[Photo courtesy of @sprocket.mang on Instagram]
By Roman Salomone, Music Director
Kaiba are a four-piece screamo band from Athens, Ohio, that formed in the summer of 2019. The band stood out in the local scene for their incredible songs, idiosyncratic style and astonishing performances – especially their sets at Lobsterfest 2023 and the ACRN-sponsored show with foxtails. The quartet moved to Pittsburgh, Penn., during the summer, but prior to their big move, I had a chance to sit down with them to discuss their evolution as a band, their amazing demo, why screamo and hardcore communities kick ass and the inevitability of selling limited-run vinyl releases for charity.
[This interview has been edited for length and clarity.]
Roman: Thanks for taking the time to do this! To jump right in, how do you feel about playing Lobsterfest?
Jeff: Lobsterfest was super fun.
Jack: That was fun. It was cool to subject the Wednesday listeners to Forest Fucker.
[Laughter]
Jack: It’s always fun to have a super mixed bill with starkly different bands. It’s always an interesting vibe. Sometimes it really doesn’t work, but luckily at Lobsterfest it’s just kids wanting to listen to music no matter what it is honestly.
Emma: I think any kind of hardcore can kind of go hand-in-hand where like a lot of people that are in hardcore bands also like are in like an indie band, or like something that’s softer and cuter. I don’t know – I think they work together as two different genres.
Roman: That’s awesome to hear! So from what I understand, Kaiba started in 2019 and around six or seven months prior to the pandemic. What’s the journey been like since then?
Lane: Well, we initially started as a three-piece and we never had a static bassist until we met Jeff.
Jeff: Yeah, I’ve been friends with Jack for awhile just playing Super Smash Bros and stuff. We ran into each other at a thrift store or something, and I think I asked him: “Do you want to play drums on this thing I’m trying to put together?” and he was like “No.”
[Laughter]
Jeff: Then I think he said: “I’m really excited with my band that doesn’t have a bassist – Do you wanna play with Kaiba?” I was like, “Wait, that sounds great”, then (the band) sent me some demos, and I was thinking: “This is gonna be really fun.”
Lane: We usually would get someone to fill in or play temporarily, but anyone we found just didn’t really work out. For example, we had our friend from Wasp Factory play with us once.
Roman: So, what attracted you all to screamo and hardcore stuff?
Lane: I discovered screamo when I was 16, both through friends and the Akron DIY scene—which was my first house show and underground music experience I had. For some reason, it was always the sort of music that affected me the most, and that has been a very consistent staple of both my listening and what I love since then. Me, Jack, and Emma used to be in an indie band with some of our other good friends. Then when that dissipated, the three of us were like: “Alright, well, I guess we’re gonna start a screamo band.” It’s something that I had always wanted to do.
Emma: I didn’t even know what screamo really was until Lane showed me. I think we were hanging out one night and they were like: “Can I show you my stupid skramz?” and I was like: “I don’t know what that is.” I mean, I’ve been listening to “heavier music” for a while. I listened to metal a lot in middle school and high school. Then Lane showed me The Assistant for the first time – which is not really even screamo – more so post-hardcore or early sasscore type of stuff. They’re sweet. But I’m self-taught on guitar, and when I was playing along to that by myself, I felt like playing guitar just clicked for me all of a sudden. That style just made sense and felt pretty natural for me to play, so I was really excited to get to practice my songwriting more in a screamo band.
Jack: Lane was also my introduction to screamo, but I think I had kind of been looking for an in back into heavy music because, similar to Emma, I listened to a lot of metal in high school with technical death metal and shit like that. I kinda dropped that because I was like: “This is corny” and I am now going back because I still love the tech-death classics like Necrophagist and shit like that. But screamo was my way of getting back into heavy music. From there, I got really into hardcore and shit like that. And I think that’s been affecting the way that I think about and write screamo and so on.
Jeff: It’s interesting for me because I was listening to (bands like) You’ll Live and I kind of went through the indie-to-American Football-ish pipeline of all of that stuff. When my brother moved to Pittsburgh with his band around eight years ago, he got really into stuff like Algernon Cadwallader. He showed me Parrot Flies and that kind of opened up that more “yelly” emo sort of stuff, but I had never approached it from the other side; from the more skramz angle where it’s a lot more hardcore over emo in the instrumental—which was really cool. When I first heard it I was like: “Okay, this is a lot to sort through tonally,” but it does share a lot of really beautiful melodic stacked chords similar to the emo stuff—which has been really fun to work with on bass. I get to work around a lot of really complex parts between parts.
Lane: I guess in that sense Jeff and I have very similar journeys with that because I definitely came to enjoy screamo stuff coming from more-or-less Midwest emo stuff like American Football, Marietta. Stuff that hints at a lot of the aspects that are quintessential to skramz but like don’t actually have screaming and having found skramz bands that really resonated with me. I think we’re also surprised how much of a fulfilling mode of expression this genre has been to make. It’s weird because you can’t learn to scream or play screamo guitar stuff like in high school, so you have to try it and see if you like it or not. We started this without any real goal or idea of how it would turn out, and I think it’s become more rewarding for us than we ever really expected.
Roman: So your amazing demo came out in early November. What are your thoughts on it now that it’s had time to settle with you all?
Jeff: We definitely rushed through it and I definitely have a lot of regrets with the production. It was good to record it. It was definitely the first sort of serious take on recording that we did. We did it entirely DIY here in the basement. From my perspective, it was a reinforcement of what I’ve come to learn about the process of recording in regards to how it gets done, rather than the quality with which it’s done—where a lot of considerations such as how easy it is to go from not recording to recording or setup time or flexibility after the fact. There’s a number of trade-offs that you make whenever planning a recording of any kind of project. This was a good way to really understand which of those areas were problems or were not problems for us or what simple changes that can have big results or how maybe upgrading this aspect of the recording will yield as much as we would hope. It was a really good way to sort of understand what it was that we were going for. I’m really looking forward to recording the next stuff that we have coming up because I think it’s gonna be a lot better in a bunch of regards and easier to make.
Lane: We had a lot of limitations. We had to make a lot of compromises, especially because we were just trying to get something out before we went on tour because we were like: “We can’t go on tour without anything to get people to listen” and so on. Basically, a lot of shit went wrong in terms of stuff breaking and so I think that more than anything, we just learned a lot from that process. The next time we approach recording—which is very soon—I think that we will do it with a lot more confidence and a much clearer vision of how it should be done.
Jack: I don’t want to undermine Jeff as I totally get his reservations with it, and I agree and want to move in a different direction going forward, but I will say that a lot of my favorite bands’ first demos are very rough. Again, it has that sort of raw sound and I do appreciate that the first thing that we have out is in that kind of style. I think there are a lot of people who hear our demo and really appreciate those aspects of it. I think once we have a “discography” that it’s going to be something that I appreciate about it.
Roman: I definitely get all of those afterthoughts, even though I personally thought it was sick as hell. I wanted to mention—rather appreciate, I suppose—that you made sure to include the lyrics on Bandcamp when you put it out. Could you share what your process for writing lyrics is like and where some of the inspiration comes from?
Emma: We always joke about how we just can’t stop writing the most melodramatic lyrics possible. It’s really cathartic and I think that all of our lyrics are very personal to us. I saw someone once ask Connie from SeeYouSpaceCowboy: “How do you go about writing a song?” and I think what she said was: “Take a scenario that happened to you and turn it into a giant metaphor.” I was writing before I saw that obviously, but I feel that’s a pretty good summation of what I try to do.
Lane: I second that completely. I usually take something very literal and specific and then try to make it as much of an abstraction as I possibly can without losing whatever it made me feel. And with some songs, and “Wake” in particular, that was our first song and it’s gotten to the point where we wrote some of these songs so long ago that I don’t even remember what I was talking about. I mean, I was, like, 19 when I wrote those lyrics, you know?
Roman: If you wrote that at 19 then I need to get my shit together.
[Laughter]
Lane: Yeah, and “Wake” has changed a lot over the years, but our lyrics are very reflective of different points in our youth and in our growing as individuals I feel. They’re quite personal to us.
Roman: Well they really are fantastic in my humble opinion. So going back to building up a discography, do you have something planned for the next big release?
Jeff: Well we’re pretty much trying to put out everything we have that we’re comfortable with. There’s maybe a couple exceptions and there’s also anything that we’ve been like: “Oh, this is really cool” when we kind of want to put it actually together. Some of that happened really recently—we were able to play a new song at our last show and stuff. But pretty much get everything that we have down. I feel [the band] might agree that we should get it out so we have it done and we can take it off the setlist, start writing more new stuff, not have to have it exist in the forefront as much.
Lane: We want to record an LP with ideally everything that we have written thus far on it. That way we don’t have reservations about what we take off a setlist. Then there’s not as much worrying about cramming everything we possibly can into our shows. I think we’re just ready to finally have a moment to exhale and pause after all those songs, because we’ve had some of them since 2019 and we’re certainly going to re-record the songs off the demo. I think we’ll feel much more free to enjoy writing again once all those songs are out. Even today at practice we basically wrote a new song, but it’s like: “Well, we can’t really do anything with it because we have to record this LP first.”
Roman: I wanted to talk about how you all approach the music you create and perform. As someone who doesn’t have the most familiarity when it comes to this specific vein of punk, I’ve found that your songs are so melodic and tuneful that it’s quite approachable, while still being visceral and especially intense. Is bridging a gap between screamo’s extreme aspects and almost catchy parts in your songwriting something you aim for or do you think it comes naturally in your writing process?
Lane: When we started doing this, we kind of set out with the intention of creating “skramzgaze.” We always kind of wanted to mesh things and have sort of atmospheric sound effects. Then the melodies have always been sort of the integral facet of our sonic identity, I think. The thing is, we’ve tried a lot of times to make songs that are like 50 seconds long and we’ve always failed. We’re always thinking we should add another part.
Jeff: There’s always another good idea waiting.
[Laughter]
Lane: There’s a part of us that always wants to do some more traditional screamo song-structure, but I think the nature of our writing is one that is very linear, sort of long form, and certainly based more so in melody than aggression or the rawness of a lot of like OG scream acts. Plus me and Emma both love a ton of 80s music. I think much of our guitar influence comes from a lot of those New Wave bands and also goth stuff. The Cure is a huge one for both of us.
Emma: We both love The Cure and New Order. Guitar players like Bernard Sumners (Joy Division/New Order) and their sort of jangly guitar playing has always stood out a lot and influenced me. One of our goals was to have it be kind of “cute” in a way. Whenever I hear a melodic screamo riff I think: “Oh, that’s cute.” I love stuff like that. And there’s a lot of difference within the genre. Some bands only write under-two minute songs and then there’s stuff like Raein, one of my favorite screamo bands. Most of their songs are five minutes long and it’s basically four different songs in one. Sometimes I can’t tell them if I’m still listening to the same song. I think we really enjoy writing our five part, four minute songs, but even today, we were just talking about experimenting and were like: “Hey guys, what if we don’t add three more parts to this?” But then we did.
Jack: With that being said, our newest song was literally a five part song that we stopped halfway through and we’re like: “Oh wait, this is a full song”.
Jeff: It was one idea that turned into “We could do this and this,” then another part didn’t have a place by then, so it became a whole other song.
Lane: We just cut it in half basically. And that’s something that’s very indicative of how our sound has developed I think. Two of our biggest influences when we first started, especially in those initial years, were State Faults and Deafheaven. Both of those bands are hard as hell, but there’s also an inherent beauty to them. That’s something that we all really appreciate about that side of screamo and feel really strongly about capturing.
Roman: For sure. And I’ve noticed you seem to frequent shows with a few bands like Forest Fucker, Griphook, and Wasp Factory. Could you speak about your relationships with those groups and how connecting outside of the Athens scene has been?
Jeff: Forest Fucker rules.
Jack: I think we met Wasp Factory through them playing at The New Happiness around early 2019. They’re just cool as hell people and then our friendship started. We asked Logan to play bass for us for that one Short Fictions show that was at the New Happiness, then Covid hit and we just kept in touch with them. Then Forest Fucker is two members of Wasp Factory – Sam on drums and Jules on bass – and we got to know them through Wasp Factory and became friends with them. We later went on tour with them and that was the moment where we’re like: “Okay, we love these people in this band”. With Griphook, we played a show at Dirty Dungarees in Columbus in the summer of last year, and without us really knowing, they were sorta obsessed with us?
[Laughter]
Jack: I can’t remember who reached out first, but Josh and Zach from Griphook both reached out and were like: “We think your band is the shit” and we were like: “Sick. These guys who are like the scariest band on Earth like our music”.
Emma: Their songs are all about killing people.
Jeff: A lot of murder-y stuff.
Jack: But those guys all rule so hard. Griphook is an amazing band and I’m glad that they fuck with us so hard.
Lane: Something I realized about Griphook after the fact is that I actually briefly met most of the people in that band when I was in high school. They’re from Akron and I would go there for shows, and I have this memory of Zach at a Halloween show. Mind you, Zach is like 6-foot-4ish, and he was there dressed as Eleven from Stranger Things.
[Laughter]
Lane: I think he was wearing a pink nightgown. Then when we were talking at the Dirty Dungarees show, I was like “Wait, dress as Eleven that one time?” and he was like “Yeah, that was me”.
[Laughter]
Jack: Also, Josh from Griphook was in one of Lane’s favorite screamo bands ever, lowmeninyellowcoats, who I also love.
Lane: That band was a huge deal to me, so it’s super flattering that Josh and the rest of those guys fuck with. That’s just the beauty of these screamo scenes and subcultures. It’s a small world, so when you find out a band that you love loves your band, you’re like “Shit, that makes me feel good”.
Roman: And speaking of bands fucking with your band, I have to ask. How did the foxtails show come together?
Jack: I first heard about them in 2018 or 2019. Then just by happenstance, when I was booking shows at the New Happiness, I was hit up by Ultra Deluxe. I had already booked them once before, and they hit me up to book them and foxtails in Athens for June 2020. Obviously, that did not happen. But the show was booked and there was an event page on Facebook when we still did that. But of course it got canceled. Honestly, I have this habit of getting drunk and then messaging bands that I love on Instagram to see if they would come play in Athens.
[Laughter]
Jack: So I did that with foxtails a year and a half ago and basically said: “Hey, if y’all ever want to tour through Athens, please let me know and I’ll book you. I already booked you here but it got canceled for COVID”. They responded with something like: “Cool, that sounds great. We’ll hit you up with wherever in the area,” which basically means “We’re never going to come to your town.” Wildly enough, I was visiting my mom over Christmas and I got a message from them a year later. It’s unbelievable to me that they would even remember us, let alone hit me back up for that, but they did. It was kind of a struggle to get it to come together, just to find a venue to make it work. I also wanted to secure a guarantee for them because they’re a bigger band and I want to ensure that they’re happy and all that. They’re also great people, so I wanted to get them as much money as possible for their tour. Luckily, we secured that Sunday, April 16 date and then I just basically promoted the hell out of it on Kaiba’s Instagram and stuff like that. The turnout was absolutely amazing for a Sunday. It probably also helped that it was our last Athens show before moving. foxtails is a really special band and it was a blessing that we got to have them here.
Lane: If you told me when I was 16 that one day, I would sit in my living room, eat Burger King, and watch The Simpsons with foxtails…
[Laughter]
Roman: Are you serious? That’s awesome.
Lane: I mean the whole thing is just really, really special.
Jack: Also the fact that they would even like our band, let alone compare us to like some incredible screamo acts or say that they cried during our set. That shit is unbelievable to me.
Emma: I think foxtails was one of the first three screamo records I ever downloaded on Sophie’s Floorboard. I think it was like when they released III and it was at the top of the page and I was like “This is cool”. Really a full-circle screamo moment.
Lane: Sophie’s Floorboard was a huge deal to me when I was getting into screamo. It’s a blog run by a guy who just posts download links to screamo, emo, hardcore, and anything adjacent. That’s actually how I got a virus on my Mac. I was downloading some Title Fight demos from Zippyshare.
[Laughter]
Roman: I noticed that in some of the more recent shows that the rhythm section have been doing more of these nice little interlude things when the guitars are tuning. I wanted to ask about where the idea sparked from, because I think they’ve become a nice addition to the sets.
Lane: Listen here, I have a sampler on my pedal board, but it’s broken. I used to play stuff straight off of it, but it’s kind of busted. It has an AUX input so I was just playing stuff from Google Drive through it from my phone. While I really liked the samples, it’s not super conducive timewise to have that jank of a setup. For the time being, we’ve gone toward more instrumental shit between songs.
Jeff: I change tunings maybe twice a set so I’m usually pretty free.
Lane: I think that we’ll probably continue to do a mix of interludes and little “jammy” things.
Jeff: The samples are nice too because they give us cool textures
Lane: I’ve actually gotten a lot of really nice feedback about the samples. Usually before we play “Broken,” we play a sample from It’s Such a Beautiful Day, which is one of Jeff and I’s favorite movies of all time.
Jeff: We were just looking at my movies list and it’s my number one.
[Laughter]
Lane: I guess a lot of our songs have themes about getting old and the passage of time and stuff. That movie is very much about confronting the anxiety that comes with it.
Emma: We played that sample in a bar in New Jersey—when it’s like: “…and he realized he’s only getting older” and there was a gasp from most of the over-30 year olds in the room.
[Laughter]
Lane: That’s a fun sample. I think what we are trying to achieve in our music is both uplifting and also very melancholy. Ultimately, that movie is meant to give you a sense of hope, but that sample itself is very downcast, I guess.
Jeff: One of the first times I was playing with you all, I remember (Lane) was playing that sample and there’s a point in the monologue of it where the main character says: “He opened his lips to speak, and he said…”. Lane just happened to cut the sample right there, lean into the mic, and say: “Thanks, we’re Kaiba, we got one more.”
[Laughter]
Lane: I stole some words from It’s Such a Beautiful Day for some of the lyrics to “Blue Mirror Window”. The “Sleepless nights, worry, and denial” lines.
Emma: I never realized that.
Roman: Going back to more musical influences, you’ve been a band for a couple years now, and I know how points of inspiration can change very quickly over time – I mean you’ve (Lane) kinda already mentioned it with State Faults and Deafheaven being early ones. What other acts have inspired you as you’ve continued to grow as a band? And to ask out of complete curiosity, could you give any recommendations to some artists for those that enjoy what y’all do and are looking to get more into skramz?
Jack: Every band we’ve mentioned thus far like State Faults, foxtails, and Raein.
Lane: Heavenly Blue/Youth Novel, lord snow, Great Dane.
Jack: Frail Body is like my favorite modern screamo band.
Emma: I have friends that ask me for lighter screamo stuff and I usually put awakebutstillinbed in those playlists.
Jack: Early Shin Guard before they became Hazing Over, especially the Death of Spring split with For Your Health.
Lane: William Bonney was a big one for me when I was young, but I’m fairly certain they’re canceled now.
Jack: Orchid, Loma Prieta, early Daughters. Fuck that new shit.
Lane: A huge one is Elle, especially the album She. That is one of the most important albums I’ve ever heard in my life alongside like Youth Novel’s Discography. Also State Fault’s Resonate/Desperate.
Emma: algae bloom. foxtails did a split with them and that was one of the first screamo things I heard. algae bloom is like a really cute screamo band.
Lane: I just discovered this band called life. It’s like one person—the same person from Sadness. I’m obsessed with this shit right now. Also Sugar Wound. They’re like a cybergrind band but they’re still fucking amazing.
Emma: I used to listen to Daitro a lot.
Lane: Suis la Lune for sure. “…and its name was Epyon”—again, another huge one for me as well.
Emma: Massa Nera who we’ve actually gotten to play with before.
Lane: Glass Bones—formerly known as CityCop—huge one. That was one of the first times I ever saw that type of music live. They’re from Akron. They’re amazing. It’s actually fucked up how good they are at music.
Jack: And also shout out our friends Wasp Factory, Forest Fucker, and Griphook who we’ve talked about. Plus all the bands they’re in like Anteater and Dead Body on the Web. All those bands fucking rule.
Lane: Also our friend Dane, i love you, i love you, Morning Dew.
Jack: Listen to Columbus hardcore.
Roman: I’ve always wanted to see Crime Light and have never had a chance to.
Jack: They’re incredible.
Emma: People in Columbus go nuts for them.
Roman: So wrapping things up here, obviously it’s been made clear that you all are moving to PA soon. Can you share some of the reasons behind the move and what do you hope to achieve in the future?
Lane: It’s nothing against Athens. This place has been very good to us, but I think we’ve all been here for much longer than our expected four years. I think we’re ready to be somewhere else.
Emma: Yeah, I’ve been here forever.
Lane: I think we’re ready to be somewhere that’s a little bit bigger, has a little bit more happening, especially with screamo and stuff like that. It’s also a very central location for all of us in terms of how close it is to home, as we’re mostly all from the Eastern or central part of Ohio. Except for Emma, who obviously is from here. Pittsburgh is actually closer to my hometown than Athens is.
Emma: It’s still like a completely drivable distance.
Jeff: Very easy weekend trip.
Lane: It just seems like a very ideal and tackleable place to go, especially with the intent to stay together as a band.
Jack: It’s also kind of like a hub for this newer wave of screamo, emo, and some cool hardcore stuff. I think it’s just a good city for “guitar music.” We’ve already got a bunch of friends there like Short Fictions, for example. I think that it’s going to be a place where we will be received decently well—I hope. And hopefully we can build from there because I think our goal long term is to try and make something of this. Maybe not to try and make it our job, but to make this something where we can comfortably go on tours, hang out with our music friends, and do that kind of stuff without the pressure of having to pay for it out of your own pocket.
Roman: Well I’m sure nearly everybody in the scene here wishes you the best of luck—I know I certainly do. Again, thank you all for taking the time to do this. Please come back to Athens soon.
Listen to Three Trysts here:
ACRN.COM 
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