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Photo by Steph Montani

Good Kid, who all met at the University of Toronto, ended up on one another’s radar at the right place at the right time. The band, comprised of Nick Frosst (lead vocals), Jon Kereliuk (drums), Michael Kozakov (bass), David Wood (guitar), and Jacob Tsafatinos (guitar) is a clear indication of where the Canadian rock scene is heading. “The Toronto scene is pretty exciting. We are seeing a lot of new energy and excitement coming up. We’ve seen many new venues popping up too,” says Tsafatinos. “There’s a few good champions of the Toronto music scene now.”

Their sound is youthful and joyful and has an uplifting spirit surrounding their music and lyrics. The band grew up on the early pop punk scene of the early 00s. Good Kid’s style, aesthetic, and music, often associated with J-Rock, also comes along for the ride and the genre pops through in some songs. “I think the reason why it sounds uplifting is because instrumentally there’s a lot of influence that comes from J-Rock. Honestly that is some of the music that we listen to. We are a pretty democratic band in the way we write songs. Our lyrics can be dark and introspective in an interesting way. J-rock was inspired by the same bands we were inspired by. We grew up on The Strokes, Blink-182, Two Door Cinema Club, and Arctic Monkeys,” says Tsafatinos. “We share a lot of the same influences.”

The band, who worked with producer John Congleton, helped them step out of their comfort zone, thus creating their first full length LP with a bit of pizazz. The LP, out today, Can We Hang Sometime? features high energy tracks. “With John it was all about letting go of that feeling of control of making that perfect song. He taught us not to overanalyze and overthink as songwriters and to go with the feel of the music. It benefited us in the past in a lot of ways with our previous releases, but there have been moments that we could have been more adventurous. He kept telling us not to worry about it, to go with it, and not to listen back to mixes. He mentioned to play it, record it, and not to listen back to it. It was a trippy experience and new for all of us, but it led to some of the coolest songs we ever recorded.” says Wood.

One of the standout tracks on the album is called “Eastside”, which separates itself from the rest of the songs. “It was a little tongue and cheek. Nick usually takes his time writing and fleshing out songs and ideas. ‘Eastside’ though is about running into the same person in the same neighborhood that you don’t like,” says Wood. “It has this unapologetic nemesis feel to it.”

“It wasn’t about a particular person, but it was about the raw unfiltered hatred of somebody or someone who has wronged you. The best part of songwriting is that cathartic expression about letting out that raw emotion.” says Tsafatinos.

The music video for “Eastside” is an animated creative output from the band, so much so that most of their videos ended up in the same vein. “Most of our videos that are animated take a lot longer to make whereas the performance-based videos are a one-day shoot with a lot less editing. They offer different abilities to story tell. When you do animation, you build the story you want to tell,” says Tsafatinos. “We are big fans of animation and animated movies.”

Good Kid’s first full length LP is thematically about surrounding yourself with positive people in tough times. “The album theme that we want to come across with is this idea of just wanting to hang out with your friends and people that you love in difficult times.” Says Wood. “We wrote in Los Angeles when the city was on fire, and it was intense for us. We rented a house and we had good times and bad times. That sentiment came through at all ends of the spectrum.” says Tsafatinos.

The album was recorded in January of last year and they are ready to release it into the world. “The mixing and mastering process took a long time,” says Tsafatinos. “We are all pretty eager to put it out. The marketing is part of the creative process for us now too. We have such an incredible fan base that really consumes these stories that we created, and they make art out of it as well which includes fan made videos and fan art.

“It’s been on our minds for the past year. It’s ready to go.” says Wood. 

The band is set to go on tour and tickets are selling fast not only across Canada, but also in the United States and Europe too. “We are always blown away when the cities buy up the concert tickets no matter where we go whether it be the States or Europe or anywhere in the world,” says Wood.

“It’s amazing how incredible it is with the position we are in as far as touring goes. It’s crazy that we could sell out Brooklyn Steel now,” says Tsafatinos. “We are headed all over the UK, Ireland, France, and the Netherlands. It’s incredible how many people are coming out to hang with us.” 

 Listen to "Can We Hang Out Sometime?" below: