We have a  treat for you all.  Up and coming ambient indie band Kye Kye has been making waves across the US in recent months, most recently touring with famed songwriter John Mark McMillan and his band.  This summer, they will be traveling across the country again, hitting up festivals and clubs alike, including the huge Creation Festivals and Cornerstone Festival in Illinois.  Recently, I had the opportunity to correspond with Tommy Phelan of Kye Kye via email, and this is the interview that resulted.  This ought to give you some further insight as to what this band is all about, along with commentary on the current state of the music industry and their unexpected radio success.  Keep an eye on these guys, they are just going to keep going!

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First things first, sum up briefly the mission statement of Kye Kye:

To express our relationship with God through music.

What is “Kye Kye” the name derived from?

“Kye” technically spelled “Chi” is derived from the Greek Alphabet and is used in the“Chi-Ro” which are the Greek letters that the early church used for the name of Chirst. We spelled it phonetically and repeated it twice for emphasis.

Your bio references a profound experience with God you all had that forever changed the course of your lives, could you elaborate on that? How is this experience still affecting you today?

About 2 ½ years ago God came into our lives when we were at a place where we weren’t sure what to do with our passion for music or with our course in life in general. We were about ready to give up on music and God really met us where we were at and through a couple intimate encounters with Him, He really just poured out his love for us as well as some freeing revelations about His character and who He had made us to be.  At a point when we were even questioning God, this freed us up to a whole new point in our lives in which we were able to answer some of life’s biggest questions first hand which really gave our life meaning. Since then, God has just kept affirming those truths to us to lead us into a place where we can stand firm on what his word says about us, who we are and how we relate to God.  We’ve been learning that the truths that set you free aren’t deep and complicated… you just have to truly believe them.

You recorded “Young Love” in the studio of Eric Owyoung (Future of Forestry), correct? Describe the highlights of that experience.

Yes we did 🙂 Recording with Eric was a really great experience for us. It was our first time working with a producer so it was all new to us going in. It’s a bit scary putting your music into someones hands you just met and trusting that they will help you get onto a record what your hearing in your head. But as soon as we got down there and started working we knew we had nothing to worry about.

Cooped up in a studio working on music is actually something we all really love and so when we say that the hours were crazy and we went through coffee like water and we stayed up till dawn tracking vocals and tracking and re-tracking guitars and what not…it sounds rough… but we absolutely loved it and appreciated the fact that Eric shared that love for the studio.

How’d you land on the ambient-electronic style?

I would say we landed on this by the mixture of everyone’s tastes in the band put together. Olga has always been more into the earthy natural feel whereas Tim grew up listening toa mixture of the parents 70s/ 80s records along with some electronic music. Tommy came from a pop/rock style band.

Describe the process, in brief, behind assembling your new Remix EP.

It was about a year since Young Love cameout and before we started working on the next album we played around with the idea of a Remix EP. Tim started messing around with our Young Love tracks and came back to us with “Broke (Remix)” and we were all pretty blown away. So Tim just took that project on. The dancier/club feel to the Remix Ep isn’t stylistically thelong term goal of the band, but a fun project nonetheless.

“Broke” hit it big last year – what part did you have (if any) in it being chosen for radio? You guys are definitely not the typical band for regular radio airplay!

I’m not totally sure why but I think in the back of our minds we kinda figured that if any of our songs were to be played on the radio it would be Broke. We didn’t have much say in it but knew it was coming and are super thankful for it. Like you said we aren’t exactly typical radio material but are super excited that those molds could be bent and we are able to reach so many people as a result.

Who would be on your dream tour? Both a show to attend and a show to play apply.

Attend – Sigur Ros, U2, or Metric.

Tour with –Definitely either Coldplay or Deathcab, Brandon Flowers or Bon Iver

From Kye Kye’s point of view, what are the biggest advantages and disadvantages of working as professional musicians today?

One of the biggest advantages any professional musician has today is Social media networks. It allows you to keep your fans updated on new albums, merch, upcoming tours as well as be able to connect and share your story/vision/message and much more [while] spending very little if any costs.

As far as disadvantages go, it would probably be trying to keep the honesty in music writing. A lot of the industry is fear based (both Christian and secular). And so a lot of music (definitely not all of it) is written to cater to a certain market rather than being written to express or convey what the artist is experiencing. I think every musician should analyze their writing process… don’t write a love song if your not in love… don’t write a folk album just because thats the next big thing….  and please don’t write about God just because thats what sells on Christian radio or because you feel that you have to.. write about God cause thats who you’re madly in love with…. write music without fear of rejection or failure. Its gonna sound different and its worth the risk.

Are there any particularly funny or memorable tour stories in your mind, especially from your run with John Mark McMillian?

The JMM crew was awesome! Aside from being possibly one of the nicest/ most genuine group of guys that you will ever meet, they truly made [the] tour one of the funnest tours we have ever been on. Just from the hang time at our hotels, green rooms, to watching them perform their mind-blowing set every night.

As far as memorable stories go, I think one that would qualify is the miniature zebras we saw at a promoters back yard/farm. We drove out there around midnight hunting them down in the dark… they were pretty awesome 🙂

What’s the most surprising way a fan has reached out to you so far?

Not too long ago we had a fan give their newborn baby the middle name Kye after our band name.

Thanks for your time! Any final thoughts?

Thank you so much for the interview and come out to see us on our Summer Tour!

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