The Wake

Hailing from Savannah, Ga., Kylesa play a unique brand of heavy music combining elements of crust, sludge, and many ideas that are entirely their own. The band is Laura Pleasants (vocals/guitars), Phillip Cope (vocals/guitars), Corey Barhost (vocals/bass), and Brandon Baltzey (drums). Their new album, “To Walk a Middle Course” (released March 22, Prosthetic Records), shows their stellar songwriting ability while highlighting some great production courtesy of Alex Newport (The Melvins, Mars Volta). I was able to catch their show on February 21 at the 7th Street Entry. I was highly impressed by the energy and skill displayed in their live set. I also had the chance to sit down and talk with the band. (A note of thanks goes to Annika Kaplan for her assistance in transcribing the interview.)

The Wake: So how has the tour been treating you so far?

Laura: Awesome, except we’ve had van problems, like our transmission dropped. So other than that and missing a few shows due to the van, it’s been really awesome.

Phillip: The kids coming out to the shows have been great.

Laura: Playing with High on Fire and Planes is awesome. Seeing them every night has been a lot of fun.

The Wake: Have any memorable stories for us from the tour?

Brandon: I couldn’t find my drum set last night.

The Wake: How does that happen?

Brandon: I was wasted.

The Wake: Ah.

The Wake: Your music draws a lot from the crust sound which I expect would draw punks to your shows, but also a lot from the sludge sound, which should bring in a lot of the metalheads . . . What is the typical makeup of your crowds?

Brandon: A large range. We can play one city and it’ll be all punks and go to the next city and it’ll be the new wave of hardcore kids. It’s cool.

Laura: It’s a wide range, it’s cool.

The Wake: What are the biggest goals for Kylesa at this point?

Phillip: Get to Europe.

Laura: Go to Europe, play Japan, Australia…

Phillip: That’s the main goal so far.

Laura: Travel the world.

The Wake: When you look back at what you’ve done so far with Kylesa, what’s your greatest point of pride?

Laura: For me it was the wall of death at Thrashfest. That was awesome! It was pretty intense. We played an all ages show and then there was a night show. I think the sound guy was fixing a cord and all these kids got together and locked arms and had this huge circle. It was intense.

The Wake: What’s next for Kylesa after this tour?

Laura:Well, our album comes out on the 22, and we’re gonna tour right when that comes out starting in Birmingham, Ala. on the 27 of March and end up touring the country and we’ll be back home April 28. Then we might go out in May and June, as well. Then probably we’ll take the rest of the summer off to write music and go to Europe in the fall.

The Wake: Will the tour in March and April be just Kylesa?

Phillip: We’ll be doing it the way we’ve always done it, just go out by ourselves. The next tour might be with Converge, in May and June.

The Wake: Can you talk about the evolution from your first album (recorded back in 2001) up to now, with “Walk the Middle Course?”

Laura: The progression of time… You’re naturally gonna change over time. There’s no point in rewriting the same record. It’s also a different line up from the first LP and that has a lot to do with it. I’m also not listening to the same records other than the classics.

The Wake: What are you listening to now?

Corey: Anything from old 60s bands to new bands that are out now. That all comes out.

Phillip: Everything we’ve done has been real different. The split we did was real different than the album which was different than the 7” which is different from the other split which is different, and our new album is different than all of those. We have this attitude that we won’t say no to an idea with this band. We’ll try it out and if we can get all four of us to like it we go with it. Hopefully that comes off as evolution a little bit, changing things up.

The Wake: Now how is the album sonically different than past efforts?

Phillip: Much better tones I think. The productions a lot better. You can hear the drums a lot better. The vocals, I think, sound a lot better.

The Wake: What do you guys think of the state of the heavy music scene today?

Brandon: It’s overpopulated.

Laura: There are way too many bands out there. I don’t care what kind of music it is; there are too many fuckin’ bands.

Phillip: It really didn’t seem that way when I started with the band, or even just last year.

Laura: Even when we started touring with Kylesa there were not nearly as many heavy bands at all.

Phillip: I guess that’s good, because if more people are doing it, that means a lot of people are listening to it. I like a lot of the new bands, I’m actually pretty stoked a bout a lot of stuff… I think it’s actually a pretty good time for heavy music.

The Wake: As we’ve just discussed there’s a whole lot of heavy music out there. Why should the music fan unfamiliar with Kylesa decide to catch one of your shows or pick up one of your CDs?

Corey: It would help us out a lot.

Brandon: It’s good.

Phillip: There’s not really a right way to answer that question. No matter what you say it’s gonna sound pretentious or full of yourself. There are a lot of bands out there but we work real hard at what we do. Hopefully it shows.

Laura: If people are just into heavy music and they are looking for something a little different then maybe they’d be interested. I don’t think we sound like anyone else out there.

Kylesa will play the Red Sea on April 14th.