PRIOR to the Manchester date of their tour, our entertainment reporter, Abi White, caught up with Tommy Wright and Joe Green of Young Kato recently to see what the band had been up to…
Forming when they were just 17-year-old, the band looked back on how they became, what is now, Young Kato.
“We were basically two local bands that came together,” Joe Green, one of the band’s guitarist, said.
“It’s weird really,” vocalist Tommy Wright continued.
“When we first started gigging it was just our friends and family watching us and then we wrote loads of songs and it naturally progressed to this.”
As all of their friends went off to university, the band decided to give it a go and see how far they could take their music.
“I don’t think friends realise how important they are for local bands,” Wright said.
“Just them being there and paying around £4 to see us gave us so much confidence and encouraged us to write even more.”
Now on a fully-fledged UK tour, the band have blossomed since their heady teenage days…
Performing as a six-piece band on tour, Wright began: “There’s always someone p***ing you off but at the end of the day we are all best friends.
“Even if we imagine we were a four-piece, we still would have taken the other two on tour with us!”
Green added: “We started our tour three days ago on Sunday in a little venue called The Louisiana in Bristol and we’re from Cheltenham so it’s only about an hour away!”
Following Bristol, the band then packed their bags for Brighton before the long journey North to Manchester.
“Our agents have literally sent us all around the country, we’ve still got gigs to do in Birmingham and London,” Wright laughed.
With two new singles out, it became questionable as to what songs this tour’s set list would hold.
“We’re playing half and half of old and new songs,” Wright told.
“We’re playing a mix so it’s been nice to see people so far welcoming in the new music as we start a new chapter as a band.”
Asking if the guys had changed their sound for their new album, Green responded: “The song writing has been much more direct.
“Our first album was us becoming musicians and that documented that. Now we know what we want to say a lot better.”
Alongside their two new singles: ‘One. Two. Three. Four’ and ‘I Wanna Shake You Out Of It’, the band are set to drop a new EP in the next few weeks, “and maybe one more single”, before the release of their second album.
“We’ve been writing loads of new material this summer,” Green said.
“We went away to this cottage we always go too down South near Plymouth. We lock ourselves away to write and it really helps, there’s not a soul in sight and you become totally immersed in the writing.”
Asking what inspired their music, the Young Kato lads explained that inspiration for a song really can come from anywhere at any time.
“You might even be f****ed on a night out and just start singing into your phone and you think ‘that’s a hook!” Wright joked.
“Harry [Steele] on keyboard has such a weird taste in music though,” he went on.
“It helps us to sound different when we all come together with our different music tastes, though.”
However, before the band locked themselves away to write new music, their last tour was a year ago, as was their last visit to Manchester at The Ruby Lounge.
“Manchester is always a weird one for us because we live so far away so we never know who’s going to turn up.” Wright reluctantly admitted.
“Sometimes it sells really well and sometimes it doesn’t, but you always know that the people there are going to be great – it’s always manic!” Green exclaimed.
Attracting a mix of people, “from teenagers to people in their 50s,” the two seemed excited to play the gig at Sound Control later that evening.
“Everyone seems to be digging it at the moment,” said Green.
“I’m really looking forward to tonight!”
By Abi White
@AbigailWhiteUOS
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