Whenever I mention Kan Kan to a friend who’s not from San Diego, I’ll usually see their eyes suddenly light up–which I immediately know means I have to finish my sentence with “…the band, not the rapper.” But to those in the know, it’s mutually agreed upon that Kan Kan (the band) is one of San Diego’s finest couriers of rock and roll and are hometown heroes of the underground scene.
This past summer, the trio left California and embarked on their first ever full U.S. tour alongside Florida’s own Oldstar. While the band was in New York, we spent an afternoon in SoHo talking about the latest scene gossip, that time the Skin Cells reunited for a wedding, Cameron’s first musical experiences in a band called The Wet Dreams at a middle school talent show, Kim Gordon’s scary new album, trading a burrito for a violin performance on their first album, the infamous Rob Crowe, and their analog recording processes– some of which ended up in our conversation below.
Note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Can everyone say their name and what instrument you play in Kan Kan?
Tristan: I’m Tristan, I play the drums, but I’m not the usual member. I’m just filling in for Kellen.
Cameron: Hi, my name’s Cameron, and I play guitar and sing.
Joe: I’m Joe and I play bass.
Could you guys tell me a little bit more about how the band started? What led to your decision to start playing music together? And what led up to your first album?
C: Joe and I went to middle school together and he gave me Beatles CD’s. We had our first class in sixth grade together, English class. We weren’t close friends throughout middle school or high school, but acquaintances. Then we were both going to City College in San Diego and we walked past each other and he was like “Do you want to play in a band?” ‘Cause his other band had just dissolved. We started [Kan Kan] with this guy Brent and it was in his garage. And it was pretty bad, the early demos. I mean, it wasn’t bad but we weren’t really playing anything at all.
J: We were pretty good.
C: Yeah, it was cool. We covered Anything Could Happen by The Clean for the first show we ever played. But the album took us a long time to record for sure.
J: Yeah! We’re a band that’s from 2015 so if you can imagine that time in Southern California. That’s surf punk, that’s Burger Records. These are the big things. So, that kind of permeates but that’s not our deal. We were always outside of it.
C: And we had a practice space and it was kind of Joe learning how to record. We recorded this band Oatmeal in the church and we were trying to record our stuff at the same time. I guess it took longer because we were still trying to figure it out. I had left for the summer to work in Alaska and we recorded all these basic tracks for ‘thankyouverymuch,’ and then Joe added a bunch of crazy shit on top of it.
J: I had a friend, because I was in orchestra, and she played the violin over a lot of stuff. I tried to get her on ‘car country’ but she… she left me on read. But she did all that violin stuff for a burrito! It was crazy.
C: But yeah Joe would send me the rough mixes and I would just listen to them in a public library in Alaska and it was pretty incredible. But it took us a while to finish the mixing and mastering too. Did that come out in 2019?
J: Yeah, but we’d been a band for like four years. We were kind of late bloomers. We’re 28 but everyone who’s touring with us is like 22.
C: Tristan’s 22! We knew Tristan just through playing music. Tristan was in T.Rexico, a legendary San Diego band.
To follow up, ‘thankyouverymuch,’ you guys put out ‘car country,’ which came out in 2022 and is obviously a record that is very intertwined with the city of San Diego. I’m curious to hear about your experience being a “San Diego band” and how you feel about the city as a place to pursue music. Are there any particular people, venues, or places that have assisted the growth of the band?
C: It’s just a legendary music city so it feels fun to be a band from there. But it’s so easy to get distracted and just be lazy, you know? Like, why should we focus on finishing up music when we could just go to the beach? Joe is in school and was finishing school for a lot of it too.
J: If you thought ‘thankyouverymuch,’ took a long time…’car country’ also took a lot of time and re-recording.
C: But San Diego is a good place. It has its ups and downs in where to play and everything, but there’s legendary spots like the Casbah. And the Che Cafe was where we played our first show. There were plenty of other places that come and go with weird little things. We played this church called The Industry. I remember one time we played there and they made us lowkey pray before the show.
T: I think I remember that.
C: It was really funny, but it was deep in Eastlake and it’s a good place. Right now is like the best it’s ever felt. Because we have a house that has shows, there was the pink house, but now we have 61st street house. And we’re doing generator shows on this bridge because there was the Hotline TNT show there.
I was there!
C: Yeah! People have been doing shows there I’m sure. It’s kind of a rave spot, I’d imagine. But yeah, since that show we’ve tried to keep it going. The cops will come and then shine the lights and then just drive away.
J: Also if I had someone to thank, I would thank the community around Gym Standard. I don’t know if you know a lot about that, but during that time period, 2015 to 2019, there weren’t that many places to play and The Che was threatened to be shut down like every year, so you had to rely on house shows or Gym Standard.
C: Yeah, Edwin helped us with a lot of shows.
J: And they were all free!
C: But it was like, you know, people disrespect it and take advantage of what they have so, it’s always funny. But yeah, Edwin never really put up with it.
J: It exposed us to other scenes to because we’re apart–I’m going to name drop Julian Klincewicz, but he was in a band with this guy Kiva, and that guy was such a good guitar player. A lot of San Diego was influenced by post-punk. Mainly the band Women was a big influence. So that was like the cooler San Diego. We were kind of in between surf punk and post punk.
C: It was so long ago it’s hard to even think about those times. There’s so many layers to it, it’s insane…
J: Do you know about that?
Do I know about what?
J: The Gym Standard…
Yeah, yeah. I remember Swish Projects too. You guys did that music video for “nasty a.m”…
J: That was recent!
C: Yeah that was in where Digital Gym was, the movie theater over there. We grew up really close to there, it’s only a ten or fifteen minute drive.
Well this past month you’ve made it out of California, out of San Diego, and this is your first full US tour?
C: Yeah!
How is it feeling? What’s the craziest thing that’s happened so far?
T: Craziest thing was that thing in Austin…
J: What?
T: We watched somebody almost get hit by a car! It was like some road rage incident and this dude just started kicking one of the cars and the person in the car that got kicked was angry and tried to run over the dude.
J: It looked like a movie so we didn’t know if it was serious or not.
T: It was right after our Austin show.
J: It happened after I had literally just said “Austin is kind of crazy!”
C: We threw eggs at Joe Rogan’s comedy club in Austin, too. Every day is not a drag at all, it feels really fun. The first week is really rough but then it gets smoother.
J: Should we tell them the citation story?
C: Oh yeah, we got citations in Asheville for crossing a barrier near a waterfall and we owe $200–
J: –per person!
C: And we have to go back to court. It was our fault, but there were other people over there too! But we were really sassy to the park rangers, so. But it’s just been fun being on the road with Oldstar too because they’re so young and it was their first time in Texas. It’s like wearing rose colored glasses.
J: In Denton, that was pretty crazy. I tried to wear my jacket in 110 degree weather to see how funny it would be but it got pretty bad. Everyone was winded, because it was our first time.
C: But we played with amazing bands like Tex Patrello and Henderson Century and those have been pretty incredible to see live because the recordings are one thing and there’s so much depth and then when you break it down to a live setting it’s just as magical. Those are the two sets that stand out. It’s just fun seeing local bands because we’re a local band too. It feels insane to leave and drive across the country. It also feels insane to play with a band that’s just in your town too like Deadharrie was incredible too.
J: And they would say like “Oh, I’ve listened to your album,” and that’s kind of crazy.
C: It’s exciting.
J: Even in LA, when an LA band says I’ve listened to your music, it’s kind of crazy.
A few weeks ago you put out a new EP, ‘two thousand and whatever.’ Could you tell me more about what the writing and recording process was like for these songs and if anything has changed when you sit down to write and record since the past two releases?
C: We had those songs right as we finished ‘car country,’ so we’d been sitting on them for two years. I guess we’ve just been playing a lot of shows, so it’s hard to sit down and record or write songs too, but those we feel are just as good–you know you always want to level up and get better–we had our friend Darren play pedal steel on some of the songs. It was almost the same recording process that we did with Eric for ‘car country,’ but we used a reel to reel and we got to mix it analog on a board. So it was less computers, less options.
J: We recorded it on a four track before and then we ended up not using it. But they were so good, the demos. That’s why there’s two could be’s, because we wanted to be more professional. But I like the demo. People were telling me it sounds like Idaho.
C: We haven’t really finished any songs since so hopefully we get to do that soon. I don’t know if anything’s really changed besides just adding other instruments to the band.
J: I’d rather record it ourselves. ‘Cause ‘car country’ is half recorded by us, half recorded by our friend Eric, but I think I’m getting more comfortable with recording ourselves. Just ‘cause I want to click it and record what we’re playing instead of trying the song seven times to get it right. Tristan was actually there when we recorded it which is really funny.
T: I witnessed the session and some unreleased stuff…
C: But yeah, having that space, it’s near San Ysidro, Otay Mesa. The border is less than three miles away and it’s like a dead area. It’s fun going down there but it’s almost a 45 minute drive. If we go down there and don’t accomplish anything it’s like “fuck!”
J: That’s why I prefer recording ourselves because if we fuck up, that’s fine.
C: And I think some of our favorite bands right now are recording themselves and it doesn’t even have to be high fidelity. Like, we love April Magazine and almost sounds like it’s recorded on a toaster or a microwave or something.
J: Also shoutout the recording studio, Dog Whistle. Eric records Big Blue World–
C: And big bands. Pleasure Pill.
J: It’s funny that Pleasure Pill is recording there too.
There are still a handful of dates left on the tour, but what are you most excited to do when you get back home?
C: Probably finish a song or sleep in my bed.
T: Go to the beach!
C: Go surfing.
Favorite beach in San Diego?
J: Black’s Beach.
C: Yeah, that’s the most scenic beach.
T: Objectively the best beach in San Diego.
C: I like Sunset Cliffs too just ‘cause it’s where the freeway ends… what are we excited to do? We’re playing with Idaho in San Diego which is pretty crazy.
J: Developing all my photos and painting. I was reading about how… what’s his name…Richie Lee liked painting. He was painting before he was singing in Acetone and I’m inspired by that.
What does the future hold for Kan Kan?
C: We’re going to become a traveling band. We’re going to leave San Diego. We’re going to tour Asia. We’re going to tour Europe.
J: We’re going to get more managers.
C: Hopefully a couple more albums. And then–
J: Maybe call it.
C: Maybe call it after that. But it’s funny, because we’ve been doing it for so long, you know. It’s been the most exciting thing, going to LA and San Francisco and playing shows and then have people be like “Aren’t you guys a local band up here?” And we’re like nah. But I feel like we’ve accomplished a lot so, a break would be cool too, to just think about something else. You gotta quit before things get hairier.
J: We’ll have to settle down. I’m going to settle down.
Burn out instead of fade away!
