Kill Hannah to Rock ‘For Never and Ever’
by Randy J. Klodz; Photo by Joseph Cultice
One might assume the name Kill Hannah to moniker a death-metal band with a penchant for onstage debauchery such as the sacrificing of female animals, but Chicago’s own Kill Hannah offer a glam pop-rock product potent enough to pizzazz the pants off of rock fans across the city--and nation.
Sure the band may hold more stock in Maybelline than your typical rock act, but the band doesn’t use its appearance as a gimmick: they let the music speak for itself. And a lot of people are talking.
While residing in Chicago and its suburbs, the quintet--Mat Devine on vocals, Jonathan Radtke and Dan Weise on guitars, Garrett Hammond on bass and Greg Corner on drums--has for years found a way to sell out shows at Metro--as well as other venues across the city--and has been actively touring across all points in the nation in support of the band’s major label debut For Never and Ever, which hit stores on Oct. 14.
Soak caught up with Kill Hannah’s singer Mat Devine as the band was making its trek from Packerland to play a show in Minneapolis. Though Devine had just tasted what he called “some shitty food” in the Wisconsin Dells, he had time to call in from the road to tell Soak what it’s like to be called “the cutest band in Chicago” by a Chicago pop critic and how life on the road can be, as he sings in the band’s “From Now On,” “crazy like a teenage dream.”
SOAK: With a name like Kill Hannah, do people ever think that you belong to a death- metal band?
Mat Devine: Uh…yes. We encounter that every so often. The minute anybody sees the band or hears them it gets dispelled. Sometimes we’re prejudged because of the name. It’s no big deal though.
SOAK: You’ve put out a lot of work independently, what’s it been like now that you’ve gone to Atlantic Records, a major label, to release For Never and Ever?
MD: The stakes are a lot higher now. There’s a lot more to lose. We had a chance to spend a lot of money and make what we feel is a pretty important record. Believe it or not, we’re working harder now that we’re signed, even though we worked our asses before. Now it has evolved into a 24-hour commitment for everybody on the team, not just in the band. Everything has pretty much been amplified since we’ve been signed, but we don’t want to be one of those bands that completely abandons their identity the minute they get a deal.
SOAK: When I think of the song title “Kennedy,” the first single off of “For Never and Ever” that has been getting rotation on Chicago alternative-rock radio for a while now, I think of the glasses-wearing, longer haired VJ on MTV.
MD: [laughs] Oh, OK. Well, hopefully you are in the total minority.
SOAK: But, in the song you say that you want to be “tall and handsome,” while Sun-Times pop music critic Jim DeRogatis called you guys “the cutest band in Chicago,” what’s up with that?
MD: That was really flattering. I don’t know what he was smoking when he wrote that. It was a really cool thing for him to say, I guess. That’s not so incredibly vital to the product that we look “cute” or anything, but it was a nice compliment. It probably made a lot of people hate us for no reason. [laughs]
SOAK: You gather large crowds whenever you play in Chicago or the surrounding suburbs, what’s it like playing other cities throughout the nation?
MD: For the most part we’re fairly unknown in these cities. It’s a good chance to relive the early days of the band in Chicago. We’re starting to see the hard work come to fruition where we’re seeing at first [visit] 10 kids, then next time we visit 50, then 100. It’s nice to see that there must be some sort of thread that unifies our fans around the country. It’s interesting that we go to North Carolina and see a bunch of kids who look identical to the ones in Chicago. It’s a relief really, because we are like ‘Oh, shit, OK, cool, we aren’t totally insane,’ like it’s more than just us that are kind of into it.
SOAK: What is your onstage dress like?
MD: That’s changed over the years. Back in the day it was a little more glam that it is now. Now it’s kind of our own thing. We wear minimal make-up and we pay minimal attention to our hair and stuff. Our style is somewhere between early 80’s post-punk and glam, I guess. I think in the best cases we happen to be wearing designer clothes but we’re also grungy and raw. We just try not to look too pretentious or anything. But at the same time, I don’t want to pretend that I just got done fixing car when I get on stage. It’s a delicate line to walk and it’s been a challenge for us from the beginning.
SOAK: I read that your band’s Web site, www.killhannah.com, gets 10,000 hits a week; that must show that you have a strong following.
MD: I heard now that it gets 15,000 a day. I think we are being discovered now by a lot of people and there’s a lot of chatter. And the touring that we’re doing is really having an affect on that. Plus, I think that our fans have a lot of free time on their hands. And the Internet for a band on the verge, a band before they are really well known, is really the best resource to learn about us.
SOAK: So you’re in a band and you guys have a legion of female fans, how does that work out for you guys on the road?
MD: We all do have long-term committed relationships, but it’s no different than any job where you could be away nine out of every ten days or more. Often we are gone 11 months of the year. And since there’s no hope in sight, either, it seems like all you both want is success, but then the more success you get the less you are around, so it’s a real catch-22. Sometimes we all feel that we are minutes away from being dumped by our girlfriends.
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