"...We don’t put boundaries on what we do...we just go up there and try things out. We try to make songs flow and work but not be afraid to try new things out"

This is what Phillip Cope, one of the 3 vocalist of Savannah, GA's Kylesa had to say about the band's writing flair and style of performance. Kylesa is a very unique, a limitless band that defies explanation. They are reminiscent of the Matrix, you've got to experience it for yourself in order to understand. Once you have, I am sure you will draw the same conclusion. They are loud, skilled in their instruments and VERY expressive. Not hard to understand how they were picked by SPIN magazine as one of the top bands to be watched in 2005.

Kylesa is about as DIY as they come which would probably explain their genuine and kind nature; the old adage of the legendary Southern Hospitality rings true here. They are damn good people who admire one another and party as hard as they play. Join me in my talk with the band as we discuss their soon to be released album entitled, To Walk A Middle Course on Prosthetic Records on 3/22, working with famed producer, Alex Newport, on this project, their favorite songs off the album, how it was a dream come true for legendary artist, Pushead to do their cover art and so much more...

Karma: First off I’d like to thank you for doing the interview!

Laura & Phillip: No problem, thank you.

Karma: Before I go any further, how do you pronounce the name of the band?

Laura: Some people say (Kai-Lisa) but its (Kai–Less ah)

Karma: Okay, please sound off and tell the audience who you are.

Corey: I’m Corey and I play bass and sing.

Laura: Laura, I play guitar and sing.

Phillip: I’m Phillip, I play guitar and sing.

Brandon: Brandon, drums.

Karma: Kylesa has members of Cobra Kai, and Damad, can you give me a little more background on this?

Phillip: Okay, right now I am the only member in the band that was in Damad but we did start out with 3 members from Damad after the broke up we started Kylesa then we got Laura, to join up and we started from there.

Karma: Please describe the sound of the band to a new listener.

[the band starts to laugh]

Phillip: Loud!

Brandon: Loud and heavy

Corey: That’s hard!

Laura: Yeah, that’s a hard question!

Phillip: It’s a hard question for us to answer because we’re psychedelic.

Brandon: Well, obviously we’re influenced by lots of different types of underground music so it’s a little bit pop, a little but metal, hardcore, we’ve got some psychedelic influence as well.

Karma: The dynamic of band of is unique; it is comprised of 3 vocalists: 2 male and you, female! How did this come about?

Phillip: Having 3 vocalists?

Karma: Yes

Laura: It happened by default! It just kind of happened.

Phillip: We decided didn’t want a front person.

Laura: Right

Phillip: So we all decided to do it. Honestly, I was listening to a lot of indie Hip-hop and I liked how with those guys it would 3 or 4 of them and I liked how they played off each others vocals. I was surprised that more punk bands don’t do that or more hardcore bands. We obviously don’t rap but we kinds took it where we’d try to have 3 distinct personalities work off of each other.

Karma: Please explain the name and why it was chosen.

Laura: Kylesa comes from a Buddhist term actually but it’s spelled differently kilesa. I’m not 100% sure on the pronunciation, I think it’s (kailesha) mara. It’s a Buddhist term and it translates to demons of defilement. Greed, delusion, and aversion are some of the strongest demons that hinder one from reaching the state of nirvana. We just thought it had a cool meaning and decided to change the name of the spelling to try to make it more of our own maybe easier to pronounce.

Karma: That’s awesome! So how’s the tour going so far?

Brandon: Awesome!!

Laura: Awesome! Touring with High On Fire and Planes [Mistaken For Stars] has just been great!

Phillip: They are some really cool guys.

Karma: Do you think this tour will give you more exposure in the northern States?

Brandon: Well we’ve been touring on our own and have done 100’s of shows on our own and I don’t really think there’s a goal where people have been saying, “Oh, you’re trying to get better!” Not that we’ve been trying, we’ve just kinda have. I mean have been coming our way and we’re just kinda going with it. We just work hard; we just constantly play and work hard and we take what we do really seriously and put 100% into it. Things just kinda come along.

Laura: We have been playing to a lot of new people though on this tour. Of course we have a lot of our fans coming to the shows too but there are High on Fire fans who are playing in front of and they’ve seen us before so that’s been really cool! It’s been a really positive response.

Karma: You guys are definitely considered underground metal heroes but it seems that SPIN magazine is blowing your cover! You were named as one of the Top bands to watch in 2005 then Revolver gave your new release, To Walk A Middle Course, which is slated to drop on 3/22 correct?

Laura & Phillip: Yes

Karma: some high praise quoting, “an evocative dystopia-one hell of a metal album”. That’s pretty damn awesome! Give some background on the album.

Brandon: [smiles] It’s a little different from the other stuff, more evolved I think.

Laura: Yeah, I guess you have a fresh perspective on it since he joined right before we wrote the record so he has kind of a different viewpoint I would think. It’s a natural progression…

Corey: Yeah!

Laura: It sounds like Kylesa.

Phillip: The way we’ve always written is that we don’t put boundaries on what we do. We just kind of go up there and we just spend a lot of hours in our practice space and try things out. We try to make songs flow and work but not be afraid to try new things out. I mean I really don’t know what else to say!

Karma: Well how does your writing process go?

[Again, the band laughs]

Phillip: It’s different!

Laura: Well, it’s different. We don’t have a set formula, we can jam on a riff for a while and if it feels right it feels right. We can keep it in one song and if we decide we don’t like it in that song, we can put it in another song. There’s just really no formula, we just really feel it out. Some songs are really easy to write and if they come really fast and others…

Brandon: ...can take months...

Laura: …can take a really long time.

Karma: So was this album quicker for you as oppose to previous releases?

Phillip: Well yes and no!

Laura: I think it was.

Phillip: It was a little quicker but we were actually putting in more hours at practice more than we used to.

Laura: That’s true!

Phillip: I say really it was about the same amount of time. We put a lot of hours into just going up to our practice space just jamming basically. Seeing what would happen and putting it all together.

Laura: I think we wrote our first album in a period of 6 months but we didn’t practice nearly as much. We practiced maybe 3-4 times a week.

Corey: Yeah

Laura: But with this one, we were up there everyday.

Karma: Which song is your favorite?

Brandon: Now that one’s hard!

Corey: I don’t even know the song titles! [room fills with laughter]

Brandon: I only know the track numbers, but we can give you the track numbers!

Corey: I suppose it’s the 3^rd track. Which one is that?

Laura: “Train of Thought”

Corey: Yeah! I like that song the best.

Laura: Oh man! I’m gonna have to go with either “Eyes Closed From Birth” or the one after that which is “Phantoms” I think. I really like the instrumental a lot too.

Phillip: Mine is “Welcome Mat to an Abandoned Life” just because it’s kind of a spontaneous song. We really didn’t know what is was going to come out like at all. We wanted to do one song where we just left it open when we went in the studio and we just kind of jammed in there. The producer, Alex, kinda helped us to put it together; I really how it came out.

Laura: That was a surprise it came out good.

Brandon: I like track 7! [laughs as everyone else followed suit]

Laura: Oh man, which one is that?

Brandon: The one with the crazy middle.

Laura: Ohh! We don’t write our song titles until the very end.

Phillip: Laura and I write all of the lyrics and these guys just leave it all up to us.

Laura: Oh, is it “Shatter The Clock”?

Brandon: Oh, is “Shatter The Clock” the name of it? [smiles] Yeah! “Shatter The Clock”

Laura: The one that goes [as she starts to mimic the guitar line and plays the fret on her air guitar]

Karma: Where do you see Kylesa 5 years from now?

Laura: [laughs] I don’t even think that far ahead!

Brandon: I’m not even looking at next year at this point. Not to say, I’m sure we could be together for the next 5 years. We don’t really talk about the future.

Laura: I don’t have 5 year plans or goals. It’s just one day at a time.

Karma: You talked about Alex Newport [he has worked with The Icarus Line, Melvins, Nailbomb, Locusts, At The Drive-In, Mars Volta] earlier, how was it working with him?

Corey: [laughs]

Laura: [smiles] It was intense!

Corey: It was, it was awesome!

Laura: It was great, it was intense because it was a new situation to us. We’ve never worked with… [she turns to Phillip in mid-sentence] well you’ve worked with a producer before.

Phillip: Yeah

Laura: But the rest of us have never worked with a producer before and we had to travel to L.A. to record. It was great; he tightened us up. He was an objective ear.

Phillip: He didn’t let us slack at all!

Laura: Yeah

Phillip: He really cracked the whip on us.

Laura: And that was good and over all he’s a really nice guy! I think he knew our vision and our direction was. He understood!

Karma: Was there a lot of pressure for this release?

Corey: There’s pressure on all of our releases! [everyone laughs]

Laura: Yeah, definitely without a doubt! I mean it’s been a while since our first record came out. I mean man, those songs are OLD off of our first record!

Phillip: Yeah!

Laura: We’ve done records after that but not a full one.

Karma: 7 inches…

Laura: …and EP’s, split full length [with Cream Abdul Babar]

Phillip: I mean but we didn’t let the pressure get to us though. Whenever we wound up in those situations we did get in we just kind of ignored it because everybody had something to say. What we should do, “Don’t do this!” “Don’t do that!” We just kinda cut that out!

Brandon: Yeah

Phillip: We tried not to pay attention. We did what we felt was right and not really worry about the pressure.

Erika: What do you want your audience to walk away with, like if you walked away from your show, what do you want the members of the audience to be left with?

Erika: Cheese is good!

Phillip: [laughs] You know, I love seeing a band that’s not fake, you know that they mean what they’re doing, they’re living it and are passionate about it. I know that’s how we are and I hope that kids or whatever feel that. [as passion fills his eyes just talking about it] To have somebody walk up to you after show gives you goose bumps… that’s it.

Laura: If we could translate the feelings that we get when we play, at least for me, to another person, that’s pretty amazing. That feeling.

Karma: Give a little bit of info on Pushead [a.k.a. Brian Schroeder] whom has done your art work for your album covers for those who may not know about him.

Laura: He’s been around since day one

Phillip: Yeah

Laura: Since the early days of punk

Phillip: Check his website out, he’s done some amazing artwork for punk, hardcore and metal, or whatever bands. To have him do our artwork meant a lot to us.

Laura: It’s like we grew up looking at his art and listening to the bands he did art for. Then he had columns in Thrasher [the skateboard bible]…

Phillip: …he’s a pretty amazing man!

Laura: He is, he’s a wise man! With awesome art.

Karma: I know Chimaira tune their guitars to low C but is it true you tune yours to A-flat?

Phillip: We don’t tell!

Laura: It’s our secret! [the band laughs]

Phillip: A lot of bands do but for the record, we don’t use C.

Karma: How is being around all that testosterone? [room fills with laughter]

Corey: Yeah!

Laura: Corey has a hard time dealing with it, but we help him! [smiles as she hits him on the knee]

Karma: So then it’s rougher on you then?

Corey: [shakes head] No! [smiles]

Click here for part II of Kylesa's

interview as they hysterically

answer the infamous

Speed Round Questions

Click here for pix from tonight's show

I'd like to thank Jensen Lee at Adrenaline PR for setting this interview up & Jerry Clubb at Prosthetic Records.