“I thought I was doing a wall kick, but it was a curtain. I went through it, and it turns out what was behind the curtain was a set of stairs. How the fuck I didn’t break my neck is beyond me, but I got the biggest cheer of the night when I came back up the stairs…”
Neil Kennedy is recalling the literal pitfalls of an early foray into the rock’n’roll lifestyle, as the guitarist for Southampton pop-punkers Not Katies. Buoyed, like so many of their peers, by one breakout video (‘2 Halves of 2’) in near-constant rotation on channels like P-Rock and Scuzz the band established something of name for themselves between 2002 and 2003. Their brief spark may have burned out – again, like countless contemporaries – in a haze of real life and the realisation that a band can only travel so far with a New Found Glory simulacrum and a shoestring budget, but Kennedy was far from done with music.
You may not know him by name, but there’s a good chance you’ve heard his work – especially if you’ve been following Punktastic for the last couple of years. Since setting up The Ranch Production House near Southampton in 2008, Neil’s been busy producing and engineering for artists as varied as Don Broco, Kerouac and Nathan Detroit. In fact 2015 might just prove to be The Year of the Ranch, with his current projects including hype acts like Milk Teeth and local heroes Creeper.
Daily exposure to a constant stream of bands of varying quality could dull one’s appreciation for music but for Kennedy, it’s only served to fuel his enthusiasm – as evidenced by his take on the aforementioned Creeper. “I know Will [Gould] as the guy that will trip over anything if you leave it in a room. But you see him on stage and he becomes this guy, and I find myself pointing at the sky and singing every word and thinking, ‘Holy shit! This is my friend!’”
It’s this genuine, unforced passion which lies at the heart of Kennedy’s new solo project Ghost Cub, the debut tracks from whom you can stream exclusively on this very page. Specifically, a passion for a much-mourned era in homegrown rock.
“I feel like there’s no real identity to British music at the moment. I’m not naming names but [so much of it] is just facsimile. Whereas you go back a decade, or probably a bit longer, and you’ve got bands like Hundred Reasons and Reuben. That was a British sound. It had energy in spades, it was authentic and it made you want to kick your neighbour in the face.”
Authenticity and energy: two things in no way lacking from ‘American Hymn’ and ‘Rope’. And it’s an energy which has been simmering beneath the surface, lava-like, for half a decade. So what’s been the catalyst for the sudden eruption of Mount Kennedy? As with so much great art, the answer lies in heartache.
Having put previous project Viva Sleep to bed – “We could have made a bit of effort but I don’t think I had many of those fast, progressive workouts left in me” – Neil was busy focussing on his production work and his marriage, when a series of unfortunate events saw him with only one of those two distractions to contend with.
“I found I had a bit more time to myself and the first thing I thought of was to pick up a guitar. I just started writing songs again. The first one took me ages, but as soon as I finished it I was like ‘I remember why I used to do this! This is great!’”
These twin tenets of the cathartic properties of music and an obvious love of the early-00s British rock scene lie at the heart of Ghost Cub’s simple, deftly-realised sound. Not punk rock, not pop. Uplifting but with crushingly honest lyrics in which a damaged heart is laid bare, as much from necessity as anger.
“There’s stuff that keeps you up at night,” Kennedy says of his music-as-therapy, “it’s trying to get that out of your system in a healthy way where you can be as spiteful and as shitty as you want to be. That’s the medium I’ve chosen. I’m not by nature an asshole, so this is where I’ve found a conduit for that kind of negative energy…for want of a less dickhead thing to say.”
We’re excited about the prospect of a full EP from Ghost Cub, which Kennedy says should be coming later this year. And live shows, too. There’s just the small matter of actually assembling a band. While the original iteration of Cub – “Before it died, and became Ghost Cub” – included members of Goodtime Boys and Burn the Fleet, as well as tremendously tall troubadour Tom George (a.k.a The Lion and The Wolf), these tracks are pure, unadulterated Kennedy. He plays all the instruments himself, with the exception of some sterling drum work by Bad Sign’s Kev Miller. “They were coming down to do vocals that week and I just thought I’d get Kev to drum on it,” he laughs, “because I don’t have to pay him anything!”
It remains to be seen just how Ghost Cub will evolve, but to hear Kennedy tell it it’s been conceived as a musical missile with a single, clear target: bands whose clinical approach leaves the producer cold – “I feel like maybe they sat down with a powerpoint presentation before they wrote the song” – and the universal demons of love lost and lessons learned. It’s shock, awe and therapy.
“The objective? Write a great EP that I’m really proud of, that is succinct and sums up the last four months of my life with a neat little bow on it, drop the mic and leave.”
Ghost Cub will be supporting Creeper at their sold out EP launch show, taking place at London’s Old Blue Last on the 15th September 2015. Both bands will be joined by Hindsights.
