#utkf

[klonoacollective]

On the Right Track

With any luck, we'll be able to have a decent site. Between being pretty busy personal life, taking courses, redirecting from fiascos, and running a site this makes things a little tougher. Hopefully with a new setup, this will make things easier. With that said, more content will be on the way.

[firstghostband]

Oh my god, your body's shakin' for me.

[londonontariodiy]

Check out First Ghosts new music video for Westdel Bourne.

Its been cool to see these two progress and mature as musicians over the years. Featuring members of UTKF, First Ghost departs from their pop punk roots and presents us with a much more mature sound.

You can download First Ghosts debut EP Real Eyes here:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/icuscet7cc8sibb/First_Ghost_-_Real_Eyes_(2014).zip

http://firstghost.bandcamp.com/

[firstghostband]

Once again, UTKF has gone on somewhat of a hiatus and is now focusing 100% on First Ghost.  This is our first video. Share it if you like it.

[firstghostband]

No wonder you're alone.

[kronosfhtagn]

Bad mood but good company. 

[firstghostband]

Remember when we did this? New music video this week.

[ttsdcanada]

An Evening With Ryan Sweet of UTKF

What does UTKF stand for and why did you choose that to be the name of your band?

UTKF is an initialization that stands for Under The Killing Floor, and it was introduced when the band played a heavier style of music. As Anton DeLost is the only fully original member of UTKF (Ryan Sweet joined about a year in and Danny Foster-Roman in January 2013), he and the previous members decided on that name as a sort of homage to rock greats like Jimi Hendrix and The Guess Who. 

As the band progressed in style, Anton and I (Ryan) decided that Under The Killing Floor no longer fit the image we wanted to portray, thus UTKF was created as a way to curb some of the seemingly dark and aggressive notions that were implied with the full name.

How much has changed since you guys started in '08?

Since our outset, UTKF has changed in many fundamental ways. Our writing styles and influences have grown and matured over time, which we feel can been seen in the release of our most recent full-length, titled “Set The Fire”. Through personnel changes and personal struggles, we have pushed past some of the teenage mindsets that were emotionally tethered to our earlier music and are now focusing on writing music that reflects the things we feel passionate about as musicians and individuals. Though we still sing about heartbreak and anger, we've tried to broaden our horizons with instrumentals and lyrics that adequately “break your heart”, as Anton and I have been known to say.

What does being a pop punk band mean to you?

Pop punk has meant many things to us growing up, and seems to be ever changing. What we considered pop punk when we released our Taking Out the Trash EP was something along the lines of having a good time, standing up for what you want, and living the skate-rat lifestyle of eating pizza and trying to get the most out of 7 or so plys of wood. Nowadays, we try to maintain some of those ideals while carrying over the energy of pop punk into more of a punk rock feel. We have been and always will be pop punk at heart, but we intend to move beyond any one specific subgenre of rock and roll in order to adequately represent ourselves as musicians with something universal to say.

How was putting together your "Set The Fire" LP harder or easier than you imagined?

It's hard to speak to the difficulty of recording Set The Fire considering the semi-relaxed pace we took towards its release, but that's not to say that there weren't snags or difficulties along the way. A lot of the hardships came from our desire to keep our releases and productions as do-it-yourself as possible, while acknowledging the fact that there were some things we needed to reach out for. The addition of Danny to the band helped us gain some momentum as he was able to lend an extra pair of hands (and an incredibly handsome face) to put toward the printing and release of the album.

In the end, we paired up with Dustin Andrews and Geoff Haynes from Get Party Records, a London-based independent label/distributor/whatever you need, to help with the costs and logistics of releasing the album which dropped on May 1st 2013 and is available on iTunes, Bandcamp, Spotify and many enthusiastic Russian pop punk Blogspots.

How long was Set The Fire in the making?

Set The Fire (STF) was in production for roughly two years, from idea to execution. At the time of writing and recording the album, Anton and I were the only two members of the band as our previous members had to step away and attend to other commitments. UTKF was essentially on hiatus, though we were still writing and planning STF. We fully tracked the pre-productions of the songs during this off-time, with Anton playing every instrument so as to learn them fully and start production on the album when the opportunity presented itself. When it came time to start the final steps of recording and production, Anton again tracked every instrument with the exception of some guitar that I added in the production stages. Yes, that's right – Anton is that good at everything.

In regards to Set The Fire's album art, were those newspapers actually on fire? whose idea was that?

Oh, this is a pretty cool story. The idea of having the flaming newspapers on the couch actually didn't originate with us, but with Anton's father Charles “Chaz” DeLost many years ago. Chaz is an (excellent) artist of many different mediums, and when he was younger he and some fellow artists were holding an art exhibition in California. The poster for the exhibition (which is framed in Anton's kitchen) featured Chaz and two other artists, sitting on a couch and non-nonchalantly holding flaming newspapers.

Anton and I thought it would be an excellent scene to recreate, as it adequately represented what we wanted to convey with the title of the album. When it came time to shoot, Anton and I visited some variety stores to ask for the previous day's newspapers (they normally just throw them out so we got them for free), and we moved one of his couches into his backyard where we had set up some lights and a Minolta x-700 film camera to capture the analogue feel we wanted. In order to photograph the newspapers at the height of their flames (and yes it was all 100% real), Anton's mother Wendy Nesseth lit both of our newspapers at separate times and we kept stacks of newspapers to the sides of the couch that we would replace when the flames got too far down on the pages. We took 24 film exposures and a few photos on a digital camera just in case some mistakes we were made, and decided on a few to use for an album booklet we hoped to create before we chose to print and create a limited run of 50 CDs of a separate design. There are some great outtakes that we still intend to use on future copies of Set The Fire, which we have sold out of and will be pressing again in the near future.

What song would you recommend to a first time UTKF listener and why?

We've asked ourselves that same question recently and found that we couldn't come up with one particular song that represented our band in a way that we could be fully satisfied with. We try to switch it up from song to song, and because of that we wanted to find a way to give someone a handful of songs without any obligation to purchase anything. We were able to set up a Pay With a Tweet program, which is promoted on our Tumblr (utkf.tumblr.com) and allows a potential listener to download a free 5 song package through a promotion of the deal on Twitter so that they can listen and make their own decision!

LINKS

Bandcamp: http://utkfofficial.bandcamp.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UTKFofficial

Twitter: https://twitter.com/UTKFOfficial