Exposed Vocals interviews Los Kyoto
Exposed Vocals: How did you hear about Exposed Vocals? What made you decide to sign up?
Los Kyoto: We just went on a follow spree on Twitter and noticed you had sent us a direct message, it caught my attention and thought I’d hit you back. You never know, right?
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?
Los Kyoto: All three of us grew up in Southampton, England. Southampton has always had a good music scene. We had all been playing music from a pretty young age and it was always a large part of our lives. We all grew up on bands like Blink-182, Green Day etc. It’s the only thing we all enjoy doing and it’s the only thing we’re all sort of good at, so it made sense.
Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?
Los Kyoto: Unfortunately it’s not all that interesting. We were watching a lot of Breaking Bad at the time, Matt (vocals) wanted something with “Los” in it because of the restaurant “Los pollos Hermanos”, we were looking for one other word to have after Los, I was browsing my iTunes and saw the track “Kyoto” by Skrillex. I thought those two together sounded kinda cool, so we stuck with that. “Los” as in Los Angeles, “Kyoto” as in the city in Japan.
Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
Los Kyoto: It would be very hypocritical of us to say we’re against it. I think it’s great, and online music sharing is never gonna not be a thing anymore so you may as well embrace it. It’s obviously an excellent way to get your music out there for people to hear, to get your name out there a little. Yes we do give our music away for free, our debut EP is available to download for free via our Bandcamp page. You CAN choose to pay for it if you want, any amount you want, but we wouldn’t expect people to. It’s also available on Spotify and it’s all on YouTube. It’s also on iTunes and Amazon, whatever your preference I suppose.
Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?
Los Kyoto: We’re still basically a start-up so I don’t think we’re ones to be giving advice. We’ve learned quite a lot since starting though. If you’re looking to get shows try and find a promoter in your local area via facebook or something, they’re always looking for bands for support slots. Also be nice and don’t be shit.
Exposed Vocals: Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?
Los Kyoto: All the time, but that’s only because we’re going at it kinda hard. I think it’s better to give the audience something to actually watch, rather than just staying dead still on stage noodling away and playing everything perfectly. Obviously you don’t want to go so hard you sound like a messy wall of noise, finding a balance is good. People don’t really notice that odd duff note or imperfect drum fill anyway.
Exposed Vocals: Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?
Los Kyoto: We’ve played a few shows in quick succession but no tours as of yet, we hope to tour soon though. No stories that I can think of, we’re all pretty boring. Bet you can’t wait to publish this can you? We doing good so far?
Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
Los Kyoto: It’s rare for us to write a song all together. Usually one of us will have a song basically completely written, then show it to the other two, then we build on it until we’re all happy with it. For me personally, a riff might come to mind when I’m taking a shower, or a melody of some sort, I keep building it in my head and make weird creepy voice notes on my phone along the way, then once the structure is there and I’m happy with it musically I’ll write the lyrics. I don’t know many other people that do it that way, I’m probably autistic or something.
Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?
Los Kyoto: Our facebook would be considered our website I suppose. We also have a Twitter, YouTube channel, Bandcamp, an Instagram for when something relatively cool happens.
Exposed Vocals: What are some really embarrassing songs that we might find on your mp3 player?
Los Kyoto: I have some Nickleback on my ipod, I’ve heard it’s still cool to hate them. I don’t think anything on there would be deemed as embarrassing though. I have a lot of old Miley Cyrus but I think she’s great.
Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
Los Kyoto: Tour. Record in a notable studio. Try really hard not to be lazy and waste it.
Exposed Vocals: Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?
Los Kyoto: All our stuff is self produced by our guitarist Mike, he’s has a pretty nice setup. I’d like to elaborate on that but I wouldn’t really know what I’m talking about. Lots of flashy lights and big black boxes and things that make loud noises. Mike’s always buying new studio gear so there’s probably an upgrade of some sort incoming. We’re currently beginning tracking EP number 2.
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
Los Kyoto: Just throw it everywhere you can online, anywhere possible where appropriate. Sometimes even if not appropriate. Message boards for expectant mothers? HI HEY LISTEN TO THIS.
Exposed Vocals: If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?
Los Kyoto: Reading festival, main stage. Doing Warped Tour would also be incredible. Doing some sort of arena tour with Blink 182 would be unreal, nothing would top that.
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
Los Kyoto: Other than the follow up EP I mentioned earlier, not really. We put out some merch the other day which was kinda cool, got a few more shows in the pipelines. Just trying to get some more momentum on that really.
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
Los Kyoto: The same things I do now, except I’d probably be gaming or masturbating more.
Exposed Vocals: Do you remember buying your first album? Who was it? What was going through your head?
Los Kyoto: Will Smith – Willennium. “Nice. Fuck yeah, this is fucking sweet”.
Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
Los Kyoto: I like to try and fit in as much “band stuff” as possible in our free time. But it can be hard when we all have slightly different schedules and other responsibilities. We just arrange days that we’re all free to work on stuff/have practice if we have a show coming up. We don’t have as much time as I’d like to have but it works and stuff happens eventually.
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2015?
Los Kyoto: Not an awful lot (I don’t think I’m very good at this, sorry) More shows with some cool bands, that’s about it. We won’t have any new content out until early 2016 I reckon. We’re excited to get these new songs out though, I think they’ll be quite a bit better than anything off the EP out currently. Watch out for ’em.
