by janae stewart
Alt indie hip hop duo, Little Stranger, comprised of Kevin and John Shields, hit the IHG Hotels Stage on Saturday afternoon to play their first Gov Ball set. After their set they took some time to sit down with me and answer some questions.
Can you tell me a little bit about yourselves and the band? I know you guys are from Philly and are in South Carolina right now. Tell me a little bit about how you guys got your start.
Little Stranger: “Yeah, Kevin and I met in high school outside of Philly and we sat next to each other freshman year in biology class because it was sat alphabetically, we had the same last name.”
Right, brothers from a different mother.
Little Stranger: “Yeah, we’re not related. So that's how we met and we were friends all through high school but didn't really work together much.
John and I both had high school bands and John's band would always beat us at the battle of the bands.”
Gotcha.
Little Stranger: “Right, as if anyone's surprised. So yeah, fast forward, post-college, I had moved home to Philly and me and Kev would often get up and perform with each other in Philadelphia, each of our band's live shows. And we just felt like we worked really well together so we wanted to make a side project. It was more of my singer-songwriter thing and Kevin rapping. And so we started Little Stranger as a side project and pretty quickly in working with each other realized how much we enjoyed it and how well we worked together.”
Yeah, absolutely.
Little Stranger: “And that sort of stemmed in 2015 to be becoming a real thing where I had planned to move back to Charleston, South Carolina. So I was playing as a gigging musician there and making money playing in wedding bands and playing acoustic gigs at bars and stuff. I knew I could make some money. But I wanted to tour with an original project, so kind of like offered that up to Kevin and Kevin being the man committed to it and that was the start of the whole thing.”
That's amazing. Obviously your history, I feel like it really showed on stage. You guys had such a connection. It seemed very fun. I saw that you guys did like a hundred plus shows or something within a year time frame. How do you keep it fun? How do you keep on just enjoying it?
Little Stranger: “Oh, there's days where it feels like a grind, but the good thing is, like you said, we would play these shows that were four hours long or things like that. But it all helped to sharpen the blade where John is the maestro up there. He's the composer. He's creating the songs on the spot and kind of choosing what comes next. So a lot of times he will throw curve balls my way of things I'm not expecting or things that I'm not prepared possibly to do. But you find yourself making sure that you're always ready for anything and that's what makes it fun because it's like we can write a set now and when it goes off the rails that's almost more fun for us. But it is a trust. It's a trust. We have such a respect for each other's musical abilities and to be able to handle any scenario that it makes it fun and easy. Like there's not like a, uh-oh, I'm changing it up, you're not going to be able to handle it. It's like we're both ready at all times.
Yeah, I think it's a two-fold thing of not only trusting each other's ability to perform live and keep things off the cuff, but that also goes. That's a product of our friendship and how we relate to each other on a day-to-day basis because everything we do is basically trying to like take a joke to the furthest place it can possibly go. And all that is is like being off the cuff as well. Yeah, and truly, like Kev said, we did four years of just doing 100 plus shows a year that were long bar gigs to nobody and that helped us get good at working together.”
Right, of course. That's cool. So your music has a lot of reggae and hip-hop influence. How did that sound kind of come together? Was that stuff you guys were doing already in high school or...?
Little Stranger: “A bit. The band that I was in prior to this was a little more reggae, kind of like reggae jam band. So I always kind of was influenced by that as a songwriter listening to Slightly Stoopid and Jack Johnson and G. Love. That was a big influence for me. And then when I linked up with Kevin, really we had this mutual love for Gorillaz that was kind of felt like this middle ground of melodic hip-hop production with melodic choruses that meet verse, like rap verses. And Kevin and I, not only like performance-wise but just influence-wise and what we both brought into the music, that seemed to be why we ended up doing the music that we're doing.
Yeah, to find a way to make a hip-hop track that has not only a catchy chorus but a well-written chorus, well-written verse that then when the rap hip-hop verse comes in it feels like a moment itself almost. Like I literally have the Danger Doom tattoo because that album is like the most beautifully crafted poppy choruses meets MF Doom verses, like these weirdo verses and stuff.
So it was nice to find someone that we wanted to explore that. And once we started doing it, it felt easy. It didn't feel like we were trying to do a thing. It was like, oh shit, this is what we were supposed to be doing.”
Yeah, totally. Tell me a little bit about the writing process for Sat Around Trippin. Is that the name of your new album?
Little Stranger: “Yes, that's the name of the new album. So it kind of started, what we did to really kick it off was last January ‘23. We had been touring so much that year, and then when we're not touring we live in Charleston, South Carolina. It's an amazing place, it's also small and we know everyone. We have so many friends there and they're all musically inclined and they're creatives. And that is an amazing thing. Sometimes it felt like we would get home from tour and you don't really get a break or we can separate ourselves. So last January we went up and rented a cabin on top of a mountain in Asheville, North Carolina just to get away from everything and try to just write and create. And that sort of sparked a few of these songs that got this album going. I think the biggest part of it was just to get away. We made more songs up there that aren't on the album than that are. But it was just getting the juices flowing and making and making and making. And then you get one that you're like, oh this is good. But you don't get that one that comes out that's good unless you make like nine before it that are okay. So that was cool, that kind of sparked the whole thing. And then after that it was back on tour. So the last year and a half has been, alright we're home for a week. Can we get a fucking song done? We're back for another week. It's interesting trying to write an album when you're touring as hard as we do to try to get it all done.”
That makes sense. Do you guys have a plan at some point for some of those other songs that might not have made the album?
Little Stranger: “We do! Uh oh! Exclusive! What we really want to do is we're sitting on like probably 14 songs that are either complete or 75% there. They're raw, they're not mixed and mastered.
But we love them. And for this project it just didn't quite feel like they maybe meshed with the other songs. So we would really like to put out like a B-side release. Maybe like six months after the release and really target that towards like our core families. Because they want new music whenever they can get it. And so we feel really good about this other mix of songs.
And again, I feel like we both come from this place of like some of our favorite bands, their B-side albums are our favorite material. The stuff that like, you know, I don't know. There's never been a through line for an album. There's never been a theme we have to stick to for an album. We don't like to put any of that pressure on ourselves. So like to find these ones that are extremely, you know, all over the map. It feels really good to put that kind of stuff out. And on a B-side it's like that doesn't matter. They can be all over the map.”
It's like no pressure.
Little Stranger: “It's just like this is everything else. But we're listening back on it. I'm like this might be better than the album.”
That's really cool. So you guys put out like “Sofia,” “God at a Festival,” and “Kama Sumatra.” I guess you kind of already are saying that your direction is all over the place. So are these kind of the best representation of what the album's going to be like or just your favorite songs? Why are they your singles?
Little Stranger: “I think at least these were some of our gut favorite songs off of the rip. But even in these songs, like we definitely are almost kind of challenging our fans in a lot of ways that we probably haven't before. These are songs that are maybe different styles or recorded or stripped down in a way that we haven't done before. So I love that we're choosing songs that are representative of the things we can do, but kind of trying to show them the corners of it. And then the album will kind of hopefully bring it all back into this like big center.
Yeah. I'm excited for people to hear the album because I do think that the singles so far have kind of maybe like in a certain place of like really upbeat and catchy and chaotic. And the whole album is not that way. But, you know, we talk about what singles we want, but then you also have input from management, the label, what we think singles should be. So yeah, I'm excited to get the rest of them out. There's a lot more areas it touches than just what the singles have so far.”
Okay, cool. Obviously, for “God at a Festival,” it was very like, gospel-y. What made you go in that direction? I liked it. It was very cool.
Little Stranger: “Andy Frasco made it go in that direction.”
Really? Okay.
LS: “Yeah. He's a good friend of ours. We got to tour with him. Once we toured, we became kind of like soul best friends.
Freakishly like best friends. This guy is our boy. We had a writing session in Charleston and we brought our other friend Ross Bogan in. He's an amazing keyboard player. And we were just kind of like, no plan, just like, let's make a song. And we all agreed, we were like, let's make something fucking upbeat. Typically with our stuff, it's a little more like behind the beat. So we wanted like a driving song. He wanted it to be in this gospel world. Ross is so good at keys.
He's like, yeah, something like this. And he made it happen immediately. So it was a really easy, fluid session. And then bringing in the lyric of like, if you're already in gospel and you could say God anywhere in there.”
Right, right, right. At the festival.
Little Stranger: “So yeah, it was cool. That's about as far away from what we typically do, I think, as you could get. And that was kind of nice to try that out too.”
Yeah, show that off. So I know Kev was saying that this is your first Gov Ball. So who are some people that you guys are excited to see right now?
Little Stranger: “Well, I was sad. We missed Post Malone.
Just as a, I mean, talk about a guy that came from a like ‘White Iverson’ as the hit. And then to get to where he's at and to be this beloved. But a couple of our team got to see him and they said it was phenomenal.
I mean, The Killers tonight are like a band that grew up in Vegas and became as big as they did is also pretty, pretty impressive.
But like, I want to see SZA. I want to see SZA tomorrow. I think when ‘Good Days’ came out, I probably listened to it on repeat for three weeks. And just like, it was like every shower. I was every day waking up and put on that song. And it just, yeah, she's scary good. She's scary good, I think.
Yeah, I want to say, I mean, I'm excited for The Killers for sure. And then we, this is like our third festival in a row that Sexyy Red has also been on. I would like to see her too. Very cool.”
Thanks again to Little Stranger for taking time to sit down with us. You can check out their brand new album Sat Around Trippin on all major streaming platforms and follow them on Instagram and Facebook.
