Ahead of their debut Download Festival performance we caught up with lead vocalist Jack Wilson to talk music, Download Festival and his craziest festival story.

Clunk Magazine’s Felix Bartlett chatted to Jack Wilson (vocals, guitars) of Kid Kapichi, ahead of their debut Download Festival to chat what their excited for, best festival grub and the tracks from their debt album ‘Here’s What You Could Have Won‘ their most pumped to perform!

Morning buddy, how’s the bank holiday treated you? 

I’m actually dying. We all got gym memberships the other day as we all used to go to gym loads and stuff. We were like “Let’s get gym memberships”, and I I went in way too hard I know I hear people like moaning about it, but like my chest is absolutely killing me.

So that’s that’s how I’m doing.

Well, it’s better than a hangover.

Exactly. 

But anyway moving on how have you chaps been? It seems you’ve been non stop touring since the release of your debut album ‘Here’s What You Could Have Won’ 

It’s been extremely busy, extremely busy, but like really enjoyable at the moment, everything seems to be flowing really nicely.

You just did Teddy Rock festival this weekend as well. How was that?

Yeah, that’s the first one of the of the festival season. It was kind of like a warm up, I guess. It’s the first time we played. I didn’t really know much about it. Quite a small festival, really nice. Lots of pyrotechnics! Apparently the guy who runs that festival also runs a pyrotechnic company, and that explains why they had so much.

Aha that’s brilliant! 

So, jumping straight in were here to chat about your debut performance at Download Festival! How does it feel to be heading there for the first time?

It is our first Download. There’s always 5 or 6 big festivals that you always want to take off the list and Download it definitely, definitely one of those. It’s one we’ve wanted to do for a long time.

As a band we kind of straddle the line between heavy music, and also kind of not so heavy music like we’re kind of that part Kerrang band, half NME sort of band, which is kind of intentional. When we run a lot of our albums and stuff, we try and make sure that we got some really heavy songs in there. But then we also try and make sure that we’ve got the opposite. 

So, Download’s gonna be cool, because we often get put on those festivals towards the more NME side of things. And so i’m super looking forward to it. We all love that sort of music ourselves. As a band we’ve got such a vast array of tastes in music. So this is going to be great seeing bands like Slipknot which is like a once in a lifetime sort of thing. So that’s very exciting. 

Have you been as a punter before yourself or is this your very first time at Download Festival?

This is my first time going. I don’t know about the rest of the guys. I think it might be our full first time for all 4 of us. Some of our crew have been before. In fact, most of them. They’re all kind of metal heads, so they’ve been, and they’ve said how amazing it is. So yeah, it’s our first time as a band in general.

You’re definitely in for a treat with this one then!

And so continuing on with Download I know you’re playing the Kerrang Avalanche Stage this year along the likes of  Coheed & Cambria and Bob Vylan who I know you’ve collaborated with before. 

Who else are you looking forward to checking out? Are you down for the whole weekend? 

We’re a bit frustrated because we’ve unfortunately got other things going on. So we’re gonna go for the Saturday and we’re going to stay for one night, but we think we might do Friday, Saturday, and then go home on the Saturday, so we’re gonna fit in whatever we can.

I like these festivals where you can just walk around with no expectations. I like to go to the smaller sort of stages, you know. It’s good to go to the main stage in the evening, but I like to just kind of wander around and see what we find, so that will be the aim of the game for that day, and especially if we get there the night before. Then we’ll make sure we all go exploring on that Friday. And then, yeah, it’d be great to see Bob Vylan as well. It’d be good good to see him again. That will be a good set for sure. 

Any headliners take your fancy? Or are you just keen to explore?

You know when football players do like the interviews and they go, “we just take it a game at a time”. We don’t look ahead. We just kind of go, and we do our thing. It’s kind of what it’s like. I barely look at anything other than knowing who the headlines are, and a few of my mates and stuff. We are just so focused on our own thing that you don’t really think about any of that other stuff that comes along with it. We’ll be focusing on our set. And then once that’s done, we’ll probably get the app out and start looking but until that point it’s just full Kapichi. 

Nice one. Now moving on to the music side of things. Obviously there will be fans both new and old at the festival. What tracks do you find really bring the house down during your live shows?

It seems to be different everywhere, you know. But I would say that for Download Festival we’ve got a track called ‘Smash the Gaff’ on our last album that we did, which is quite a metal tune. I guess metal. They (the band) probably would disagree. But to me it is quite a heavy hit, and I think that will be really good for Download. There are song like ‘Death Dips’, which are quite fast paced punky sort of change.

Then there’s also songs like ‘New England’ which I think speaks for how a lot of people feel right now in the UK. I’m sure that doesn’t matter whether you’re into Drum & Bass or Death Metal, you know there’s these same feelings. So I think that song speaks to people which is really good. 

So I think ‘New England’ will go off, ’Smash the Gaff’ and ‘Death Dips’. I would say those 3, if you’re gonna watch any songs come for those three.

Any plans to perform some new tracks or any surprises we can expect from your set? Bob Vylan collab perhaps? 

You’ll have to speak to him about that one. We’re on the same stage, but it’s up to him wether he wants to do that before his set or not. So if not, we’ll have a digital version of Bob Vylan on the backing track. But you know there’s always a chance. You never know, and there will be new music. Not at this festival, but soon for sure. Another couple of months or something, I think, and then we’ll be showcasing some new stuff. But it’s nearly done the new stuff, so yeah, not long. 

We’re kind of just biding in our time now, but we forget this is our first festival season since our last album came out. ‘Here’s What You Could Have Had’ came out in September. So it’s our first festival season playing that. So we’re just gonna go hard on that album on this festival season and play as much of it as we can.

Amazing! And do you see yourself coming back to Download Festival in future years to come? Could this be the start of something big at Donnington? 

I definitely hope so. I think it would be strange to not hope and want that, you know, like it’s happened at other festivals. We did Reading and Leeds, and we started off on the introducing stages, and then we went up to the bigger tents, and then, you know, maybe not long before, hopefully, we’ll be doing some main stage appearances. So I hope that’s the same with Download. We’re obviously a little late to the party but obviously it’s still going and growing. So, hopefully we can grow along with it. Which is like the most politician answer I could have given.  

Talking of stages do you prefer the bigger or smaller stages at festivals?

It’s hard to say, because we are yet to play a main stage at a massive festival. We’ve done main stages at those middle festivals and stuff. This this is going to be our first season of doing like main stages so you’ll have to ask me again in a few months. But I would say that at the moment, and from what I’ve heard from other people that doing that sort of mid-size tent is ideal and it always sounds great. 

The crowd also just seem to go crazy the more enclosed they are. There’s something about being in that space that just makes you go a bit more mental. And so I would say those those middle size tents are like where it’s at. But again, ask me in a in a couple of months or something, because I think once I get a taste of the main stages I probably won’t want to go back. 

Have you got any any advice for anyone coming to see your set? What can they expect? 

Get involved! Because you might tell yourself you’re not gonna but by the end of it you will, whether you like it or not, there’ll be a swarm of people around you (I imagine) doing that for you, so I would say, don’t take yourselves too seriously, we don’t. So come enjoy it. And have a good time. I have a good time, but don’t take yourself too seriously. 

Rounding things off what’s the best festival grub?

Oh, man, see that’s a really difficult one, really difficult one. But i’d say you can’t beat a hot dog. I love a hot dog. I’m probably being a bit biased because the last festival I went to I had a really good hot dog. But do you know what? Actually, I’m going to reverse that for a Burrito. It’s all in there, you don’t need a knife and fork. Sometimes they do roast dinner burritos which is pretty calorific. But I would say any anything wrapped for your convenience is good. 

Last question can you share the craziest thing you’ve seen or done at a festival? 

The most PG one I can think of is there was a naked pyramid of people at one of our shows which was quite funny. I can’t remember for life of me what festival it was at but there was a guy (I’ve forgotten his name) who started this naked pyramid of people during one of our sets, which was pretty amazing to see in the distance. It was almost like looking at the Pyramid at Glastonbury. But made up of naked people.

That’s bloody hilarious! 

Anything else on your end? Any recommendations on tracks to check out for first time listeners thinking of coming to see you? 

I would say, listen to the song ‘Smash The Gaff’, from our debut album ‘Here’s What You Could Have Won’. It’s the heaviest side of what we do, but it’s probably our most favourite style of music to play, because it’s just off the wall, and it’s a fan favourite live.

You can catch Kid Kapichi on the Saturday on Kerrang’s Avalanche Stage alongside headliners by Metallica (Thursday and Saturday night), Slipknot and Bring Me The Horizo at Download Festival taking place at Donington Park in Leicestershire from Thursday 8th to Sunday 11th June 2023.

Let us know what you think!