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Podcast interview with Billy Yost
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By Sam Burrish
Journal multimedia producer
The sirens of big-city fame have seduced many a small-town band.
For indie rock group The Kickback, it was Chicago. The former Vermillion, S.D., four-piece made the leap this summer.
In short time, they’ve had to navigate the unfamiliar currents of a big local scene. But the move so far is all good.
“Everyone was thinking basically the same thing. ‘We want to keep doing this, but we’ve got to find a way to bump it up to the next level,’” frontman Billy Yost said in a recent interview for The Journal’s Heard Mentality online music podcast.
The band’s “underdog” mentality surely didn’t hurt entering the scene, he said.
For several years, playing new venues meant hours on the road, and on a good night, recouping gas money. Now a host of Chicago venues within a few minutes’ drive welcome the band.
The steady schedule of gigs is spring-boarding The Kickback’s profile, in addition to recording sessions, mentions in city publications and a growing fan base — local and online.
Affirmation?
That came straight from the top. Rock ‘n’ Roll bible Rolling Stone also published extolling words for the band.
The magazine said: The Kickback writes “lean, nervy songs that snarl and snap. Guitarist Billy Yost has a marvelously agonized voice and he wrenches notes from his larynx, hurling himself against the songs’ propulsive rhythms.”
The review was published Sept. 17 on Rolling Stone’s Hype Monitor blog, a place up-and-coming bands are spotlighted.
The accolade was a surprise, 22-year-old Yost said.
“My first reaction was that somebody had taken our (band) name,” Yost said after he saw “Kickback” in the headline.
Then came his name. Every letter was there.
“I started freaking out. I think I danced around the apartment sort of yelling,” Yost said. He then left brother and bandmate Danny Yost a voicemail. “You couldn’t really make out anything I was saying. It was just sort of high-pitched squeal sounds.
It was definitely one of the cooler moments of my life.”
Also good? The timing.
The band is recording for its second EP, “The Great Self-Love,” which Yost expects to release later this year.
“The EP is a celebration of the only thing my generation has learned how to do: pat itself on the back and rest assured that no one is as unique and special and perfect as us,” said Yost, who also works as a substitute English teacher.
“The Great Self-Love” release was delayed because of scrapped recording sessions in Sioux Falls, S.D., the Chicago move, and switching guitarist Cody Raterman with Chicago-native Tyler Zee.
Danny Yost and bassist Zach Verdoorn have returned from a touring stint with indie rockers Oh My God, also of Chicago.
The Kickback is now studio recording “The Great Self-Love” using money donated online by fans.
But if they can’t do it killer live, it doesn’t matter what the studio work sounds like, Yost told The Journal this past summer before the move.
