Xox are a noise punk band that has been active in Boise for many years. They’ve recently signed to Mishap records and released their first EP Sell The Kids this month. Kenny Katayama, bass and vocals, met with Spud over Italian sandwiches and cannolis to tell the tale of Xox. Who are they? What are they doing? Do they come in peace? Keep reading to find out!
Here’s my biggest question: How do you pronounce your name?
It’s Ex-Oh-Ex. If people find a cool way to pronounce it, we’re not sticklers about it. Typically we call it Ex-Oh-Ex. Zoxx is fine too, a lot of people call us that. The only thing that’s really wrong is when say XO or XOXO. It’s one of the main tracks on a Hot Snakes album that we really like.
There was a whole year where we were called Milkleg. We liked that name. It’s a medical term, but a lot of people were like, “Oh is that a semen joke, or something?” We’re like, “It’s not a semen joke,” but people kept thinking that so we’re like “OK, we gotta change the name.” Whenever you name a band, someone will find a way to make fun of it or make an innuendo out of it.
What’s the history of your band?
We started in 2017- 2016 maybe? We don’t typically play a ton of shows. We’re old farts- I’m the youngest one in the group and I’m 29. We’ll play shows, but we want to make sure it makes sense. We want to be ready and make sure that folks will show up. Even then, folks don’t show up anyways. As a result, our performances and our presence is very sporadic. Even though we’ve been around for a long time, I don’t feel like we have the presence of other bands.
I was in a few different bands that weren’t working out at the time, so I started looking around Craigslist, of all places. Historically when I’ve done that, it’s been not super successful. Then I saw a posting from a guy who had just moved form Oregon, it turned out to be Eric, who is the guitarist. He had listed a few bands that I liked as well. It was the first time I’d seen a posting on Craigslist that actually really lined up with what I wanted to play. So we met up with a third person that he had found as the drummer. That drummer ended up not working out, unfortunately, they wanted to play like old-school punk. We liked it but weren’t really into the music. Eric and I really hit it off, and we enjoyed playing together and had similar ideas of what we wanted the band to be. We put another posting up, saying we were looking for a drummer. Pretty soon after, we got Samuel on board, since then we’ve been a solid three-piece. Other than creating new songs and playing new shows, the history of the band is kind-of static.
I think, first and foremost, we’re just interested in playing the same kind of music that all three of us like. Secondary is getting it out there. It is a long time to not come out with anything. We did come out with an EP I think in 2018, which was essentially just a demo of 4 songs recorded at the Hive. We have enough material now that we wanted to get it professionally recorded and produced. That’s when we set out to actually make the album.
The album was actually recorded a year ago. It took a long, long time to get out there. The reason why is between then and now, COVID made it extra hard to get something completed, and we signed with Mishap. Originally we were just going to self-release, but we had to reevaluate and change the dates based on that.
How’d you get aligned with Mishap?
The main Mishap person, Chad, he’s been pretty active with a lot of the bands that we’d either been playing with or chatting with on social media. We messaged him on Instagram. Originally it was just to see if we could line up shows, but he was like “I’d love to have you on the label.” That was really exciting. We met downtown at a sushi place and we all asked these questions. All three of us had all these notes and where asking stuff like “What will we be required to do,” but it turns out it’s pretty flexible. He’s not very restrictive as far as what we do. I guess there’s more limited support, this isn’t a huge label, it’s a local thing. At the same time, we have a great amount of flexibility and aren’t required to do any crazy things. That was a big thing with us. We don’t need the support. We’d like it, if it’s not getting in the way.
You’re older than most of the other people I’ve worked with. What are your thoughts on this scene full of youngsters?
I think it’s looking good. It’s getting a lot better than it used to be. It’s always been lightly active, but now that light activity is more targeted towards the kind of music that I’m personally interested in. That’s like the perfect environment. In my mind, you want a tightly-knit group of bands that have similar interests to you, but isn’t so big that you get lost in it. That’s exactly what we have now. It used to be that we had that tightly-knit group, but it was all metalcore. Typically, we’d play with some of the heavier bands and we’d be very out of place. Now we have that same community but it’s more focused on the kind of bands that we would play with. It’s been a nice change of pace. Everybody’s really positive, everybody’s really open-minded and tends to align politically and socially with what I’m supportive of, which is nice. Boise’s a weird environment, because it’s a city, but it’s also in Idaho, so you get this weird dynamic where folks are all across the board in terms of politics, but I didn’t want to be part of a music scene that was hostile to my viewpoints. I tend to lean more liberal. It’s nice that I feel welcome and a lot of the bands tend to be in the same place. It feels like a safe space, essentially.
What do you have to say about your new album?
The best way I can describe the music is it’s very noisy punk. It’s like post-punk, some experimental elements to it. We’re really proud of how it came out. Ultimately, the intent is to use it as a way to spearhead what we’re about. I think that’s what most debut albums are. There’s no concept to it or anything like that.
Sell The Kids came out on July 15th, celebrated with a show at Vista Bar. It’s available on all streaming services and on cassette.
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