Strange Brew readers will recall The Ego Ritual and their superb psychedelic EP from earlier this year. James Styring’s new group It’s Karma It’s Cool retains the melodious heart of previous projects and ties it with a vibrant indie sound. Jason Barnard asked James to share It’s Karma It’s Cool’s story.
The Musicians
- James – Vocals
- Mikey – Guitars / Bass Guitar
- Martyn – Guitars / Additional Instrumentation
- Danny – Drums / Percussion
Background
Mikey and myself were both members of UK power pop / pop punk band, B-Leaguers, releasing our debut EP, ‘Death Of A Western Heart’ to positive reviews. I was also in UK power poppers, The Popdogs, our debut album, ‘Cool Cats For Pop Dogs’ making it into a few top tens and best end of year lists. We share a love of melody and always said we’d like to do something musical together again at some point. We recently felt the time was right and got together to write and see where it took us. We weren’t short of ideas, and soon we had a bunch of songs we were happy with. The next step was to find the musicians to make this a full band.
Martyn is a great all round musician and a talented guitar player. He also runs the recording studio we used (Playing Aloud, Lincoln) and worked as recording engineer/producer of the record.
Danny is a top session drummer, regularly playing festivals around the country and Europe. He came onboard, having heard and liking the songs, and is now permanently on our drum stool.
‘Hipsters and Aeroplanes’
We decided a mini-album would be the way to go for our debut release. A full album is sometimes too much for a new, unknown band. We’d test the water with these songs, if people liked them, we’d maybe look at writing a full album next time.
We unashamedly made the tracks as catchy as possible, there’s always room for great guitar pop music, so we loaded up on harmony and jangle. Not wanting to sound like anyone in particular, but taking influences from many classic bands and sounds. The idea was each song could stand on its own as a possible ‘single’, no fillers.
We’re lucky to be able to release the album on the prestigious American power pop label, Kool Kat Musik, where Ray Gianchetti has always been supportive of my music. It’s a great label to be on and we’re certainly in some fantastic company.
The CD version is available directly from Kool Kat Musik, with CD and download versions also available from our Bandcamp.
