Photo by Matt Owen (2024)
“There’s something in the water, you can’t deny it.”
Swimming in admiration, Stephen Ng, lead singer and backing guitarist, dives into the depths of musical inspirations. That very same Mersey water rose and poured down over the rehearsal rooms in which The Kowloons reside.
His brother and drummer Anthony goes on to say, “the richness of the history and culture that the city holds is massive, I think that’s why loads of great bands come from Liverpool.” Despite growing up in Southport, having scouse parents has made them partial to that Merseybeat which is ever so popular. From The Beatles in the sixties to The La’s thirty years down the line, these legends of yesterday are postered across the walls. The music video of ‘Can We Go Faster’ comes to life. Classic album covers to unforgettable logos, the red tongue of The Rolling Stones foreshadows this young band’s most popular track ‘Raining (It Don’t Stop)’. ‘I can’t get no’ is scrolled across a chorus that makes you want to leap and yell ‘satisfaction!’ Heavily influenced by The La’s unreleased “Kitchen Tapes”, the prodigies admire its “nursery rhyme” sound. “We were kind of envisioning the feeling of being a kid on a roundabout, spinning around. That’s what we wanted to encapsulate in this song” he continues with an animated grin that almost imitates the cast on his Sesame Street shirt. From films, to books, to songs, they pull inspiration from every aspect of reality. “You dissect it and think what’s made me feel that way and almost take that and put it into your own music.” This is a tradition The Kowloons continue to pass down, creating that feeling you just can’t describe.
It’s explained that the band’s emblem of a plum blossom is derived from the game Mahjong. Like dominoes slotting into place, The Kowloons have taken a gamble. Life in a band is a career path far from an automated society. A make-or-break moment waiting on the horizon is unknown, yet as naturally as flowers bend towards the sun, this band’s source of light is music. Nodding to Hong Kong and their father’s heritage, Ant translates the derivation of their intriguing title. “There’s an air of mysticism about it with The Kowloons. It’s not a normal word and most people haven’t heard of it. Curiosity peaks when they hear it”. The night Fontaines D.C. took Liverpool by storm, the quartet found themselves sat outside the Baltic. Ste recalled, “He [Ant] had a Kowloons top on and this American fella from New York came up to us and said ‘are you The Kowloons?’” Despite being a word surrounding unfamiliarity, they made it to Manhattan.
Casting their minds back to life’s most influential landmarks, the trio reminisced on the blueprints that started their soon to be sky-scraping careers. “Probably playing at the O2 with my dad,” bassist Bobby Griffiths states without uncertainty. History repeating itself, The Kowloons aren’t the first group to be founded by brothers. With the roof of his home replicating the lid of a music box, Griffiths spent his early years nurtured by the discography of his father and uncle’s band, The Real People. Recollecting their own upbringing, the Ng brothers dip into musical expeditions of the past. “For me there’s not one specific moment” Ant looks off into the empty space in the air, overviewing events from his adolescence, “when we picked up instruments, that was when music was the only thing we cared about… music was everything for us.” Ste adds, “we used to get home and just be in the attic. He’d have his drums, I’d be on guitar” a sense of nostalgia lingers on the tongue. “We’d have one song and play it twenty times and be dead tight with it for no reason. We didn’t have any gigs or anything we just did it for fun.” The art of perfecting a melody became a contributing factor within making their records. When it comes to this or that, live rooms takes the lead on live shows. Ste notes, “You do a gig, after that night it’s done, it’s in the past. You make a song in the studio, it’s infinite.” In camaraderie, Griffiths beams “it’s the process of getting every single mix sent back to you” before Ant concludes with “the magic of having a spark or an idea developing into a fully fleshed out song is really rewarding. We’re doing it for a pure reason, not for anyone’s validation.”
When they’re not in the recording studio, the four share their work with the rest. Touching on their gig at the O2 Academy Ste laughs through his words as he paints a picture of the lead-up to that big moment. “For The Kairos one we went and got a kebab and then we just stood there waiting to go on. We don’t really have a ritual.” Performing in front of 1,200 paired with takeaway food holds a level of comical nonchalance. Reflecting on Ste’s previous comment, Griffiths adds, “we just get on with it, that is our ritual.” Playing alongside notorious Liverpool artists from Ellis Murphy and The Kairos, to an up-and-coming show opening for The Real People in Hangar 34, Liverpool is a pot of gold when it comes to support. Sitting up in his chair, Griffiths moves his hands about, directing his point across to all “you get behind people and they’ll get behind you too. You give someone a favour and they’ll give you it back, it’s hard to find in other cities.” Inspired from “the first hook of their songs”, Keyside struck them like a match in The Arts Club back in the month of March. “That was the first time we’d seen them live. They sounded so good and the actual production, the lights and the show and the dragon at the back. We were blown away by the quality.” With Ant appreciating the performance, Ste observed their achievements from a lyricist’s perspective. “Something in the lyrics are so unique. Just a few little things where they’re not normal words or phrases and we think how’s he come up with that. When we look at Keyside it inspires us to do better, it’s a healthy competitiveness.”
If there’s one thing they hope people take away from their music it’s this – “bottom line is feeling good. We want someone to listen and think something in there whether it’s a lyric or the way it sounds is giving them a good feeling, or a bad feeling. As long as it’s a feeling. Something. An emotional reaction.” Arms extended to listeners, shared art is tied together in a bow of intimate intentions. Ste says candidly, “just playing a part in someone’s life. That would be good.” With new music on the cards, they plan to be appearing on the soundtrack of people’s hearts. “We’re sitting on quite a few songs” one of which being ‘Give Love’, set to be released on December 13th which has fans on the edge of their seats. Flicking through their musical archives he adds, “There’s two that we think will be our biggest tunes yet. They’re called ‘I Don’t Care’ and ‘Hey Mama.’ It’s kind of like The La’s but our version…we’re [channelling] and drawing from the same places… we’re getting a bit of magic from the source.” Ant strings along his brother’s quote, the two sentences and minds soldering together as one. “Everything is deliberate. Every little stop or beat, there’s a reason for it. It’s not by chance. It’s all calculated. We’re not tourists, were travellers.”
Stepping out from the underground world, the rain that so famously ‘don’t stop’ has now crystalised to snow, as pure as the passions of The Kowloons. Perhaps they’ll be the legends of tomorrow.
We Go Faster? – The Kowloons (Music Video)
