Getting To Know Kid Keep Dancing

Admittedly we didn’t know a heck of a lot about Kid Keep Dancing, so we decided we had better find out!  Later this week we caught up with James Hopkins, Lead Singer/Guitarist. So sit back, get comfy, listen to the track on the player below and read on.  Enjoy!

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Piewatch – How did you come up with the name?
J.H - From the start we wanted to create upbeat and fun songs with massive choruses influenced from our days growing up together at school. Kid Keep Dancing, just fell into place perfectly emphasizing our intent to get everyone moving at shows!

Piewatch - Musically, who are your influences, any unexpected ones?
J.H - As you’d expect we get compared to bands such as “Fallout Boy” and “Panic At The Disco” which makes sense as fallout boy are one of my favourite bands!! But we have a varied group of influences, from “The Red Hot Chilli Peppers” to bands like “The Devil Wears Prada” and “A Day To Remember”. Huw, our lead guitarist, listens to “Boyzone” and other cheesy 90s bands too but don’t let him know we told you!

Piewatch – How did you find Slicethepie?

KKD by Daniel Heywood

J.H - We were looking around for real listener reviews of our music to see if we were getting it right and we accidentally stumbled along slice the pie and uploaded some of our recordings we had just finished.
Originally the the reveiws on the tracks were average but alot of the comments involved the quality of recordings more than the content, so armed with the advice from anonymous listeners we hit the studio and came back with 3 new tracks for you guys.

Piewatch – What is your best rated track on STP? Why do you feel this is?
J.H - “Prom Dance” is our highest rated with average rating of 7.83/10. Its probably my favourite song by us and obviously my enthusiasm came out in the performance… its a pretty slow song which is led by the bass and has a heavy piano input which is demolished by one of the strongest choruses, in my opinion, ive ever heard! If you havent heard it yet, please do check it out!

Piewatch – If you achieved financing tomorrow what would be the first thing you would buy?
J.H - We need to finish our CD as we have so many song ideas we just cant afford to put down onto disc, So I think that booking back into the studio with producer Romesh Dodangoda, whos most recent projects include the Funeral For A Friend and Kids In Glass Houses albums. This would be one of our foremost priorities for sure. We would also be looking to get the CD burned and printed before being pushed out to as many places as possible with magazine reviews and features high on the agenda. We have done pretty well off the back of previous CDs we’ve produced so having funding behind us this time will mean we should excel even more hopefully!

Piewatch – How do you plan to push digital sales?
J.H - With some of our older music already selling well on MP3 websites such as iTunes and indiestore.7digital.com We aim to promote our newer stuff even more and with the help of funding behind us, We will be pushing it as much as possible. Our music is also available for streaming on Spotify and since this, We have had a big increase in coverage which has been superb!

Piewatch – What would you say is your biggest achievement to date?
J.H - We were selected to represent Wales at a St Davids day festival in Disneyland Paris last year which was pretty awesome. We were financed by S4C on an all expenses trip to the resort… Walking out onto stage infront of your countries flag is an experience I think anyone would be proud of!

KKD - David Heywood

Piewatch – Have you approached S4C about your financing?
J.H - With S4C funding our Welsh trip to Paris, We have been in touch to see whether they again would be interested in funding a welsh band to release and album, as they have worked with us previously. We are awaiting a further reply since the last where they were reviewing the budget for the year to see if they can help in anyway if they havent already exceeded the expenditure for the year.

Piewatch – What’s the best gig you have played?
J.H - We qualified to the final of the UK stage of BODOG worldwide talent search competition, Which was held in Manchester Academy. Obviously the place was packed front to back with everyones fans and we had the honour of taking up two buses full of fans and family members from the little town of Port Talbot 5 hours away to watch us compete on stage! The Semi final was also amazing, playing Birmingham Academy 1 stage was unbelievable, let alone going through!

Piewatch – Who do you currently like in the charts?
J.H - Pretty much anything from the likes of “Paramore” and “Kings of Leon” their atmospheric rock influence is shown heavily on our music however the likes of “David Guetta” dance style with catchy chorus’s is very simliar to us also I feel.

Piewatch – If you could have any super power what would it be?
J.H - Flying is pretty damn sweet but you can never fly as fast as being able to teleport. So take that superman!

Piewatch – Elvis dead or alive?
J.H - Im pretty sure I seen him in an Eminem video yesterday, So thats good enough for me!

Piewatch – Any irrational phobias?
J.H - Just the usual… clowns, spiders, knife wielding hooded youths.

Piewatch – Mcdonalds or Burger King?
J.H - *shakes head* If I had to choose, I’d be the colonel. Finger Lickin’ Chicken!

Piewatch - Any last words?
J.H - Massive thanks to everyone who has given such great reviews! I’ve read every one and taken everything onboard! If you like what you hear than help us out by investing as little or as large as you like, nothing goes un noticed so thanks to everyone already! We will be hitting the studio as soon as we can if the investment is made and we wont let you guys down!

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