Kermes

Here they come, the emphatically funny and incredibly talented four-piece band Kermes, out of Leicester. With a debut album out from earlier this spring and a drive to make music that invites those most marginalized in society to feel at home and welcome, they’re making long strides.

“There’s a meme that’s a panel from an anime,” Emily, lead singer and guitarist from Leicester fourpiece Kermes, tells me, “and it’s the two men wearing the same trilby, and they’re both going ‘SAME HAT’ and that’s what I always think of. ‘SAME HAT!’” She’s speaking about visibility and representation of queer people in the music scene, and the importance of recognizing yourself in a setting that perhaps you wouldn’t normally, what with the cishet white dudes permeating the stage as of late.

We’re sat in a circle just outside The Red Shed, a Labour clubhouse turned music venue for Wakefield’s Long Division festival, on a cool early summer evening, giggling at a slew of silly anecdotes that seem to be one of two levels acting as the theme for this interview. The two levels seem to mirror Kermes’ outlook on how they hope to impact their audience – share that feeling of ‘same hat!’, feeling a connection between two people in a room full of the majority where you’re the minority, but also have a whole lot of goddamn fun while doing it.

As a band with a wide pool of influence, each member drawing on their respective and unique

backgrounds and interests in music, they’re creating content that doesn’t quite sound like anyone else. With a synth-esque guitar sound that Cass, bass player and newest member of Kermes, describes as somewhere between K-pop and eighties hair metal but with a boogie, a depth that adds a swampiness, plus angry screaming over the top, there’s an onslaught of influences that have brought them to the sound they’re playing with now. “I think in a lot of ways, we’re just a rock band, but on a more granular level, I don’t think we sound like one thing specifically,” Emily says.

When Emily first started making music as Kermes, it was as a folk band, mainly focusing on sadder and slower songs. “I was just doing solo stuff that was really miserable and slow,” she tells me. “It was sad boy jams, because I was still pretending to be a boy, and I was sad. And then I got angry.” What’s stayed the same is Emily’s journalistic approach to writing lyrics, taking her experiences as a queer person and trans woman, both positive and negative, and pouring them into heartfelt songs over groovy tunes. Now, they’ve released their first full-length album, We Choose

Pretty Names, full of urgency and tumult and sheer loudness, something that defines their live shows like nothing else.

“I think because we started so quiet and slow and almost folky, that was part of why I started screaming,” Emily says. “You’re just trying to get people to listen, trying to make yourself heard. Volume is a radical, political act.”

Experiencing a visceral connection with someone in the crowd, that ‘same hat!’ feeling when you recognize yourself in another human being, especially when you’re a minority in a crowd, is a big goal for their shows. “Sometimes at gigs, you’ll just see a person who’s really into it and, not to stereotype, but they’re obviously queer,” Emily explains. “They’ve got an undercut or colored hair or something, and you just make eye contact and it’s like, yeah, this is a shared moment of just understanding.” Feeling less alone in a crowd full of people who might not understand or accept you encourages these people, especially younger people, to put themselves out there more, to have more fun if they observe other people they re

late to doing just that.

Kermes playing The Red Shed at Wakefield’s Long Division Festival, June 2018

“With about 90 % of our gigs, there will be a point in the evening where someone will come up to you and they’ve obviously really vibed with what you’re doing,” guitarist Tom says. “They’ve obviously really connected with it on an emotional level, an almost primal level where they’ve just gotten really involved in it.” Whether that be with the music, with the atmosphere they create, the acceptance, it doesn’t matter so much; where that feeling can’t be explained by rational or critical reasoning, it’s just important to them that the audience feels something.

Even barring their insistence that, as small of a band as they are, they don’t truly have a platform (at least in the sense of how some musicians do), the stage gives them a certain “hierarchy of power,” putting them in the forefront of everyone’s eyes for twenty to forty-five minutes of a set. Even something as simple as “oh, yeah, the trans woman can do a cool thing that I’m on board with and respect,” says Cass, “it can change their mindset about how they see trans women. If it’s just something as basic as, I really liked the guitar or the bass,

saying that was cool, just reshuffle my head about just how the representation is.”

“Most people are nice and most people are well-intentioned,” Emily points out, “but they don’t understand stuff because they have never been presented with it.” And with the high concentration of middle-aged dads at rock shows, it’s important to have this sort of information to be accessible to the demographic who might not have been privy to it previously.

“That’s the thing about platforms, though, as well,” Cass says, “about palatable platforms.” Bringing up these issues and speaking out about the marginalization of queer and trans people is important in any form, but putting it in a pleasingly consumable form attracts an even wider audience. “When I just sat down and read all the lyrics on the Kermes vinyl, it just hits home; it’s really powerful. I think it’s just better for being put over a groovy thing,” Cass explains. “It almost sticks in your mind better, as well, the important stuff.”

As many people come to Kermes shows for the serious and the sad, drummer Jordy points out, just as

many come because of the fun the band have whilst playing. “I think if we just go onstage and try to be as positive and as loud and as energetic as possible, then that’s all you can really ask for in a live band,” he says.

Kermes playing The Red Shed at Wakefield’s Long Division Festival, June 2018

Come the next eras of the band, one may not recognize Kermes as the band they are now. Constantly in flux, they hope to explore new genres and sounds as they progress forward in their careers. “Our album is so much different to anything that we did before, in a good way,” Jordy points out. Not only do they hope to go new places musically, but physically as well, he continues. “Personally, I just like seeing new places all the time, and just lingering in places you haven’t been.”

“We just really love doing this, and every time we do it, it gets better, and we get better as a band,” Emily says. “I think we just want to keep playing and meeting people and having a connection. I’d play a hundred shows to drunk middle-aged dads for every show where you can an actual connection with a queer person in the crowd.”

Look out for Kermes; they might just be wearing matching rainbow dungarees at their next show. Also, Emily asks you bring your dog. “There’s not enough dogs at shows.”