“This is something we felt we had to do,” Montrealer Richard Papanicolaou said over a glass of wine in a dim lit lounge along side his brother Andre. A classy picture to match the rich stylish rock this duo is producing. The Papanicolaou brothers are +Kid with Andre on lead vocals and guitar and Richard on drums and bass. Ready for the big leagues and taking their cue from an array of artists from The Pixies to The Beatles, the duo just released their debut album All Cities Look the Same.
“It was a phrase that was in my head for awhile,” Andre explained. “I liked the sound of it and how it can be read optimistically or pessimistically depending on the emphasis.” All Cities Look the Same does emphasize one thing for sure, these men are here and ready to rock.
Their debut album was long over due. The brothers have been playing music together since their pre-teens. Their affair with music is one that began in innocence.
“When you’re the skinny kid growing up and you don’t get picked for the team you’ve got to have something,” Andre reminisced. “I might have been into sports, but nobody picked me! So I took up the guitar instead.”
Music then took the backseat while the young men focused on school and graduated from Concordia University with degrees in Political Science. But it was only a matter of time until they realized that music wouldn’t stand to be ignored. “The interest was rekindled and we started playing more and more together. More importantly we started writing together,” said Andre. The result: a 13 track album waiting to be discovered.
In a vast realm of boys and their guitars, garage rock and indie bands, Andre and Richard wanted to stand out and now it is up to Canada to judge. All Cities Look the Same has a live rock feel with minimal digital sounds, a detail that already makes a difference. “There is this really polished sound out there right now. It sounds great but not so exciting,” the lead vocalist said. “You can close your eyes and say well is this that band or x band? There is not much distinction anymore.”
The world of music has been evolving in assorted ways over the years. Look at the rise of indie labels vs. major labels and more importantly the increase of music available in cyberspace.
Musicians and artists have mixed feelings towards the speedy growth of the World Wide Web, piracy programs and phenomena like iTunes.
“There is two ways of looking at it. One way is free exposure and free promotion,” Richard expressed. “I’ve discovered a lot of bands through the internet and then went out and bought their album. Then other way of looking at it is the internet is taking something away from artists.”
“You can’t fight it,” Andre added. “It’s like a new paradigm, this is it whether we like it or not. I still wish vinyl would come back! I think the music industry is changing in a way that we are going back. Things used to be single oriented, look at iTunes selling billions of songs. People are selling their singles again.”
“We all know video killed the radio star; maybe the internet will bring him back.”
Richard concluded.
The Papanicolaou brothers don’t seem to show signs of fear or hesitation in today’s uncertain world of music and recording, come to think of it, the men seem to feel very comfortable and headstrong about their release and look forward to sharing it with Canada.
“We wanted to do it ourselves; this will be our sound, yes it was done in a basement and all the more power to it.” Andre added: “No one in their right mind gets into music thinking ‘I need to make a quick buck, I’ll play music’. That’s not why we do it.”
+Kid plays Va et Vient
Friday, Feb. 9 3706
Notre-Dame O.
Album in stores now.
