Kong

Monkey Business

There are some bands that just get scarier the more you find out about them... then end up being pleasantly surprised by the fact that when you meet them they don't conclude the meeting by chopping you into small pieces, taking said small pieces and leaving them in cryptically labelled bin bags around Leeds. I hate it when that happens.

Kong is one of 'those' bands. Their Myspace page for want of a biography rants about the state of the music industry, lazy hack journalist pigeon holing and skin diseases; scared level one. To settle my fears I watch the video for their new single, 'Leatherpenny', a nightmare of skating, masks, red pyjamas, vomiting and masturbation; scared level two. On the evening of the interview, I am taken from the Brudenell Social Club on a filthy drizzly night by Brew Records' label boss, Si Glacken, to a strange house in the back streets of Headingly where Kong are relaxing pre-gig; scared level three.

When we arrive, soaked and bewildered, Kong are sitting in the kitchen, sans masks and pyjamas and looking... normal. Next door, our unnamed hosts are playing the yet to be released Kong debut album, 'Snake Magnets', setting the scene as it were. Costumed or not, they still insist on using their stage names, though they are reasonably coherent throughout, which takes me back down to scared level two.

Formed in 2005, Kong started as a side project by Krem and Lulu, both members of Manchester indie-metalists Oceansize. "I originally spoke to John Lee about starting the band as an outlet for doing more aggressive fast stuff," says drummer Krem in a delicate Scottish accent, "I started Kong up to do stuff other than Oceansize." It all sounds very busy. Magpie, lead singer and guitarist, shrugs this off. "For me it seems silly only wanting to concentrate on one thing," he says, "I think these guys are the same. Lulu's (bassist) always involved in lots of projects with arts, music and visuals, Krem's the same."

Though they may have come from Oceansize, Kong differ from them in many ways... especially the way they look, a combination of Slipknot, Clockwork Orange and an abduction nightmare. How did such a thing happen? "By accident, I would say," says Magpie, "we started out with big noses, things like that... tights."

"Tinfoil," says Lulu, "dog noses..."

Magpie nods. "We just got the masks on a whim. We were on our way to a London show and it stuck," he says, "we're on our second batch now 'cos our first ones… we lost 'em."

"We left them at a venue," Lulu admits, slightly embarrassedly.

Magpie gets a bit disgruntled at this point. "I'm suspicious as well as to Manchester ," he says, "because they used to be two pounds, then we started wearing them and now they're eight pounds, so we can't even afford to buy them any more." Si leans in and advises them conspiratorially that they can get them cheaper in Leeds. It's a good look though, in a disturbing way, and I wonder if anyone else has adopted that Kong look in a scary kinda obsessive fan way. "I know Chris from Wintermute has bought one because he liked it so much," says Lulu. Kinda yes then. But there's more to the mask than just the look, as Magpie explains: "you've got a shield to hide behind then. I personally feel I can get away with fucking anything with that mask on… there's no inhibitions… it's not me."

"Swayze would have never have done that in Point Break if he didn't have that mask on," mutters Krem. So does this alternative persona lead to a very dark band mentality? "I wouldn't say it's dark, it's the more colourful side of our personalities," corrects Magpie," Kong's a lot of fun. Some of the subject matter's dark, but it's played in such a way that it's almost clown-like. We take it serious, but at the same time we have to have fun with it. It's almost like we're… circus."

Circus is the word. Their style, a blend of stoner metal, pronk and psychedelia, is a variety show of melody and dischord – a veritable three ring musical circus. It all seems to have happened very much by chance though. "The influences of the band are…" Magpie pauses, uncertain which way to go. "Each other's influences," he decides, "but you don't get to hear what has influenced that other person… the influences are us being three different people with different tastes."

"There's never been an agenda," clarifies Krem, "it's what we come up with in the week. It's very organic. You've got to record every spontaneous bit and then decide what bits are worth looking at and being spontaneous over… again."

"We probably record five songs worth of material just to condense into one song," adds Magpie, "and sometimes other parts of those songs can appear somewhere months, years later. Some songs are really quick to come together but some… still don't feel together, but that's part of their charm." Does this mean that their recorded stuff is in a state of constant flux? "When you're writing something every time you play it it's gonna be slightly different," says Krem, "once it's written you try and play it the same. When you're doing an album, it's that take that becomes the song everybody knows – we may have done it a million times over but you try and play it to what other people expect." So is the process of deciding what makes the song difficult? Krem nods. "We're not good at deciding which ones we should do because we like to fiddle, he says, " so we keep fiddling with things we're writing and then it's deciding what's going to be a song… then it takes two or three hours to make that song. That's it."

"It's just a very odd way of writing music," says Magpie, answering my puzzlement, "but it's like learning… like I'm going for a lesson, I'm gonna come away from it doing something or knowing something that I didn't know before. It's always a surprise." As a result of their love of tinkering as opposed to musical belligerence, they've been through three producers in the making of 'Snake Magnets', finally deciding on Rob Whiteley, prime mover behind That Fucking Tank's debut album, 'The Day Of Death By Bono Adrenaline Shock'.

But before the album sees the light of day, they have a single to promote for which they have created a fairly disturbing video (see beginning of article). "The idea was that we wanted a fast-paced video," says Krem, "the whole starting point was us skating around Manchester really badly." The inspiration came from seeing a bands promo featuring professional in line skaters around Paris. After recruiting Roach Productions, who had previously recorded them live at the Library, this idea mutated into a claustrophobic psychotic visual journey reminiscent of an early Cardiacs promo. "It was pretty much a joint inception," says Krem, "It was fast and close up and claustrophobic at times." And features you throwing up through your mask. "That was their (the film makers)idea," he says, "it was inspired by this one time I told them I was sick at this gig in Levenshulme. It was a very nice venue, but it was too hot. I'd been eating beetroot and it came out red so it looked like blood."

"It was all in his mask," says Magpie gruesomely.

Knowing now how twitchy they can get, I'm beginning to detect subtle hints that suggest I should be rounding things up – Krem is beginning to drum on the table and Magpie and Lulu are both looking a bit edgy, but then they do have a gig tonight and a busy schedule to think about in the immediate future. "We've got a tour and the DVD to finish," says Magpie, going through a mental to do list, 'Snake Magnet' next year and we're writing a new record now, starting to play some new stuff so... we might even have two records next year. We're playing the Artrocker festival as well." So keeping very busy then? "We're all very active people who do it even if we're not making a living from it. It's just another activity to fill the hours up." He smirks in a way that suggests I had nothing to fear all along. But then they didn't have the masks on, did they?

'Leather Penny' is available from Brew Records, 'Snake Magnets' is due for release in April.

Interview by Rob Wright

www.myspace.com/kongdom