Twelve Foot Ninja

With bands like Periphery already singing their praises, Melbourne’s Twelve Foot Ninja are a band whose reputation is quickly growing. With debut album ‘Silent Machine’ about to hit stores, this respect is only set to continue. KYS recently caught up with frontman Kin to talk about music, the importance of proper grammar and Justin Bieber jazz fusion deathcore albums.

G’day mate, Kane from Killyourstereo. How’s it going? Thanks for doing the interview.

G'day Kane. No worries.

It’s an exciting time I can imagine in the Twelve Foot Ninja camp at the moment. The new album is about to drop. How’s the vibe in the band at the moment?

If I could sum it up in two words, very exciting.

You’ve thought of a quite novel and interesting way to usher in this album. With the weekly track installments and web comic. How has this gone? What’s the overall reaction been like so far?

We're absolutely stoked with the response so far. We received this awesome message recently, "...You've encouraged me to want to break the mould even more with my own band, and will be a constant source of inspiration for years to come. I cannot thank you enough." That sort of stuff is really great to hear.

And on the album itself, it’s your debut studio full-length. You’ve had some successful EP’s but to finally get a full-length prepared is really exciting. I know it’s a broad question but what can we expect from the finished product when listening to it in its entirety?

[I’d say you can expect] a more cohesive selection of songs, with more heavy goodness, and with some new stylistic departures thrown in for good measure.

On the topic of departures, because it’s a full-length and there’s double the content of an EP, did you try and branch out a bit and explore your sound more than what a condensed EP would allow?

We wanted to take our compositions to the next level for this one, so there was definitely exploration involved. I'd say the album as a whole has a much more organic vibe to it, in comparison to ‘New Dawn’ or ‘Smoke Bomb.’

Our focus this time around was the song-craft. We felt that we needed to make a leap from tracks without choruses, to songs with choruses. And I'll tell you what; a chorus makes a big difference to a song. Who would have guessed?!

How was the recent Dead Letter Circus run of shows?

Awesome. The shows went really well. We played to audiences who hadn't seen us before, and made some new connections, which is always good. It was a massively unashamed bromance. It was hard to say goodbye by the end of the tour.

I’ve noticed Periphery and in particular a number of the individual members, Matt Halpern, Misha Mansoor etc have spoken highly of you and linked a lot of your music on their social networking pages. How much does this support help?

Periphery are dead-set legends, and we're big fans. They have talked us up at any given opportunity, and we are eternally grateful. You can literally see the 'like' count on our Facebook page go up after they post something about us. So that support translates to new listeners…and new territories.

Obviously as a band you’re always setting goals to achieve. In 12 months time, where would you like Twelve Foot Ninja to be as a band?

I'd like Twelve Foot Ninja to be touring internationally in 12 months time…or, at least have scored some international tour supports for bands such as Periphery.

In your video for ‘Mother Sky’, I notice a bit of the parkour activity. Is this the type of stuff you like to get up to in your down time away from the band? Or it’s more purely for the purposes of the video?

We're fans of Parkour/Traceurs, but we're more your crochet-knitting, stamp-collecting kind-of band. So we had some professionals help us out with the stunts, and they did an awesome job. We thought it would be a nice touch that would compliment the Ninja vibe.

For sure. And, these are just some quick and easy ones to finish off with.

Favourite album(s) of 2012?

Meshuggah - 'Koloss'

BTBAM - 'The Parallax II: Future Sequence'

Monuments - 'Gnosis'

Cloudkicker – 'Fade'

[and]

Breaking Orbit - 'The Time Traveller'

Most disappointing album of 2012?

Justin Bieber – 'Believe.'

I mistakenly assumed that he would make a foray into Jazz-Fusion-Deathcore on this release. He didn't.

One album you wished you had performed on?

[Again] Justin Bieber - 'Believe.'

If I were involved, it would have been a Jazz-Fusion-Deathcore album.

AFL or NRL? And if so, what team?

VFL! Chelsea FC Inc. all the way.

And, any final words for the Killyourstereo readers?

That you're actually reading this, probably means that you know the difference between 'your' and 'you're', which is a massive achievement in this day and age. (laughs)

So, on behalf of Twelve Foot Ninja, I'd like to thank you for keeping the literacy dream alive. Read on! [Additionally] our debut album 'Silent Machine' is currently available for pre-order from our website. www.twelvefootninja.com

Thanks for the interview Kin, appreciate it. Take care mate.

Cheers.