Feature image by @kathryneschauf
KidsTable is an indie-pop band based in Washington D.C. After starting as a cover band, they decided to try their hand at original music. They have now released five original songs with stuck-in-your-head indie tunes and thoughtful heart-tugging lyrics. Kids Table is Amy (vocals), Max (bass), Mike (guitar), Andy (drums), Bryan (keys), and Ryan (trumpet). WVAU had the pleasure of speaking with them before their first venue performance at The Songbyrd.
WVAU: Initially you started the band with four members, how did you guys meet and what led to the creation of starting the band?
Amy: We all went to University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, all graduated within like a few years of each other, and then had mutual friends in DC, specifically Max, connected me and Mike, and then Mike connected Andy to me and Max and we just kind of started playing music together and you know!
Andy: Originally I didn’t think I was going to play music, ever, again after i came here (D.C.) and then Mike booked a show and told them they had a drummer and I was like, you know we always have a drummer… if you don’t come then we’re screwed, so I came.
WVAU: Was coming upon the right people with the right passion part of starting the band or was it like, oh I want to start a band let me find those people?
Amy: It was kind of both!
Max: I would say we got very lucky and that it was more so, I have good friends who are also incredible musicians and I want to hang out with them and make music and oh wow it actually worked all together. More than, oh yeah, I know a guy who’s a great keyboard player, it was I know a great guy and he plays great keyboard.
WVAU: Your two newest members, how did you guys rope them into this, and what made you guys want to add new people?
Ryan: Uh, I asked over and over again.
Bryan: Yeah, I knew Mike from undergrad, so we kinda would jam sometimes, and then pretty much when I moved here, Mike kind of like … in 2023 …
Mike: The six of us have been playing together a lot longer than it was just the four of us, at this point, we don’t even think of it as this is the original, it feels like it’s always been us.
WVAU: So the band name, KidsTable, how did we get here?
Amy: Yeah, so initially when we started we were kind of just gonna be a cover band, so it took us a long time to figure out a band name and then a lot of our friends are notorious for keeping notes lists of good band names and so one of them was Kids Table. My friend Emma, who’s actually performing with us today, was showing me her list when we were trying to figure out our band name and I saw that one. I was like, that’s kind of fun and silly because we were just going to be very casual, like we’re not looking to do anything serious. We’re still not super serious, but now we just write our own music so it’s a little different.
Max: You should give the main reject one we had.
WVAU: What’s the main reject one?
Mike: We had a lot of bad ones
WVAU: How about the top two ones that didn’t make the cut?
Andy: He really wanted to be Slippery When Wet.
Mike: It was always a joke.
Amy: No it was not!
Andy: And I said, if we do that, we’re going to look like a Bon Jovi cover band. At best. And so we did not go with that.
Amy: We were just kind of spitballing for like a month.
Mike: We remember that one because it was especially bad.
WVAU: Starting as a cover band, that has its own challenges, part of which is picking music to cover. There’s always songs you just want to sing with your friends, and you guys are really good at picking the songs the crowd gets really into. What’s a song that you pick every time and you’re like, this one’s gonna be good? What helps you pick and choose those songs?
Max: I would say it’s a combination of two things. Originally, our theme was kind of bangers only, things we wanted to listen to. Early on, a little bit of it was ‘Can we all even play this’, and I’m mainly talking about myself. And then if it’s fun, like if somebody at practice starts a little riff of some song that they’ve been learning, and Amy picks up the vocals on it, then it’s like ‘Oh, even just the two of them sound great, let’s add that to the list.’
WVAU: Favorite cover song?
Max: Easy. “Mr. Blue Sky” one hundred percent.
Ryan: I’ll go “Valerie.”
Andy: I think my favorite is “Creep.”
Bryan: Yeah, I’m gonna go “Valerie” but I like almost all of them.
Mike: I like “I Will Survive.”
Amy: I like “Love on the Brain.”
WVAU: Spotify categorizes you guys as indie pop. I can’t say when I listened I only heard only indie pop; there’s a lot of jazz there. What bands do you guys pull from or why jazz?
Amy: At least so far, I feel like we’re honestly still figuring out our sound as well, so we say indie pop. We all listen to indie pop, and I am probably a pretty indie pop vocalist. But I think as we’re refining our originals and figuring things out, we’ll probably start leaning more in that direction. I don’t know if I have any particular artists that I like. Well, I guess now that we’re starting to release more ‘sad girl’ stuff, I like the Lizzy, the Phoebe, the boygenius kind of songwriting, or at least attempting.
WVAU: You guys have a cover song of ‘Rich Girl.’ Are you using the Lake Street Dive version?.
Amy: Yeah, for sure. I was going to say, on actually the opposite side of the inspiration coin. We definitely pull from the Sammy Rae and Lake Street Dive just because they have that jazzy influence.
WVAU: You have a new song coming out tonight. What was the process like releasing your first song? And from there, where do you think your band has grown to today releasing music?
Amy: The first song was ‘Fall.’ That was the first one we ever fleshed out fully. We had been doing covers for probably six months, and our first song was a song I had written a year or so before. I wasn’t a big songwriter ever because I did choir and acapella, where the songs are written for you. So I was like, ‘I don’t need to do that’ and then I stopped doing choir and acapella and I was like, ‘Well, gotta figure something else out’ so I started writing a couple things post-grad. Once we decided we wanted to try doing original stuff, I brought ‘Fall’ to the band as half of what it is now but just the verse and chorus. I just played it on acoustic and they were like, ‘Okay, we can work with it.’
Max: We did not say, ‘Okay,’ we said, ‘Holy shit.’
Ryan: For the trumpet part that came up, Amy came up with the song while I was at work. I was having a really stressful day, and the song made me feel so much better. Amy was like, ‘I need you to play trumpet to this song.’
Mike: Is that the song that you wrote the trumpet for? Like, in the studio?
Ryan: Yes. Yeah.
Amy: The fun thing about Ryan is that he never plays the same thing twice.
WVAU: Well, that kind of leads me into my next question. When you’re writing music, are you guys more lyrics than music, music than lyrics, or both at the same time?
Mike: I feel like typically Amy or Bryan comes forward with a really great set of chords. And if it’s Amy, probably some words. And then we just start there.
Amy: Hey, Bryan’s got words too. Don’t take them out.
WVAU: Your instruments, did you all come in like, ‘Oh, I’m really good at this instrument. I’ve always been good at it.’ Or did you find it when you were younger? What’s that vibe?
Andy: I was in chorus all my life. And I played a little bit of drums in high school. But I picked up the bass guitar during COVID and learned ‘Happy Birthday’ really badly. And then set it down until we started.
Amy: He learned for the band.
Andy: I learned the instrument in order to play with these guys, and it’s going pretty well.
WVAU: I would say it’s going pretty well.
Andy: I don’t think I’ll ever get all the way out. I don’t know. We’ll see. Most of the rest of everybody has been playing for at least college.
Bryan: Yeah, I met Mike in undergrad. I lived in Atlanta prior to this, but we went to undergrad together, so I got to see him play guitar for a few years. I got to
witness the progression, I should say I got the beginning, and I think it’s been pretty cool to see the progression.
Mike: The first day I had the first guitar I ever bought, that day I brought it to Bryan.
Amy: Oh wait, I don’t think I knew that.
Ryan: I don’t know if this is the first guitar you ever bought. Like in college you bought a guitar on my Amazon account; it might have been that.
Mike: It probably was.
WVAU: Your upcoming song tonight, can you give me a little meaning behind it? What does it mean to you guys? Or was it more like, ‘This is her song, we’re playing the drums and the instruments.’
Amy: Well, actually, it’s not even one of our songs. It’s my friend Emma, who I previously mentioned, who will be here tonight. She is a big songwriter and brought this song. Once we started doing originals, she brought the song to the band, being like, ‘Can you guys make this a full song?’ And it’s really cool because she’s one of my best friends ever, so getting to do a song that she wrote and made is really cool. But it’s more of a sad banger, I would say. It starts very sad, gets really loud and then gets sad again.
WVAU: I heard tonight is your first time doing a ‘performance for real,’ not in a bar. How does that feel? Are we nervous or are you kind of chilling?
Max: Speaking for myself, but probably for some of my bandmates, the nerves are going to hit the moment you step on the stage and you’re in front of the microphones. It starts and you realize that your instrument can make sound that everybody can hear and then we get halfway into the first song and it all kind of melts away, and you start seeing your friends and family and, weirdly, fans that we don’t know. That’s the craziest part, smiling and watching, and then it’s like who cares!
Amy: Also the lights blind us so we can’t see. That is the best part, by far.
Ryan: Also my own story with trumpet — I played in high school and that stopped, and then I brought it up here to play and immediately someone broke in my car and stole the trumpet, so I bought another trumpet.
WVAU: Any upcoming plans aside from tonight’s drop?
Max: We try to keep it to about a gig a month, and we basically have most of the year already fitting that timing. We’re starting to get more private events — there’s a few weddings that we’re in talks to play at, which is super cool. We still love to go back to to the bar and hang out with our friends. It’s just crazy fun.
Andy: If you want to see the actual dates for when we’re gonna be playing, please follow us!
Amy: Also we did submit a Tiny Desk, that’s on YouTube. It’s with all of our stuff but I feel like that deserves a shout out. That was a lot of fun!
WVAU: Thank you guys so much for meeting with me!
Kids Table: Thank you!
Make sure to check out Kids Table on spotify and listen to their new release “We Can’t Go Back In Time”.
Other places you can find them!
Instagram @Kidstabletheband
KidsTable NPR Tiny Desk submission is on Youtube. Tap here to check it out!