be hearing more about that. But obviously Black Kids are a priority right now…
BCR: And you Kevin? Are you doing anything outside Black Kids?
Kevin Snow: At the moment I don’t really have anything going on. Although I would like to I’m a bit lazy…
Owen Holmes: He makes sixties compilations of thousands of songs…
Owen Holmes. In his pants. What would his mother say?
BCR: I know you used to write for Alt Weekly, did you not want to do a tour diary or something?
Owen Holmes: I was asked to but I refused. I knew my mother would read it and that anything I wrote would sound like Charles Bukowski… My mother is still a Christian. I was there for four years and Kevin used to work there as well as a Graphic Designer…
BCR: What else is happening in Jacksonville? There doesn’t seem to be a scene like there is in California or Brooklyn, just you guys…
Owen Holmes: No, there’s definitely an element of that. Maybe not as organised as here or elsewhere. There’s a couple of dozen Indie bands - who all hate us now. There are a couple of cool neighbourhoods with kids of our mindset.
BCR: Any bands you’d suggest?
Owen Holmes: Buffalo Tears is awesome.
Kevin Snow: Emperor X, he’s been around for a while. Captain EO which was the name of a Walt Disney/Michael Jackson film from the mid eighties…
BCR: To digress a little bit, I know I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You was written in the very first practice, did all the songs come that easy?
Owen Holmes: Most of them did. But some took months and months to sort out so you have both extremes there. Love Me Already comes to mind and Making Eyes At You is actually from one of our old bands. We weren’t really playing it live but in the studio Kevin urged us to record it and it turned out to be one of the better ones I think.
BCR: So who is lynchpin to the band or…
Owen Holmes: Well, Reggie’s the chief song writer thus far.
BCR: Thus far?
Owen Holmes: Reggie’s run out of ideas so the rest of us are chipping in… hahha…
BCR: And how did you get Bernard Butler to produce the album?
Owen Holmes: I didn’t know the guy but Kevin and Reggie are huge Suede fans. I wasn’t… that impressed. I knew some of the hits but I wasn’t this huge fan. I like the stuff he did with Mcalmont and Butler…
BCR: I was never much of a fan of that I have to say – a little too fey for me.
Owen Holmes: Fey as fuck.
BCR: So the last question I always ask – what question would you have had me ask you?
Owen Holmes: Um… Owen, why are you so awesome? No, no, I’m kidding…
Black Kids on Myspace
Black Kids official site
