Beat punk foursome Kid Kapichi talk to ‘cene about New England, hometown pride and that magic moment, writes Joe Bill

“Welcome to the new World, the new England. Come witness the greatness of Britain…”

The first time the track kicked in, you just knew that Kid Kapichi (@kidkapichi ) were on to a winner. More by tank than by sniper, the most overtly political of all the band’s tracks, New England shot across the bows of a government embroiled in buffoonery while simultaneously raising the question to those who continue to support them.

Jack Wilson (vocals, guitars), Ben Beetham (guitars, vocals), Eddie Lewis (bass) and George Macdonald (drums) have been making music together for more than half their lives but saw their ‘beat punk’ sound, years of graft gigs and life-pausing dedication to their art finally rewarded with a three-album deal from Universal’s rocking subsidiary Spinefarm Records in mid-2022.

Growing up in yet another forgotten coastal seaside town, Hastings, the foursome have become known for writing songs based in self-experienced realism - about having no work, no money and the frustrations that come with that. An invitation to play Frank Carter’s birthday party and then join him on tour, multiple Radio One plays and praise on Twitter from Liam Gallagher for their Party At No. 10 stunt ensured Kid Kapichi entered the national consciousness.

New album Here’s What You Could Have Won and a tour swiftly followed and we caught up with Jack Wilson in the kitchen of a record shop in Southampton promoting the record with a series of in-store gigs…

JW: It’s the last day of the, like, in-stores, the final little bit of the ‘selling the record’ sort of thing. And then tonight at midnight is the chance for chart registration. So it’s like the final gig. The proper tour starts at the end of January and goes throughout February.

‘cene: I guess it’s probably going back to the old school, really, doing in-store gigs and that sort of thing?

JW: Yeah, I think it’s become a really, really important part of it. It’s the first time we’ve ever done it because obviously the first album we just did ourselves. So we weren’t really trying to chart or do anything with it. But if you’re actually in contention for a Top 40 place, then I think it’s pretty vital unless you’re huge and you don’t need to do it. It’s a wicked way of doing it. Five or six dates and you’re playing to a few hundred people each night, and they’re all buying a vinyl to come and see you - that’s how they get entry - it massively helps.

We saw the announcement a few months ago of getting signed. Have you had that moment where you sit down with a beer and go ‘F*ck!’?

JW: Yeah, a few times. It’s been a really nice feeling, like, it’s a lot of weight lifted off your shoulders. We would have carried on regardless, we weren’t gonna give up or anything, but it’s nice to have the backing financially but also just the support of a much bigger network of people - it helps a lot.

With the release of this album and the singles that came before, it feels like a completely different beast now.

With the first album, it felt like, you know, you’re doing these gigs and it was the same couple of hundred people every night that you would see and you’d recognise them and you know them. People who’ve been following us for years. And now it’s very much “I’ve just heard about you, I’ve just heard your song on Radio One and bought the album”.

This time, it’s been people we’ve never met before - people who have only just found out about us.

So that’s really, really cool and really exciting to see.

‘cene: So it has properly ramped up…
JW: Yeah. And also people’s reaction towards us has been different as well. Normally it feels like old friends, but this time has been a lot more like people queuing up around the block to get things signed and stuff. That’s something we’re not used to at all.

‘cene: We’ve seen Slaves play Glastonbury and tell everybody they’re from Kent - now seeing Kid Kapichi come out of a place that’s similar to our hometown is so inspiring...

JW: Well, thank you. It is definitely hard if you’re from Kent or Sussex but you’re not from Brighton. But I feel like we used it to our advantage rather than letting it be a barrier. It gave us the opportunity to witness what real life is like for, you know, 99% of the country. Everything we write and talk about is stuff that we’ve experienced or our friends experience or our family experience. So living in that sort of small town with not much hope for work and financial stability and stuff has kind of given us an edge when it comes to writing songs and lyric-writing. And that’s what people seem to like about us as a band and what they relate to.

‘cene: There is a political edge to your music, particularly with New England. Was that something you always set out to do?

JW: It’s a difficult one, it kind of just felt inevitable, it wasn’t something we set out to do. Like we weren’t ever saying ‘We’re going to be a punk band’. None of us grew up listening solely to punk music. I think it’s just, like, when you’re from Hastings, it’s a very punk town. In its ethos and the way it behaves, and the people - not necessarily as a sound but just as a vibe, it’s quite like a sort of DIY place. As we started writing and we found our voice more, we wanted to talk about certain things, like real, lived experience. And it kind of just dragged us down that route.

‘cene: We had interviewed Bob Vylan shortly before you released New England, so we had a vested interest when it came out, but it just seemed to go bang!

Did you know it was going to go big?

JW: I think when we wrote that song, we felt that we had a special song there. When you write a song that does well, you don’t always know. But that particular time, I think we thought “This is a step up”. And it made us all really excited again, to release new music and write new music. And we felt we really knew what we were doing. That was like the most excited I’ve been to put something out. And the reaction was definitely our best reaction we’ve ever had. Once it was recorded and Bob’s verse was on it… we were like “Yeah, we got something good here”. (see our interview with Bob Vylan here)

‘cene: How did you find out about the record deal with Universal? Was there a realisation of the magnitude moment?

JW: When we were on tour with Nothing but Thieves, we had been speaking to another major label for about six months and we were like ‘this’ close to signing. And the only reason we didn’t was because their lawyer went away for two weeks and then we went to Europe. And then on the first week of that tour we got approached by Universal. There were loads of smaller labels, but they didn’t really offer us what we needed. Like we weren’t willing to give anything away unless you can offer us something that we’re not already doing ourselves. Universal got involved and they were basically like “Well, we really want to sign you, what do you want?”.

That’s when we thought “Oh, sh*t. This is actually our life now, this is actually our career. And we can all afford to actually do this properly”.

‘cene: Tell us about Frank Carter’s birthday party…

That all came about with the first song we ever tried to get on the radio in 2019. And Jack Saunders loved it straight away. He’s been a massive champion and supporter of ours, and still is. And then he had Frank Carter on the show the week we released that song and played it to Frank. Frank messaged us saying, like, “Do you want to play my birthday party?”. We were just, like, “What the f*ck was going on?”. That’s actually where we met Bob Vylan. That kind of started the conversation and then it made it easy once we had written New England because we just knew we wanted Bob to do it.

When you’re not touring, will you be staying in Hastings?

We all live there. You know, we’ve all of our partners and everything. We’ve got an amazing support network around us. And also we genuinely do love Hastings, like it’s such a cool place to be. It’s just there’s no money. The only way people ever seem to be happy or successful in towns like that is if they have their own businesses and I guess this is our own business now.