Runners-up at the Battle of the Bands Final, Kakuzi talk groupies and gig disasters...

Kakuzi are the Dorking-based, five piece band with a distinctive and original sound, narrowly beaten into second place by Vekta Sigma in the Grey Horse’s Battle of Bands semi-final despite vociferous support.

Moments after the gig, I caught up with front man Lucas O’Neill to find out more about the band, groupies and future plans.

So Luc, first things first, who’s who in the band?
Well, we’ve got Ali (Laurenson) on synths, guitar and backing vocals, myself (Lucas O’Neill) on lead vocals, guitar, keyboard and percussion and Sam’s (Yoneda) the man on the lead guitar.  Dave’s (Meddicott) is on drums and Alex (Mankworth-Praed) is our bassist.

Where’d you guys meet?
Me and Ali met at school while Sam and Dave went to Reigate just down the road from us.  We grew up together really and have known each other for years.  Alex is the exception though.  He’s only been with us two months but he’s a great lad.  Prior to meeting us he was in another band called the Hotwires.  We were watching them one night and Alex was awesome.  We didn’t have a bassist at the time and thought... We’ll have him!  Sorry Hotwires!

Really?! So you guys haven’t been together long then?
Well, apart from Alex we’ve been playing together under the name of Kakuzi for more than two years now.  Dave, Sam and Ali were playing together well before then too.   We’re all great mates.

You’ve got a really distinctive sound, though I did hear elements of Muse in there, who are you musical influences?
We all like different stuff.  Muse are one of my favourite bands so there’s no surprise they feature a bit in our sound.  We love loads of bands really- Radiohead, Blocparty.... Faithless.... I could go on!

Please don’t, I can’t write fast enough especially after a few beers! 

Luc: Ha ha ha!

Tell me, Luc, is this something you do for fun or are you guys looking to do this professionally?
Most of us don’t really have a choice in the matter to be honest as music is about the only thing any of us are any good at!  For me personally I don’t really see the point of not taking it seriously.  If you don’t then what’s the point. We actually got rid of our last bass player because we didn’t feel he was as committed as us.

Should Alex be fearful then? 
 Nah! There’s no danger there- Alex is probably more committed than any of us!  He actually missed his sister’s wedding party to do a gig in London!

Speaking of gigs, have you gigged at the Grey Horse before?
Yeah loads of times, it’s a great venue.  The staff are really nice and we owe Richard (the Manager) as he was one of the first people to give us a chance to play regularly.

Have you got any other gigs in Kingston lined up?  Would you consider gigging at the uni?
We don’t actually have any gigs lined up here in Kingston no which is a shame but we’ll be back before too long.  We’d love to do Kingston Uni though, in fact as soon as we heard you guys were coming to the gig, we were very keen to impress for that exact reason.  We feel that gigs at unis are good for us as they’re our target audience.

Your set seemed to go down well with the crowd tonight, did you enjoy it?
Oh massively yeah.  A good crowd always helps and tonight’s crowd was awesome.  We gave it a good go and enjoyed ourselves but we could’ve gigged better.

You did encounter a few problems up there though didn’t you?  You’re keyboard went down.  What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you at a gig?
Good question!  I think the worst thing that’s ever happened at a gig was actually after the gig itself.  We’d just finished playing and got hideously drunk before hurling ourselves in the river behind the venue and I broke my foot in two places.  Fortunately some of my loyal fans were there to save me but I had to sit down at gigs for a fair while after that.

Wow! Quite a story! You mentioned your fans there, do you have any groupies?
Our keyboard player’s got a fair female following and we’ve actually got an official team of groupies with T-shirts and everything!  I know a few have come a long way to get here tonight and we really appreciate that. They can get a bit overprotective at times but it’s cool we’ve got such loyal fans.

Finally, where can our readers go if they want to hear a bit of you and find out what you’re up to?
You can check us out on our myspace
And you’ve got our CD haven’t you? Put one of our tracks up on there man!

Of Course! Which One?
Superhero I reckon.  It’s not my favourite but it seems to be the most popular.

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