Words by Nic HortonHorizons are flourishing for synonymous teen rockers Kisschasy as they gear up in rehearsals for the upcoming regional touring festival, Groovin the Moo. Its been a busy few months since the release of their fifth album, Seizures, with extensive touring, slots on some of the biggest festivals over summer, love-infested controversy amongst the media, yet still Kisschasy frontman Darren Cordeux manages to revel in the splendour, and has found time to write material for a new album collaboration with his girlfriend, due out sometime in August.
Its been a long and exuberant adventure for Kisschasy since the release of Seizures mid-last year, and the band are far from finished, with a slot on the regional Groovin the Moo festival tour starting later this month. But in amongst all of the chaotic activity frontman Darren Cordeux is piecing together a new sideline project with his girlfriend that is allowing him to re-discover his roots with purity and rekindling his natural flair for song-writing. "It's me and my girlfriend, for me it's something really... pure," he says.
"When you play in a band for a long time you have a lot of people involved; you have band members, then you also have a label to consider, and a fan base to consider, whereas this project [Fuzz Phantoms] we record songs as we write them. It's just a really pure and natural way to make music, there's no kind of pressure involved, you know?"
It's rather a story for the print on just how this project came about: "she started making all of these kind of pop songs as a joke at home, and then I realised, she actually has the rhythm, so I went out and purchased this drum kit. And I had all these songs I was writing that didn't really suit Kisschasy, so we started jamming on them and we just clicked. And she totally understood where I was coming from musically. It was really a cool thing; much different to Kisschasy."
But Kisschasy fans need not be led astray - Darren is in no way diminishing the band. "By no means does this mean the end of Kisschasy. People have this mindset that people can only be in one band, but, if you manage it properly, you can be in numerous bands and make them all work," he says. "I still feel as strongly about Kisschasy, and I feel equally as strongly about these new things. Anything I create I feel really committed to."
Fuzz Phantoms is a little more garage and just slightly kookier, but according to Darren, is equally as fun. After about eight years with Kisschasy, Darren feels as if it's only due time that he "spread his wings and try something else as well."
Seizures was certainly a step up and forward in a new direction for Kisschasy, and is proclaimed as the bands' best work to date. Pieced together by the journal entries of a poignant songwriter, Seizures took its title from a quirky book written by Dr. Oliver Sacks, a brain specialist, by the name of, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat." It was more about the title Seizures than the concept, "at one point he was talking about how people have seizures, and how it can take you back to a point in your life that you never, ever would have remembered otherwise, it just triggers certain points of your memory," as Darren explains. "That's when I thought: that's what this album will always do for me, and every time I hear it I'll know exactly where I was at that point and what I was feeling and what I was thinking. For what a seizure is to those people, I guess every song is like that for me, it brings back a certain point in my life."
But by no means was Seizures intended to become a concept album. "I hate that term, it usually means the songs aren't very good and it's all about the story," Darren says, whereas this album is strung together by the songs themselves with the story intertwined through them.
"Seizures was written from my point of view, and it was pretty darn obvious that it was coming from a direct place in me... It is kind of daunting when you go out there and put all of your personal experiences out there, especially because in real life, I'm nothing like that, I'm withdrawn and emotional and don't usually tell people what's going on. So, that's my way of getting it out."
With many post-album syndromes, Kisschasy were reasonably fortunate coming out with only minor abrasions. "We got more of a backlash from certain fans who wanted to hear the same shit from before, musically, and we're kind of selfish like that; we make music we like, and all bands should be able to do that. But in saying that, I think the upside of that is, we got a bunch of new fans we might never have had before. So you've just got to take the good with the bad I suppose."
After a massive day in Bendigo as Groovin the Moo kicks off, Kisschasy will trek on up to the northern shores for a no doubt energized and kick-ass set on 2 May. Its been quite a while since the band last played here, but the wait will almost certainly pay off. "We love Townsville, we've played there a bunch of times, and the crowd is just... they don't take you for granted. They're not spoilt for choice like the larger cities, so they just get amongst it and enjoy themselves. And therefore we enjoy ourselves a lot more because of that."
Seizures is in stores now, so don't be a racoon, get out there and grab a copy if you've not done so already.
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