TIME TO BE REAL

PERHAPS MORE THAN EVER BEFORE IN THE UK, BANDS LIKE KID KAPICHI ARE VITAL. HERE, FRONTMAN JACK WILSON TAKES US DEEP INSIDE 'HERE'S WHAT YOU COULD HAVE WON'.

- MADDY HOWELL

Doing anything for the first time is difficult. Whether it's picking up an instrument, playing a show, or packing into a bus ready to see the world, for musicians each milestone at the start of their career can be tricky, but often there's one step that feels more daunting than them all the debut album.

People will tell you that you have your whole life to write your first album, but how do you know when you're truly ready? The scary truth is that often there's no real sign, you just have to take the plunge, and despite the spiralling chaos of the world around them as the UK found itself in its third national lockdown in 2021 - Kid Kapichi did just that.

"You had to try and swim against it or drown, so we decided to swim against it," frontman Jack Wilson explains.

"We couldn't rent a studio or get any producers, but it felt like the right time, so we recorded it ourselves. It was out of necessity, and you can definitely hear that, but it was meant to be a rough and ready album. It was an opportunity to stamp our mark out there and say, 'We exist'. We were working with the best ingredients that we could find in the cupboard."

Making the most of the situation they found themselves in, Kid Kapichi emerged from a period of lockdowns, restrictions, and widespread fear with 'This Time Next Year', an album that satirically - but hopefully pondered the idea that maybe, just maybe, things could soon be a little brighter. However, as the days passed by, Jack soon realised that might not be the case.

"We're never going to be the band writing songs about falling in love with a girl sitting in a coffee shop. That's never going to work for us. We always just write about what's on our plate in front of us on that particular day," he nods.