The Unlikely Candidates Concert & Interview From Meow Wolf

It’s always a fun night when our pals The Unlikely Candidates come to town. We have been friends for a long time and, yes, I have interviewed them before. So, when they played Denver’s new-ish Meow Wolf, it was great to have a chance to catch up with Kyle (lead singer and band member most often breaking his ankles) again. Of course their show is always insane, which is why I think I have seen them more times than any other band at this point. But TUC + Meow Wolf is next level. Photos are below the interview, and here are the dates they are hitting their upcoming fall tour. Plus definitely check out their first full-length album, Panther Island.

Interview With Kyle Morris of The Unlikely Candidates

Aimee:
So, this is the first time you are here with the Panther Island album. I assume you’re playing new songs?

Kyle:
Yeah. We’re playing five new songs. I don’t know how new they are to people that have seen us last year, but we’re playing five songs off the new album, not counting “High Low” and “Novocaine.”

Aimee:
Right. So, what is the plan after this run?

Kyle:
We have a fall tour coming too.

Aimee:
How many more times are you going to play Denver this year?

Kyle:
At least nine. (That’s sarcasm since they play Colorado so often.)

Aimee:
Of course.

Kyle:
I mean, that’s what we used to do, pretty much. We used to play here like six times a year and never complained a bit because we love it here.

Aimee:
Nobody here complained either. OK, so, tell me about the new album.

Kyle:
It’s great. Panther Island. We just put it out. We had time during the pandemic to really kind of explore all these different styles and sounds. We’ve never been able to write any B-sides before because with all the EPs, you’re leading with your best foot, every song. Like big, big, big songs. This time we actually had a little bit of time to try new things and stuff that we wouldn’t normally have done, so we have a really diverse, interesting album with sounds as far ranging as disco-esque to grunge.

Aimee:
It’s funny because I actually looked it up. The last time I interviewed you, were hoping to get a full-length album.

Kyle:
Oh man. I’ve been hoping for a long time. We always tell everyone. We’ve told fans forever. We’re like, next year’s the year. Nine years later. But COVID kind of… It finally gave us a chance. That’s the only good thing that happened. Because, COVID really devastated this whole band. We’ve been working our entire career for that breakthrough single. So, we were about to have the biggest year we’ve ever had in our career and then two weeks into having a number one single, the world shut down. We really weren’t back until two years later. And by then things cooled off.

Aimee:
But you guys really took advantage of being online and getting connected to your fans during pandemic.

Kyle:
True. That was amazing. That was another unexpected benefit of the pandemic because we did these “Flatten the Hump Day” streaming shows every Wednesday.

Aimee:
I literally had it on my calendar.

Kyle:
A lot of people really enjoyed it because no one else had anything going on and we really became way more of a family with the fans because we started to see people that we knew more and more and the same people would come in every week, and we just got really close.

For example, when the world started opening up, we played Chicago, this outdoor venue or whatever. It was one of those drive-ins. This lady came up and she’s like, “I’ve been watching your Flatten the Hump Days,” and she just started bawling. I was like, “Oh, there, there. I can’t tell if you’re happy or sad. I guess it’s a combination of both. It’s trying times.”

Aimee:
It was and still is. But then, okay, so did “Novocaine” hit before COVID or after COVID?

Kyle:
Literally two weeks before shutdown, we hit number one. Two weeks later, the country shuts down.

Aimee:
Oh man, but then it kept rolling. Right?

Kyle:
It kept going, but people weren’t really in their cars. It was a radio hit and radio got just brutalized during the pandemic.

Aimee:
Yeah. Decimated.

Kyle:
Yeah. They almost, I think, they laid off a third of all the people in radio. It was really sad. A lot of people that we were very close to aren’t on Alt stations anymore and everything kind of got downsized. Just really sad. So Alt radio definitely changed and kind of the course of our band has now changed forever because radio was a big part of what our overall picture was for success in getting our music out.

Aimee:
But on the flip side, I feel like one of the things that is, I guess, a benefit for you is that you are road hogs and that you’re willing to go crazy on the touring. So, talk a little bit about what that means to you, being able to get back out there.

Kyle:
In 2019, we played over 200 shows. We were relentless! So, during the pandemic it was bizarre. It was like vertigo. We went from everything to nothing. And now after things started to open up again, we are back on the road and it’s just so cathartic to start playing shows after that long, it was really emotional. I feel like the fans were emotional. We were emotional. It was like, I don’t know, felt like we’d all overcome something for sure.

Aimee:
I agree with that, as somebody coming back to it myself, it’s…

Kyle:
Yeah, because you’re tied into music as much as we are, so it’s like, yeah. You saw that in real time.

Aimee:
Definitely, and it’s still, even like tonight. Every single time I see somebody after COVID, it’s like the “before times” and the “after times.”

Kyle:
It really is. It’s bizarre. But it also feels like it never happened, sometimes. Like a gap in time.

Aimee:
Right? Okay. So, what’s next for you guys? What are you looking forward to?

Kyle:
We’ve got, “How I Am.” That’s the next single is coming out. We got a video for that. We’re trying to get over to overseas. We played a show in France and after that…

Aimee:
Yeah, tell me about that. I saw you guys in berets. What the hell was that?

Kyle:
Yeah, it was the strangest thing. During the pandemic, there was this company called Vast and it is like a streaming/VIP membership company. We did a couple streaming things with them and they hit us up two weeks before the France trip, or like a week. He’s like, “Hey, can you learn ‘Space Oddity’ by David Bowie and be in France in a week?” And we’re like, “Yes. Yes, we can.”

Aimee:
Of course. As one does.

Kyle:
It was amazing. So, we went there and filmed a whole video around Space Oddity and we were with models and we’re wearing fancy French clothing that stylists had brought in. We sang on this bridge in front of the Louvre. There is this big moment for the video and we had 250 people singing with us from this band, Rockin’ 1000. They are a thousand-person band that plays huge venues… Like, they’re playing the Stade de France, which is like, I think it’s like 80,000 capacity. So it’s crazy, just out of nowhere…

Aimee:
Where can we see this video?

Kyle:
We’re working on it right now. We re-recorded “Space Oddity” to get some nice, cleaner vocals on there. And yeah, these little videos of us, with our fancy French clothing, will be out very soon.

Aimee:
Okay, so anything else that you need to mention?

Kyle:
Panther Island. Go stream it.

Aimee:
Panther Island. Got it. Hey Brent, do you have anything to add to that? [Brent Carney, guitarist, is dosing nearby]

Brent:
[inaudible]

Kyle:
He says, “Go stream Panther Island.”

The Unlikely Candidates – Meow Wolf Concert Photos

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Check out my other interviews!