Kaonashi: We Just Wanna Do Everything

Of all the bands of today’s reinvigorated metalcore/post-hardcore scene, Philadelphia’s KAONASHI must have a shout as the craziest. They describe their sound as ‘emo-mathcore’ – a chaotic mix of post-hardcore, math rock, prog and more which has received its fullest realisation yet on their debut full-length Dear Lemon House, You Ruined Me: Senior Year. It’s an expansive, intricate record, and one that can’t have been easy to sit on for as long as the five-piece had to. “We wrote everything in October 2019, and recorded it in December 2019,” explains drummer Ryan Paolilli. “We were like ‘alright, let’s go, it’s done, let’s release it,’ and then everything [COVID-19] hit.”

While hardly the only band to have had their plans scuppered by the pandemic, the wait has been all the more frustrating for KAONASHI after the sizable reception of their 2018 Why Did You Do It? EP. You might think the pressure to follow up such a well-received record would’ve got to the band, but you’d be wrong. For vocalist Peter Rono, there was “no pressure at all. I feel comfortable with this follow-up, I didn’t really feel stressed to make something better. I was comfortable writing it, it came naturally.”

“Yeah, we were definitely just writing for us to have fun,” adds Paolilli. “There’s a lot of parts that came out emotional or whatever that were really just goofing off at first… There was no pressure with it, if anything we just wanted to put it out so we could get to the next thing.”

Picking up with Why Did You Do It?’s same protagonist of Jamie, Dear Lemon House… weaves an emotional story through the highs and lows of American adolescence. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it gets pretty bleak at points, but while Paolilli and Rono are slightly divided over whether exploring such topics takes a personal toll, both agree there is a lot of catharsis in the music they write. In reference to the album’s particularly devastating closing track, Rono explains. “It was more relieving than taking a toll on me. It was like the weight was lifted writing that song and tracking that song. I enjoyed it very much and I wasn’t stressed writing it.”

It’s clear then that KAONASHI want to tell complex and interesting stories, something Paolilli is quick to acknowledge owes a heavy debt to the band’s shared favourites in COHEED AND CAMBRIA. He elaborates, “we were like ‘Ok how’re we gonna do that?’ and then we were like ‘well the only thing that we really do is talk about ourselves, express ourselves’. So then it was like let’s just characterise it. We started talking about what we wanted to talk about. I would drive Peter to work every night and we would come up with these plans – since 2016 – like ‘alright, we’ve gotta build this world, we’ve gotta create this character’ and use that as a way to be more expressive. It was just something we always wanted to do.”

The results touch on many things, including Jamie’s experiences specifically as a black teenager. KAONASHI have discussed race and representation before, including in last year’s scathing Alternative Press diss track. Reflecting on his experiences as a person of colour within the alternative scene, Rono says it’s been “good and bad. It’s just been a lot, that’s the best way to describe it. But I’m not gonna stop in case anybody’s hoping I would. I’m not, fuck you!” As for what needs to be done, he adds, “I think it’s really bigger and more important than metalcore. It’s pretty simple stuff: stop stereotyping people, stop judging people. What needs to be done is people need to be more understanding and open-minded.”

One of KAONASHI‘s expressed aims is to use their platform to promote change and compassion, but a large part of what makes them so captivating is the musical means through which they do it. “We just wanna do everything because we listen to everything,” explains Rono. “Just make sure it makes sense you know – I don’t want it to be incoherent – but there was no way we were just gonna do one thing. The way that I do it with my delivery and with my lyrics is just whenever a new part comes up I think about a new style and a new band. It’s like: ‘alright I’m feeling like COMEBACK KID for this part,’ or ‘I’m feeling like TOUCHÉ AMORÉ for this part.’ But it always sounds like me.”

“I would say I do the exact same thing,” concurs Paolilli. “I feel like the album progresses so much where every song definitely has its own characteristic. That was something that we always try to strive for in general. We want it to be an album, but where each song can speak for itself.”

It’s an approach which has planted KAONASHI firmly among a host of other exciting up-and-comers within metal and hardcore, sometimes jokingly nicknamed the Wild Hogs. Bassist August Axcelson joins the call to explain. “I personally feel like there’s a lot of music and bands out there, especially within the hardcore and metal realm, that have been kinda doing the same thing as each other for a long time now, and with us and THE CALLOUS DAOBOYS and CRYPTODIRA and the bands within that circle, we don’t wanna do the standard stuff. We want to do whatever we want to do, no matter how weird or out there it is.”

Turning to what’s next for KAONASHI, the band are unsurprisingly eager to continue pushing boundaries however and wherever possible. Rono concludes, “I want to see how far we can go with the band when it comes to the live experience. I wanna play outside of metal and hardcore, I wanna play Coachella or with electronic groups and rappers and shit like that. Not just putting two things together and it’s like oil and water, but melding those scenes so that you go to a show and see all types of people there.”

Dear Lemon House, You Ruined Me: Senior Year is out now via Equal Vision/Unbeaten Records (USA) and Rude Records (EU).

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