Found in the Inbox: Kool Stuff Katie Hide Frustration Inside Garage-Pop on “It’s All Your Fault

Kool Stuff Katie’s “It’s All Your Fault” arrived in March 2016 with a contradiction built in. The Portland, Oregon garage-pop duo made an album, It’s Fine, that sounds upbeat on first listen, and then realized almost every song was about frustration. “We unintentionally made an album full of anguish in disguise,” drummer and vocalist Saren Oliver says in the campaign Rive Video Promotion sent us.

Frustration with a 4/4 beat

Oliver explains that the band never planned a theme. “We didn’t set out to write this record with a lyrical or musical theme as such, but as it turned out, a lot of the songs center around the feeling of frustration: personally, romantically, socially.” The band finds the result funny: “We find it funny because upon first listen most of the songs are super upbeat and fun.”

The release places the record in “the proud canon of Northwest music that shouts down frustration and depression with a 4/4 beat and an overdriven amp.” It was written in Portland and Hood River and recorded with producer Steve Fisk, whose credits include Nirvana, Soundgarden and The Posies, at Seattle’s Soundhouse Studios and Fisk’s home studio.

From a Craigslist ad to a two-piece

The duo’s origin story is a lesson in simplifying. Guitarist and vocalist Shane Blem met Oliver when he posted a Craigslist ad looking for a keyboard player. The project began as a synth-heavy, New Wave-inspired band, but the campaign says it soon became clear that “being a slave to an electronic beat was not going to work.” After their drummer left, they wrote all new songs and Oliver learned to play drums.

Their self-titled 2014 debut covered a wide range of genres. Touring and trial-and-error songwriting since then had shown that the pair excelled at short, upbeat songs as a two-piece, and Fisk agreed with that direction going into It’s Fine.

Why it was in the inbox

Oliver’s goal for the album is generous: “Essentially, we tried to write a record that everyone could identify with and lose themselves in, and that maybe you’d feel a bit better about everything when it’s through.”

Watch the official video

Release details and quotes from Rive Video Promotion’s 2016 campaign for “It’s All Your Fault.” This feature updates Exposed Vocals’ original March 2016 post.