A Q&A with Kid Sistr

Before their set at Common Cents Music Festival, Kid Sistr sat down with Siggy Nazimowitz to discuss their most recent EP, their past and what’s next for the band.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Siggy Nazimowitz: For those who don’t know Kid Sistr, go ahead and introduce yourself with your role in the band.

Sabel: I’m Sabel. I play guitar and sing.

Becca Webster: I’m Becca. I play the drums.

Sara Keden: I’m Sara and I play the bass.

Your most recent release was earlier this year, the “American Teenage Prophecy” EP. In an Instagram post about it, you said you had been sitting with the songs for years, and had finally released them. How did it feel to get them out there?

Kid Sistr: So good.

Keden: Like taking a big dump [laughs]. Just kidding! A dump of the soul. It felt like we were holding on to them for so long. I feel like when you’re holding onto something for that long, you start to be like, “Wait. Is this even cool?” At least I did. So I feel like putting it out, seeing it in the world, and hearing people’s reactions was very validating.

Yeah, I liked the EP a lot. I thought it was very vulnerable, and it’s important to be vulnerable in music, and just be honest with yourself. In the EP, you explored queer themes with songs like “American Teenage Prophecy” and “Boys in Skirts.” Were there any specific experiences that shaped these songs?

Webster: Kind of a lack of experience.

Sabel: [“American Teenage Prophecy”] is a little bit of a mourning. It was formed from a lack of queer experience in our childhoods.

Sara Keden: I feel like [“American Teenage Prophecy”] was about the queer teenage experiences we never had and wish we did. It’s hard because if you don’t know that about yourself, or feeling pressure from society to behave a certain way – A.K.A. behave straight – you miss those experiences. You can never be 17 again. That’s a hard pill to swallow, but it was also beautiful for us to imagine what it might have been, to write the story.

Yeah... I definitely knew I was queer as a kid, but didn’t have many queer experiences myself. I wasn’t really allowed to be authentically who I am until I was 20.

Sabel: I feel like people often experience it as a late puberty. And also, I feel like when I started having queer experiences, I almost did reset to acting like a teenager in some ways and maybe like, acting less mature than I am. [Laughs.]

Keden: Rightfully so.

Sabel: Yeah. But it’s interesting because it can feel uncomfortable to be past adolescence, but having those adolescent feelings of … what’s happening?

The producer you worked with on the EP, Suzy Shinn, she’s worked with a lot of big names like Panic! at the Disco, Weezer, and Modest Mouse. What was it like working with her?

Webster: We love Suzy. She’s like the fourth member at this point, which is awesome. She’s really helped us look at our whole catalog. We really trust her. It’s a very open environment with her, and she really lets us explore and do what we want, and at this point, we’re all really good friends. Which is really special and it is kind of unique, so we do feel really lucky to have that. It’s something hard to find, especially as a woman, trying to find a producer to collaborate with. It’s hard to find someone that really gets you and clicks. And she does! But she’s straight. [Laughs.]

Keden: Called out! How dare she.

I think she definitely understands you all.

Keden: Yeah, I think she has the same sense of humor as us, which is kind of helpful, because there’s a lot of humor in what we do. I think it’s really important to have someone collaborating who gets that.

The new EP was released under Giant Music. That’s a pretty good label, it seems to be very nice to independent artists. What’s it like working with them?

Sabel: They’ve been amazing. We’re really lucky. There are a lot of horror stories in our industry, and it’s our first time ever being signed in this way. We’ve just been really lucky to make this music with them, and they’re awesome.

Keden: They’ve given us a lot of freedom, and a lot of artistic licensing and stuff. We’ll send ridiculous ideas in the group chat, and it’s always met with excitement. They just trust us, which feels very rare.

Sabel: Yeah. There’s such a lack of artist development with labels right now. I feel like that’s kind of the buzz word. And it’s true, and it’s really hard, especially when you don’t have funding yourself. They’re very involved in artist development. They have really good taste in music, too. We’ve definitely been in places where it’s like, ”Oh, this feels so good, they’re so nice, it really feels like we’re in a warm environment.” And then the truth comes out, and this one has stayed strong. Which is awesome.

There’s definitely a lot of incidents of labels not being good to their artists, especially indie artists, but I’m glad that Giant Music has relatively been good. (...) Songwriting wise, most of the singles you release are very fast and upbeat and “bangers,” basically. There are some that are a bit more acoustic and slower, like some from the Kid Sistr EP and some from “American Teenage Prophecy.” How does your songwriting process go? Do you start with lyrics and decide from there what it’ll be like?

Webster: There are some that we’ve gone back and forth on with energy.

Keden: It’s always like, we need a concept. Whether it’s slow or fast, or starts with a lyric or music, in order to give fully birth to the song, we have to dig into a concept.

Webster: I also think that even if it’s not the first thing we come up with, it’s the second. Maybe we have a melody, maybe we have a riff, a couple of lines, the next thing we usually do is come up with a broader idea. The main message, and then we go from there.

Sabel: We like writing upbeat, fun songs too, but I think the experience we’ve had, narrowing songs down to just kind of ride on a song if it feels good. Even if we’ve written, I dunno, three slow songs in the past. You never know which one’s gonna be the one that really connects with you. So I think it’s just trusting what feels good in the moment. Every day feels different when you’re writing.

In general, I do enjoy faster songs, but I think, going back to the new EP again, American Teenage Prophecy and Guts, they had to be slower songs.

Keden: They were meant to be that way.

You’ve been together as a band for about six years, or at least, you released the Kid Sistr EP back in 2020. That might have been rough [laughs]. How have things changed over the years for you as a band?

Sabel: It’s been since Covid since we really worked super hard, every day, on [Kid Sistr EP], but we have been playing together for nine years which is crazy.

Keden: If anything, we’ve all gotten so much closer, and the sense of humor... The amount of jokes and bits that are under our belt every year — there’s more stupid s*** we make up and talk about.

Sabel: Well, that also comes with being ourselves, over the years.

Webster: And sonically, we’ve gotten so close to a sound that feels correct, and … you know, we’ve figured out how we actually like to dress.

Keden: The biggest change is that we got that s*** on, now. And we used to have some s*** on. We used to wear some pretty crazy clothes. We were just trying to figure it out.

Webster: We were experimenting — like, it happens. 2020 was our first tour.

Keden: You don’t know what to wear.

Webster: So we were wearing, like, full-body fishnets. Which is cool, which is great, but it wasn’t really us.

Sabel: Just some of the things that have changed.

Definitely a lot of things have changed. I didn’t realize you had been playing together since 2017. I thought you had started in 2020, since that was the first release.

Keden: It’s a sneaky little backstory.

Sabel: We didn’t put music out until then, we were just playing shows.

Webster: And we didn’t have social media. TikTok wasn’t really a thing.

What’s next for you as a band? Do you think a debut album could be released in the future?

Keden: That is the goal!

Sabel: Stay tuned for new music very soon. Very, very soon.

I’m very excited about that! Do you think you’ll play any (new music) tonight?

Keden: We will play the next single. And also, probably the one after that. You can follow us on Instagram @kid_sistr, and also we’re supporting The Wrecks on their upcoming tour. That starts Oct. 15.

Sabel: We’re releasing something very soon, and we’re not gonna stop — and music videos. More to come.