With the 2024 release of their electrifying debut album ‘I Wonder If The World Knows?’, British indie/rock outfit The K’s swiftly became one of the countries most exciting, and successful new bands.
Made up of 12 exhilarating tracks – including the singles ‘No Place Like Home’ ‘Black and Blue’, and ‘Lights Go Down’ – the highly emotive record served to reflect the trials and tribulations of modern life, by tackling prevalent issues and themes including youth culture, small-town struggles, love, and self-reflection, making it both a personal, yet widely relatable affair.
Debuting at #3 Official UK Album Chart, the LP recently became BRITS Certified after selling over 30,000 units.
Hailing from Earlestown in Merseyside, The K’s – made up of Jamie Boyle (vocals/guitar), Ryan Breslin (guitar/keyboards), Dexter Baker (bass) and Nathan Peers (drums) – initially gained traction through their independent releases, and word-of-mouth buzz from their electric live performances. Hype surrounding their early singles ‘Sarajevo’ and ‘Glass Towns’ helped to further establish them as a ‘band to watch’, leading to slots at major festivals and support tours.
Musically inspired by classic British indie bands like The Libertines, Arctic Monkeys, The Courteeners, and Oasis, the super talented four-piece combine driving guitars, punchy rhythms, and singalong hooks, with impassioned lyrics and raw-storytelling to create an authentic and evocative sound that continues to resonate with fans around the world.
12 months on from the release of their debut, the lads are now primed and ready to take everything one step further, with their brilliant second album, ‘Pretty On The Internet’.
Ahead of the records unveiling this summer, we caught up with band frontman Jamie to talk new music, career highlights, dealing with self-doubt, and how he manages to find a sense of calm in and amongst all of the daily chaos the comes from being in one of the UK’s most promising new bands…
Hey Jamie! How are you today?
I’m very well thank you! I stayed on our tour bus last night, which usually means my sleep pattern goes to shit, but surprisingly I slept pretty well, so I’m feeling good.
2024 was an EPIC year for The K’s! Despite always being so busy and on the go 24/7, have you and the lads managed to take stock of everything you’ve achieved over the course of the last 12 months?
Yeah I definitely think we have! Like you say, things have been pretty full on this year, and at some points we’ve not known whether we were coming or going, but I think despite all of the chaos, and how mental things have gotten for us, we’ve always made a real conscious effort to acknowledge and celebrate the things we’ve achieved, both on stage and off stage.
Let’s list some of those achievements shall we? Your debut album ‘I Wonder If The World Knows’ debuted at No. 3 on the official UK album chart, you won Breakthrough Act of The Year at the Northern Music Awards, you signed a long term publishing deal with Notting Hill Music, completed a headline tour of the UK, played the main stage at Leeds and Reading, and supported Blondie… talk to us about some of your personal highlights?
Erm… I’d say you’ve just mentioned most of them (laughs). Oh man, where do I start? Performing at Glastonbury was a major highlight for us! We’d obviously never gigged there before, so we really didn’t know what to expect. We were scheduled to play the Woodsies tent at 12:30pm on the Sunday, which holds 12,500 people, but bearing in mind our set was happening on day 5 of the festival… listen, I’m not gonna pretend we weren’t worried! I actually thought we’d be lucky if 50 people showed up (laughs). But when we walked out on the stage we couldn’t believe it, you literally couldn’t have gotten another person into that tent, it was packed! I still can’t get my head around what happened that day, it was unreal!
It must be such an amazing feeling to be fulfilling so many of your dreams and ambitions?
Ah man it is, it really is! It’s mad to think about how much the band and our following has grown in a year! We’ve put the work in, and we’ve grafted to get to where we are now – has it always been easy? No. But it’s definitely all been worth it.
Maintaining success is no easy feat! How have you coped working such long and relentless hours?
It’s funny because personally, I find calm in all of the chaos that comes from being in a band like ours. Having a full on schedule, and being on the go all the time helps keeps me stimulated. I kind of like the fact that we’re here, there and everywhere, and that no one day is the same. Whenever we’re not busy working, that’s when I find myself going a little stir crazy (laughs). My parents will often say to me that I need to slow down and take a breath, but as weird as it sounds, I actually find myself getting more stressed when we’re not as busy!
It’s been a minute since you last had any new music out! Tell us what you’ve been up to these last few months?
Ok so since our last release, we’ve written and recorded a new album, and we’ve done two tours. As well as that, we gigged pretty much everywhere during festival season last summer, and we’ve spent a lot of time travelling across Europe and here in the UK. So, we’ve kept ourselves busy (laughs).
As you begin this new chapter, are you and the lads ready to hit the ground running and go at things FULL FORCE this year…
We are 100% ready! It’s always a really exciting time starting a new project, whether that be a new album or a new tour, because it gives us an opportunity to showcase to our audience how we’ve grown and evolved.
The K’s – Breakdown In My Bedroom (Official Video)
‘Breakdown In My Bedroom’ is the first single to be released from your second studio album ‘Pretty On The Internet’, and it’s an absolute BANGER!
Thank you so much! We’re really pleased with how out it’s turned out, and the reaction we’ve had from the fans has been amazing. It’s always a little daunting putting new music out there, because you just don’t ever really know how it’s going to be perceived. But thankfully, we managed to have create something that people seem to really like and relate to, so we’re buzzing.
Can we please talk about the key change in the final chorus?
(Laughs) we can! It’s epic isn’t it? It’s funny because even though we pretty much had the song finished and tracked, I still felt like it was something missing. I sat at home with my guitar for hours trying to figure out where I could add another section, or maybe even another verse, but nothing I came up with seemed to work. I did think about maybe adding in a key change, but I was worried it might sound a bit cheesy, so I reluctant to even attempt it. But in the end I tried it, and I loved it because it just explodes out of nowhere! You feel like the songs already peaked, and there’s nowhere else for it to go and then BAM, it hits you out! The reaction to it has been class.
The song has a real ferocious energy to it, and a melody that you can’t help but sing-along to – combine those two elements together, and on a surface level, you have the ultimate pop/rock summer bop! Strip away all of the music and the production though, and you’re left with a lyric that depicts the story of a person who despite their struggles, is soldiering on through life as best they can. We reckon 99.9% of people on the planet will be able to relate to this sentiment, which we guess is always the goal when writing music. That said, how daunting is it for you to be so open and honest in song?
It’s the only way I know how to write a song! Seriously, being honest about how I’m feeling isn’t a choice for me, it’s a necessity – I can’t help but pour my heart out on paper. And really that’s how I’ve always been, long before The K’s or this being my job, writing was a way for me to express how I was feeling. If I’m down when I’m writing, then that’s the emotion I’m going to portray, I don’t shy away from it, and I think that’s what makes our songs so relatable to people. Sometimes it’s not until after we’ve released a song that I’m made aware of the fact that what I’ve written is maybe a little dark. A friend or a family member will be like “are you ok Jamie?” And I’m just oblivious to it all (laughs). Maybe I’m too honest sometimes? I don’t know… I’m still gonna fucking put it out there anyway (laughs).
Despite the vulnerable nature of some of the lyrics, there’s a tangible sense of reassurance you provide the listener when you sing the line: “It’s your first time here / there’s time to learn” – how important is it for you to share this message of hope with your audience?
I mean it’s always important to feel but, I’m not sure it was something I was really thinking about… when it comes to songwriting, I really believe that authenticity is key, so like I said, I just write what I’m feeling and going through at that moment in time. The lyrics to this particular song offer a sort of window into the self-doubt that I experience every so often, and I want people to know that it’s normal to feel that way. There shouldn’t be any shame attached to anybody who admits that they’re struggling. Like the lyric says: “this is your first time existing”, so of course you’re going to make mistakes, and do some stupid stuff because that’s just a part of growing up and life! You can’t beat yourself up for getting things wrong sometimes. You just have to learn from it and move on.
Why did you feel like ‘Breakdown In My Bedroom’ was the best song to launch the ‘Pretty On The Internet’ era?
It’s never easy to pick what singles you’re going to release off an album! We put a lot of thought into it, and try our best to gage the mood of our audience, and also make sure that whatever we’re releasing is aligned with what we’re doing, and also what’s happening at that particular moment. So right now for example, it’s the start of spring, summer is (hopefully) only a month or so away, so we want to put songs out there that are reflective of what everyone’s feeling at this time of year. Nobody wants to be listening to be a big, heavy ballad at a barbecue with all of their mates in the back garden do they? (laughs). So we just felt like because ‘Breakdown In My Bedroom’, and also ‘Gravestone’ are both quite upbeat and anthemic, they were the right songs from the album to release first.
Tell us more about ‘Gravestone’…
‘Gravestone’ is a song I wrote about the internal struggle of wanting to feel like my existence matters. It reflects the hope that, in the end, it will all “work out” and not be “for nothing” and I’ll have done enough to be worthy of being remembered. I think during the writing process I had a moment of realisation to the fact I often put aside the more meaningful, life-affirming aspects of existence like family and relationships to instead spend that time trying to create something to make me one day believe worthy of the love I receive. It’s an honest reflection of a mental battle to try and believe that I have earned the right to exist, a privilege that gets taken away from many more deserving people than me, and that my life will leave a mark that lasts beyond me. It’s an exploration of everything that whizzes around my head from ambition to self-worth and the search for validation.
You have your whole life to make your first album, and then one shot to make a good first impression as you unleash it into the world! You’re working under different parameters this time around – did you feel a pressure at all heading back into the studio to write and record new material?
Do you know what… we didn’t, and I think that’s because we really believe in ourselves, and we’re solid in terms of knowing who we are as a band, so the only pressure we ever really feel, is the pressure we put on ourselves. Do we feel any external pressures? Not really. Though I will say, since we’ve become a bit more established, we find there are a lot more opinions, and people, wanting to give us feedback (laughs). That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it can actually be really positive and helpful, but I think it’s important that we never allow the opinions of others to influence who we are, or the music we want to make.
Did you have a specific vision for the type of album you wanted to make?
I’m not sure we had a set vision or anything, but as a band I’d say we were all pretty adamant that anything we recorded had to be a step up from’ I Wonder If The World Knows?’ and I think we’ve definitely achieved that, I really do – I can’t tell you how much we all love this new album! There are certain songs on there that are just unreal, and we genuinely can’t wait for people to hear what we’ve been working on. I guess from a personal perspective, as a songwriter, I think I’ve gotten a lot better at expressing myself, and I have a much better understanding now of how to articulate how I’m feeling through song if that makes sense? So again, it was just about making sure the meaning and the sentiment of the songs came through.
The level of success you’ve experienced thus far can change things… whether it be the people around you, your lifestyle, relationships, the ability to inspire / influence others. We wonder though, does success in any way change the ways in which you work creatively? And do you find yourself feeling more confident to push boundaries as a result?
I wouldn’t say we’ve really changed how we work in the studio, but we definitely had more confidence in our abilities. I think anytime you feel supported by people, and you can see first hand that they’re enjoying what you’re doing, you can’t help but feel boosted by that. When you find yourself feeling happier and more confident as a person, I think you naturally just become braver! So for us as a band, and from a creative point of view, because of the support we’ve had, we’ve felt more inspired to explore and experiment with different styles and sounds… but nothing too out there, we still sound very much like The K’s.
What does the support of your fans mean to you?
It means everything to us, and we could not be more grateful for the support people have given us! The feedback and response we get from fans online is absolutely mint, and the way they show up for us at our shows is crazy, and I promise you, we do not take any of it for granted! It feels like we’re in a really good place at the moment, our audience is constantly growing, and because of that we’ve become even more excited and passionate about what we do because we see how our music is resonating with people.
As your audience continues to grow, how would you say your relationship with your bandmates has evolved?
This band is our life! And it’s difficult to imagine us all not being together. We really are like brothers, and I know people in bands say that all the time, but in our case it really is true. I absolutely adore the boys! Anybody who knows us knows how close we are, and how much love we’ve got for each other. My life would be rubbish if it weren’t for the other lads, it really would.
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