Micky James and Mango of The Karma Killers. Photo Credit: Tara Dettman
New York rockers The Karma Killers are building up their name on this summer’s Vans Warped Tour and are slowly gaining a fan base along the way. Fans are getting a taste of their music off of their debut EP Strange Therapy, out now via Island Records.
Band frontman Micky James talked about how the band got their name and their music out publicly, and the early struggled made them a better band as time went on.
“Maybe the first two years of the band we did the Do It Yourself thing in New York City. Through that time period we were writing an insane amount of songs and wanting to get better as a band. Our producers (Shep Goodman and Aaron Accetta) got wind of a song that we put out a couple of years ago. He wanted to cut a production deal with us for an ep, and from there it was setting us up to hopefully get us some label attention, which it did and it took off from there.”
James shared his love of the Big Apple’s musical history but also talked about their musical scene’s recent struggles for musical acts to get discovered.
“I love New York City bands. I’m a big Strokes fan. I don’t think there’s too much diversity in New York. It’s becoming very stale. It’s like the one trick pony everywhere. Everybody’s looking the same and writing the same songs and playing the same music. I think that’s what it is. It’s all about writing good songs.”
“Actually there’s a lot of bands that, not intentionally put boundaries on what they allow to influence them,” added bassist Mango. “That knocks them into a corner that they can’t get out of, if you try so hard to fit into a scene. For us, we just see it as a big picture. There’s a whole world of music. It all means something to us, no matter what kind of music it is. That becomes a bit of a melting pot. It gives us a bit of originality to our sound.”