We had the opportunity to chat with Evan Kenney, vocalist for Dirty Bangs, about this up-and-coming band!
Vocals: Evan Kenney
Drums: Rob Motes
Bass: Ben Voskeritchian
Guitar: Steven Lord
Keyboard: Anthony Valera
Guitar: Jesse Vuona
Her Campus Emerson: Can you tell us a little bit about Dirty Bangs?
Evan Kenney: Dirty Bangs is a band based out of Cambridge, Massachusetts. We came together earlier this year as a recording project between myself and Steve Lord, who is the guitar player and song arranger in the group. Basically how it started was a total non-live band side project just to test a new musical genre that we’ve always been interested in doing and have never really worked with the right band to facilitate. Steve took a whole studio in Salem, Massachusetts and I just started sending him song ideas—really raw recordings of things—and I would email him and he would build up a song. It was good to be working with him, because I’ve played music with him for so long. Within a month, we ended up making about four albums worth of material just the two of us. It kind of continued, we liked the songs, and we were wondering if it was possible to make it an actual band. Steve was already playing in a band called These Wild Plains and we all got along with those guys, so they started as our backing band. Then we got a guitar player, Jesse, who is someone I’ve been in bands with my whole life, and I wasn’t going to have a band without Jesse. So we got him involved, we started touring, and it became a real thing.
HCE: How would you classify your sound?
EK: I would say it’s indie rock, but it definitely has some nods to 80s British pop. We really like the old British pop bands. We went to school out in Western Mass so we had The Pixies and Dinosaur Jr., we were always fans of those bands. We had to take from all those old bands. We’re not trying to do any new sound or anything, we’re just reiterating on everything that we grew up listening to. That’s where it all comes from.
HCE: How did Dirty Bangs get its start?
EK: We had our first official shows this year. We were recording earlier in January, but then the first thing we did was a tour down at South by Southwest in March. That was our first time out on the road together playing shows. We got thrown into it right away. We didn’t really play a lot before then; it started as this big tour that we did with Tigerman WOAH and These Wild Plains down to Texas and back. We played Nashville, we played all parts of Texas, Richmond, VA, New York, we hit every major city on the way down and back.
HCE: Is there a specific meaning behind the name “Dirty Bangs”?
EK: We kind of leave it open to interpretation, because everyone has their own reaction whenever we tell them. But actually, a lot of the songs when we were writing them were based on a lot of work that…there was this old rock writer named Lester Bangs who used to write for Creem magazine. He was a really crass rock critic back in the day and he always found all this great music and would write about these great bands that we’re all in love with, so a lot of the songs are based on his stories and his personality and how he saw the world. We got the Bangs from Lester Bangs. Dirty was the type of writing he did and also the way he was viewed by some of the bands he wrote about. They either loved him or they hated him, so we based a lot of that on him.
HCE: How has the band grown since it was first formed?
EK: Playing together so much, traveling, playing filthy bars and not getting much sleep, hitting the road in this big, vast country, you become closer in a way; you have a camaraderie. I think that translates into how we play live. We had to look out for one another on the road. We have some dicey situations that happen. I think it’s just communication. When we play live, we know where everybody’s at. It’s almost telepathic in a way. Being in the same room with each other for so long, being in a band together, understanding one another as friends, I think that’s how we’ve grown. We appreciate each other and we’re all trying to make this great sound together so we’re all on the same page. As a band we’ve definitely gotten closer and I think it’s helped with the live show.
HCE: What do you see as the future of Dirty Bangs?
EK: We’re really excited because we’ve been offered a really great opportunity in the short time we’ve been together. We’re planning on going to Europe [next year], we’re going to be doing some festivals, we’re going to be recording, and we’re going to keep going for it. It’s going really well for the short time that we’ve been together. Playing Boston Calling and playing The Sinclair with some great bands. It was something that came from nothing. We’re going to keep rolling with it, but also keep our eyes out for bigger and better things, for sure.
HCE: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
EK: All of our music is online. We have stuff on iTunes and Spotify, and we’re going to have more tour dates and music videos coming out. We’re going to have some big show announcements coming soon.