Cuckoos
words by kyra bruce
The Cuckoos are a group of young musicians based out of Austin, Texas playing psychedelic-rock that will send you back to 1965. If you like The Doors, Pink Floyd, or classic acid-rock in general then you will love them! The band perfectly mixes '60s psychedelia with new age garage rock to create a new sound with obvious nods to their classic rock roots. This is definitely a group to keep your eye on. Below is an interview we did with front man Kenneth Frost!
You are all pretty young guys, how long have you been playing together? How did you get together in the first place?
I started The Cuckoos myself right out of high school in 2014. Austin is full of musicians, so I met Dave through a drummer I was playing with at the time, he joined The Cuckoos the next day, then later Cole and Eric came in through Dave.
Tell me about the mini-album “The Cuckoos” how did it come together? A lot of songs like ”You’re Gonna Work For Us Until The Day You Die” send pretty clear messages that everyone can relate to about being stuck somewhere-what do you want listeners to get from the album?
Lyrically the whole album came from experiences i was going through, like graduating high school, falling in and out of love, and just growing up. I wrote "You’re Gonna Work For Us Until The Day You Die" the day I dropped out of college. I just hope people feel something from it and hopefully it can help people get through life a little easier. I feel like relatable tunes always help me get through tough times.
I love how you guys have a focus on ‘60s-esque acid rock but other genres come out in your music too- who are some of your biggest musical inspirations?
Thanks! I’d say Rick James, Pink Floyd, Kate Bush, Prince, Dirty Beaches, Joy Division, The Smiths, Miles Davis, Olivia Newton John, Usher..everybody.
It is really great to see a new band sticking to a classic rock sound- I feel like some people think that classic rock is dead so they are too afraid to make music like that. Have you found that there is still an audience that is excited about classic rock?
For sure. Rock will never die. The Funk will never die. Disco is actually pretty cool. Good music is good music and there will always be an audience for that.
The music video for “New Sunrise” has such a great gritty acid-rock feel, how did that video come together? Where did the idea come from?
I just threw together some old stock footage of a dancer with some sunrises and used all the iPhone and video footage we’ve captured over the last couple of years and cobbled it all together. I only spent $15 bucks on iMovie for it, so it was worth it.
You guys have a very strong stage presence and you seem like natural performers- did any of you have any experience performing before “The Cuckoos”?
Dave and the other guys have been playing music for a long time...various rock camps and such, as well as in other bands. I did a lot of theater classes and kind of wanted to be an actor, then kind of went into filmmaking, then music just hit me on the head and i decided to give it a go.
I saw that you guys recently finished some tour dates around Texas, how did those go? Do you have any good tour stories?
We played a ton this year, around Texas and Mexico and England and we went up to New York too. It was all a blast and we’ve learned a lot from it.
What’s next for you guys?
We’re working on new tunes and gonna be playing a lot more shows. Stay tuned!