It’s EP release day for Exit Kid – aka Years & Years’ Emre Turkmen and touring drummer Dylan Bell – with their new five-tracker ‘Garden’ out now (Friday, 27th November). Taking their cues from grunge for a varied release that’s at once anthemic, magnetic and a bit sinister, it sees the duo tackling some of the year’s most potent emotions. Give it a listen – and find out more about it from the band themselves – below.
Hell In A Handcart
I wrote this in the back of a tour bus. I was trying to come up with a Kim Deal bassline, but it kind of went somewhere different. I always pictured the music video to be a man gently losing his marbles. A slapstick tragedy. A total farce. A cowboy riding a nuclear bomb.
Bleary Eyed
This was written and recorded very quickly. It’s about the morally bankrupt halfwits currently in charge of the world. When someone shows you who they really are, believe them.
Dear Rose
Lockdown often felt like being marinated in the internet. I just pictured everyone sitting on the sofa staring stoney-faced at their phones, typing acronyms as the world collapsed. It’s essentially a song about entropy: personally, culturally and literally. When I feel panic I usually think of my mum, who’s name means rose in Turkish. Lol…
Working Stiff
I’m a huge Faith No More fan, and I was listening to ‘Caffeine’ A LOT at the time. I love heavy riffs, but I’m not a great guitar player, so I have to keep things simple. I was in the middle of touring and the relentless travelling that involves. I sort of wrote this through the eyes of a worker bee. The rat race. The daily grind. The treadmill. You get the idea.
Garden
Lyrically, this song is quite hard to pin down. It was written late night during a bout of insomnia (a lifelong struggle) when you have that grey headache, and your thoughts are cascading. It’s a strange sort of purgatory, being alone and wide-awake in the middle of the night. Hence: “you know just how it feels to be dead”. It’s my favourite song on the EP.
Exit Kid’s ‘Garden’ EP is out now.