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'Your Anger Is Rational' - an interview with Dr Nishant Joshi of KILL, THE ICON!

INTERVIEW BY NAZ TOORABALLY

Back in November 2021, we interviewed Dr Nishant Joshi of synth-punk trio KILL, THE ICON! ahead of the release of their debut single ‘Buddhist Monk’. Naz Toorabally caught up with Nishant over Zoom to chat about what he’s been up to since 2021, KILL, THE ICON!’s debut EP 'Your Anger Is Rational', the myth of meritocracy and why protest is important (despite what the Sleaford Mods have to say about it). This article is a condensed version of their conversation that took place in June 2023.

How have things been going for KILL, THE ICON! since we last spoke?

It's been a journey - we started to play quite a few gigs and we made our way around the circuit. We played Dialled In thanks to WEIRDO last year, which was a really big step and really eye-opening to see so many kind like-minded people sharing the same stage and the same space as well.

And one other gig which was really important was our show that you and I did together with Teenage Sequence at The Shacklewell last year. And, and for me that was really, really affirming. So huge credit to WEIRDO for being part of these events and actually helping guide us forward.

I think I’ve taken a lot of confidence from what [WEIRDO has] done and I've tried to use my own experience, my own knowledge and apply that to fulfil my own purpose, through KILL, THE ICON!, so thank you for that.

No problem! I’m pleased to hear you’ve been inspired by what we're doing. How has the response been to your debut EP? Is it what you hoped?

I think this ties into our overall purpose where I feel that we had the songs for this EP ready and recorded over a year ago. And I think the preparation for this EP and the reason that it's been taking so long to actually release it is because I feel I only have one chance, and I feel that part of what I've understood with the way the music industry works and for other acts, for example, from marginalised backgrounds, is that we really only have that one shot. So we get to knock at the door once, and if we are lucky enough that somebody opens it, we better put our best foot forward.

So that's why I spent a year actually saving up. I sold my car to afford to do a lot of work for this. Even then with my budget, I mean, it's a few grand. I still had to sell my car for it. I couldn't just magic it out of air. I had to work extra Saturdays and Sundays just so I can afford the privilege of releasing an EP, which I think is really important work and just for the privilege of having gatekeepers listen to it.

I think, in terms of the response that we've received – I'm pretty outcome independent, I'm pretty just, okay we'll just put this into the world and if people listen to it, then that's really great. If people don't listen to it, then at least I've had a vague chance. I can really appreciate it if people at least listen to me and say, look, I'm not that into it. I can live with it. But thankfully enough people have listened to it so our audience is growing. It's hard to tell, but it does feel like there's been a bit of momentum in the last few months. We've been getting really good radio plays but still, I can't lie it's a bit galling to then see a handful of other bands just not follow what we've been instructed to do, and then literally overtake us without even releasing [music]. There are wider issues at play, but I mean, you can really see I've spent money to reach the same spot as a band who has that access and privilege. And it feels like I'm not even drinking the same water or breathing the same air as them.

I mean, if you look at The Last Dinner Party for example – we used a radio plugger, which is just one of the most ridiculous things ever, I think, but we got onto John Kennedy's radio show for it. I thought, oh, that's great, maybe getting somewhere and The Last Dinner Party after releasing one single, they're on directly after us on the show, and they get a massive feature and stuff.

And that stuff doesn't just happen. It's because of wider structural things, biases and discrimination. And that's a brilliant example of where one band's success is another's loss because – I know people will hate to hear this and they'll shut me down for this – music is a zero sum game. We've got a finite set of ears and eyes in this world.

Yeah, it's really frustrating. You've been vocal about this on social media and I think it’s important for people to use their platforms to speak about the structural issues at play. People don’t seem to want to acknowledge that the music industry is not as meritocratic as it pretends to be. Hard work doesn't always pay off and some are expected to do a lot more before they’re taken seriously. Thank you for speaking out about it as well because I know that it carries a risk in this industry.

Yeah, I was speaking with a band and I feel like I've been giving them quite vocal support over a number of years actually. I've now asked them a lot of times saying, can we support you? You've announced a tour. Can we support you? If you look at the bands that do make it ahead of us, it feels really wrong actually, because [the band I asked to support] are saying, “fuck the Tories” and all of that sort of stuff. Everybody in music is like, “fuck the Tories” – that's literally what people in the music industry love to do, but they treat people of colour who hold a guitar probably how the Tories treat people of colour who hold a guitar.

 it's just so insulting and so ignorant to suggest that protest doesn't change anything.

I guess the idea that people who have the power to bring other people up with them aren’t doing that when they could be.

Absolutely. And this is all something that I've learned myself over the past few years, you have to pass the mic. It's not all about you. It's not all about me. It's about passing the mic to people. You don't have access to the mic in the first place. You actually have to, and that involves some emotional labour. It involves doing something which might come at a small cost to yourself, like the band that you put on might not have a huge audience.

But they're definitely not gonna have a huge audience who'd never give them a fucking chance. I mean, The Last Dinner Party. How many tickets did they sell for BST Hyde Park when they supported The Rolling Stones last year? Absolutely zero. How many tickets are Picture Parlour gonna sell when they support fucking Bruce Springsteen at Hyde Park this year? Fucking zero. This is a disgrace and we have to call it out for what it is.

So, it has actually started to make me a bit more angry. The more I speak about it, the more angry and the more motivated I get. And then the more I listen to my EP and I look at it saying, your anger is rational. I'm going to have more luck changing the system around us than actually getting on the same stage as [them].

That's what it's come down to. I'm going to actually go out and change the system, so that [industry people and bands] don't have to fob me off and I don't have to go, “Oh, ok, I guess I'll just wait for you to announce the next tour in six months and then maybe I'll cross my fingers and you said you'll look at me again in six months and I'm just pretty over it.”

I mean you mentioned personal cost as well, right? It does come at personal cost and it does take a fuck tonne of effort and patience to be explaining to people who often don't wanna be explained to. But I've reasoned it. It's about fulfilling our purpose as well as a band, and that's to make great music and to try and achieve some change at the same time as well. I'm not getting played on the BBC. I'm not on the BBC A-list anyway. I'm not on the cover of NME. I'm not on the cover of Rolling Stone. So if journalists in Rolling Stone get pissed off at what I say like today, I mean, it's hardly gonna affect my career trajectory is it?

‘Your Anger Is Rational’ is an unapologetically political EP. There are people today who think that protest or political music is not relevant or that it's pointless, even with everything going on right now – what’s your stance on this?

Well, I think one of those people were in a band called the Sleaford Mods, and it kinda put my world upside down a few months ago when I read a tweet from Sleaford Mods, saying that protests don't change anything. So you’ve got motherfuckers in a punk band that everybody calls activists and edgy. But I mean, it's ridiculous. And especially as somebody who's actually changed systems and changed government and changed the lives of people through protest, I think it's just so insulting and so ignorant to suggest that protest doesn't change anything.

Protest has an incredible history, and if you look at some of the biggest societal changes over a period of centuries. A lot of them have been achieved through public pressure and protests, so yeah, music is a brilliant way to go about it. And effective cultural change needs to really happen through a political or a legal arm.

And it also needs to be associated with a cultural arm, for example, arts, music, film, and soft power avenues as well, so that's why I'm absolutely stunned whenever somebody says that protest doesn't achieve anything.

That Sleaford Mods tweet pissed me off so much – just with that one tweet showcasing a whole album's worth of ignorance that I actually wrote a song about it. And it's called ‘My Best Friend Thinks Sleaford Mods Are Edgy’. And it's not just about Sleaford Mods, it's about the music industry. It's about a lot of average bands who are actually plagiarising other bands as well. I do call them out, by name. So I'm looking forward to seeing what the reaction is gonna be. What are [the music industry] gonna do? Play me on radio less?

And the thing that we were saying before about the gap between Bob Vylan and Nova Twins and Big Jonie and the other bands like The Last Dinner Party, Wet Leg and Picture Parlour. The difference between those bands before they made it might have been five, six, seven years, before they got the same agents or management as well, which takes you really to the next level.

The difference in those years is an incredible amount of labour. Not just that, but it's also burning some of your best songs. That's my worry. I'm like, I dunno if ‘Heavy Heart’ is gonna be my best song! So if I put it through, I wanna make sure I put something behind it. But then also the money factor in those five, six, seven years, you are paying a lot of middlemen just to exist.

As a POC musician, you are paying a middleman. And when they say,”oh, you just need to tour harder, you need to play more shows” Yeah. Doing that entails paying a lot more middlemen.

KILL, THE ICON! is very much a kamikaze endeavour, So we're never gonna stay quiet. We're gonna be loud.

Speaking of playing shows, are you planning on touring the EP?

Yeah, absolutely. We’re gonna play at least one show in August, which is in Luton on Saturday 19th of August. So that's one show we’ve definitely got and then again, we're looking for some support slots. That goes back to the issues we were saying, getting support slots and things. So let's see, and again, we have to choose our gigs more carefully because it feels like it costs us quite a lot. It definitely costs me quite a lot of money as well. We’ve got some exciting plans for our live show as well – I think we're going to evolve it even further, so I'm really pleased with the sort of direction that we're heading.

That's really exciting. Can you tell us anything about what you might have done? I mean, your live shows are already pretty fun as they are.

So our hope is to at least do a trial with two drummers. That's my hope. I mean, I need to confirm this.

Is there anything that you want to leave our readers with?

I think ultimately people say we're all in the same boat as musicians, but we’re really not. I think some people are in the same boat, I think some people are on yachts. We're all on boats. Some people are on yachts, some people are on speed boats, and then some of us are being towed along in dinghies.

So when we talk about meritocracy and equity in the music industry, I think we need to kinda completely reframe things. I think we all need to start calling out bullshit a lot more as well. I think there's just so many people who are just absolutely so confidently full of it as well. So many people are tweeting very pleasant aphorisms. A lot of this seems to be happening over Twitter actually where people will just say “oh, bands slagging off other bands - that's not cool”. I'm like, well, let's actually investigate that a little bit more. Should we deep dive on this? “No, I don't like your tone, this is why you don't get any coverage”. I'm like oh well we'll try it with the other thousand journalists and see where we end up. But ultimately, KILL, THE ICON! is very much a kamikaze endeavour, so we're never gonna stay quiet. We're gonna be loud.

‘Your Anger Is Rational’ by KILL, THE ICON! is out now via Blaggers Records. Follow KILL, THE ICON! on Instagram and Twitter.

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ABOUT NAZ

Naz Toorabally is a queer, British Indo-Mauritian musician, model and zine maker based in north London. She is the founder of WEIRDO and fronts post-punk band Dogviolet. When she’s not making music or zines, you’ll find Naz hanging out with her cat.