"Kaydee Interview"	MUSE
Jim Carroll	September 1996

The band from Kilkenny who lost their singer to God, found another one and then made a cracker of a debut album, talk to Jim Carroll.. Once upon a time, Kilkenny was a must-see spot on your record company talent scout's road-map. You had My Little Funhouse (the new Guns & Roses who signed to Geffen Records for a weighty sum), Kerbdog (the new Iron Maiden who signed to Mercury), Engine Alley (the new Tin Machine who signed to Mother Records) and a host of other reasons to travel to the city of the cats. But as each one of that trio dropped from their pedestals, reasons to go to places like Cleeres and the New Park Inn have receded somewhat. Enter Kaydee, a four-strong outfit with a debut album "Stop! I'm Doing It Again" to tout. Playing an alluring blend of indie with the usual pop touches, it's a sturdy addition to this year's Irish collection. But, as guitarist Kevin Bruce explains, they've had a bit of a trek to get here. For a start, they lost their lead singer and bassist and had to start adjusting to two new members. "Jan, the last singer, found God! Well, that's one of the reasons why she and the bassist left. It was hard for me and Joey (Shore, drummer) to adjust - we had to go through the whole set with the new singer Tara and listen to the same songs again. It was also hard for Tara to sing Jan's songs so she changed around some of the lyrics to suit herself. The new bass player Mark was our roadie so he didn't have to travel far". Working with a new singer also means "no more walking on eggshells." Back in Kilkenny, Kevin blames the lack of venues for the apparent torpor in the city's scene. "There are a lot of young, good bands but no venues and no rehearsal spaces. Cleeres used to be great but the owner has made the venue smaller and the New Park is gone. We were actually practising on a pig-farm near the city for the last few years." Their days of pig-farms may be coming to an end if their debut album performs as well as expected. However, Kaydee are already planning ahead. "The songs on the album are four years old. We want to go in a different direction. It will be a bit away from the bass-guitar-drums tack and will have more backing tracks, the writing will be different too with a bit of an edge. But I suppose all bands say that, don't they?" Yet Kaydee do realise the importance of change. "We're actually going to take a look around us because we've been in a bubble for the past while as far as music is concerned. Sometimes it's good to lock yourself away and develop your own stuff, that's what happened with us. But we're more out and about now so naturally you hear more stuff. I was never into Michael Nyman before but I've got into him through his soundtracks for Peter Greenway, like The Draughtman's Contract, and now he's one of the biggest influences on what I write." That said, don't expect Kaydee to go down the full-blown orchestration road and become an Embrace with a girl singer. "Will Malone did the strings for us and he's worked with Embrace and Massive Attack. I was a bit dubious about strings but I remember coming into the studio and hearing how much they worked with a song like "Mr.Sweeney". But then you can also go way over the top like on parts of the Embrace album and you don't want that".