Kong

Words: Stevie Kilgour

Pic: Mat Holloway

Dark, Sinister and down right scary to look at – Kong are the latest punk spawn of the Manchester music scene. Mixing up the lethargic aggression of Bleach-era  and riffs sharp enough for Albini himself, Kong are musically far more serious than those masks may suggest.     

Hi, how are Kong today? 

Lee: Colourful! 

How does the Kong experience differ from your previous, slightly more commercial bands such as Capulet and Oceansize? 

Steven: We wear the masks.                                                                                          

Lee: We eat the meat. The other bands are vegetarians, vegetarianisms. 

The style of Kong seems very much in the same vein, both musically and image wise, as the punk scene in San Diego, very similar to bands on THREEONEG. Are you heavily influenced by those bands? 

Mark: The Locust. Mainly The Locust, they can play, but we can play better. 

Kong’s image breaks away from the norm, how did the idea for the outfits develop? 

Mark: Just the colour. Red.

Lee: Red, yeah.

Steven: None of us are wearing red today.

Lee: We’ve gone Bermuda today, man.

Steven: I really don’t like wearing red.

Lee: It’s more of a shield I think. 

So no plans to ‘don’ white outfits in stead of red for tonight’s trip across the Pennines to Yorkshire? 

Lee: Nope! No, Andrew WK did that shit. Nah, it’s been done.

Steven: I’m sure someone must have worn red before. 

The White Stripes maybe? 

Mark: That’s white, they’re white.

Lee: And incestuous! But then again we’re all quite incestuous, with each other.  

The new release ‘Blood of a Dove/Hint of Rennit innit’ is driven and aggressive, packs a punch along the lines of 400 Blows. Is the finished product as you imagined?   

Lee: Yeah! That’s cool, because they are a great band

Steven: Are we? I’ve never heard of them

Lee: Yeah. I’m good friends with Scott (400 Blows), but to be honest we were a band before we really knew of them.  

Looking at the videos on Kong’s Myspace, you appear to take keeping fit as serious as recording - it must be difficult keeping up that strict regime on tour, how do you manage? 

Steven: I’ve never exercised in my life

Lee: Yeah you did, we had the gym in the studio

Steven: Oh yeah, I punched a light out while I was lifting weights. If you were meant to lift weights, then you’d be born with more weight. 

So how do you relieve stress on tour? 

Mark: Food parties

Lee: Burrito parties

Steven: I ate a prawn’s face off once. I chewed its eyes.  

You have the look of evil villains; do you think you may have been overlooked for a role in the new Batman film? 

Steven: If you look at the Batman film now they are trying to rip each others faces off, but in the older episodes they were a lot nicer. I remember seeing a clip where Batman and the Joker had a surfing competition.  

(I present the band with a picture from Kong’s website - in which they ask fans to colour the bands outfits in and send it to the band. I coloured the band as characters from 'The Dark Knight' film) 

Steven: Oh you’ve done one of the pictures, excellent!

Lee: That’s excellent, that’s the ‘Boys Going Loco' album cover.

Steven: That’s the first one that’s been done, No one has done an entry yet, so you might win a prize. Colour in Kong, fucking good effort that. I see you learnt at primary school to stay in the lines, but you didn’t learn that whole ‘solid colour aspect’.

Lee: He was saving his felt tips...