Over spring break, I talked with Klept following a show that I attended of theirs. Here’s the interview that followed.
Radio: Did you guys want to describe your music for people that aren’t familiar?
Klept: Let’s see, well you know I thought about this a lot. I guess the best way I could describe the music of Klept would be like noisy art rock.
Radio: How long have you been playing together?
Klept: With this current lineup, close to a year. Pretty much when quarantine started. It was around this the spring break actually.
Radio: And how has it been being kind of a newly formed band in such a strange time?
Klept: I feel like it’s kind of helped us. The quarantine really gave us a lot of time to kind of form our sound, you know.
Radio: Yeah, understandable.
Where did the name come from?
Klept: So, Klept is a root word which means thief and I don’t know I just thought that was kind of cool. And I think it’s kind of cool because–I don’t know if this was your intention at all, but it’s kind of like how every musician kind of steals everything, so the whole Klept thing is basically us just saying, we’re thieves of music. He actually got it from the word biblioklept, like book thief and he said it’s something like since I write most of the lyrics he says, I steal a lot from books. So that also works out. It all comes full circle, that’s all. It’s just a name really.
Yeah, and it’s concise, not the grand band Funk jam metallic psycho water buffalo or whatever. There’s a band, the Presidents of the United States of America. That’s way too long. They said Cleft at the [Diner on Abercorn] show–it’s Klept with a “p”.
Radio: Speaking of a lot of different sources and kind of taking things and making them your own, you guys have a pretty eclectic sound there’s like a lot going on, so who would you cite as some of your bigger influences?
Klept: Nirvana is one. The only band, Nirvana, that’s it. Sweet trip has definitely been an influence, Mr. Bungle. Slowdive. Smashing Pumpkins. Jimmy Chamberlin is my favorite drummer so I’m very inspired by his playing style. Good gosh, Death Grips. I’d say Radiohead, David Bowie, The Garden. Yeah, their new record. Elliott Smith, I mean just so much. 100 Gecs!
Radio: What would you guys say the writing process is like for your songs?
Klept: Well, so somebody will have a musical idea or something and I don’t write all the lyrics he actually wrote one too. But yeah some people just have like a bit of something and we’ll just kind of jam on it. It’s kind of cool because we don’t have to talk much. We don’t get our notepads out, we don’t do that stuff.
[From off-camera] Younger sister: What’re you guys doing?
Klept: An interview. We have a guest, that’s my little sister.
Radio: Oh okay! Hello!
Sister: I despise all of them! Also I got new dolls.
Klept: Cool!
Sister: I’d like to show you–
Klept: Later, later. What were we talking about? Oh, the writing process, right. There’s not a ton of talking, we don’t think about it. We just play what we want to play to kind of feel it out, you know make noises and sh*t. We keep doing it until it all comes together. Yeah, it takes a while–we work months on each of our songs. It’s like each one’s kind of its own project.
Radio: What is the connection to Savannah? Are you guys from here?
Klept: Three of us are. I’m from Michigan originally but I was at USC South Carolina for a couple years and then I went to SCAD for sound design and now I’m here.
Radio: I feel like the music scene in Savannah is kind of developing a little bit. La Chonk is sort of kind of spearheading a bunch of bands coming together and doing shows and stuff. What is your perspective on that?
Klept: I’m glad it’s happening, yeah I mean it’s definitely one aspect of the city here is a music scene. I always like to try to seek that out. And I know Civvies on Broughton recently closed, but we played one show there and I went to a bunch of shows there too. There’re places around that are happening. Yeah, with the whole Covid shut down everything is just now starting to come back up. A lot of people miss shows. We’re trying to do them as safe as we can.
Radio: I guess to finish off, did you guys have any upcoming shows or releases that you guys were planning on?
Klept: Nothing in particular, but like we’re working on trying to get some shows in April, though, so yeah you can expect something in April.
