KaiserKillers don’t give a damn about looking cool. The Colchester trio—Johnny Zero on vocals and guitar, Cristi MacSeain on bass, and Stix McIntosh on drums—are too busy having a blast making a racket. They call their sound “PowerPopPunk,” and their new single “5000 Miles (26 mix)” is exactly that: a high-octane, riff-heavy blast of pure, unadulterated fun. This isn’t a band trying to save the world. They’re just making music for the love of it, and that reckless energy pours out of the speakers.
The backstory of how these three got together is almost as good as the music. Cristi accidentally stumbled into the band while he was trying to buy a second-hand motorbike. Johnny had to pull his Les Paul out of the cupboard after a detour into drawing with felt pens. Stix, meanwhile, hung up his cape after a stint as an international cat burglar. It sounds like the setup for a ridiculous comedy, but the chemistry is undeniable. They’re not chasing trends. They’re just throwing a party, and everyone’s invited.
The song is a proper road-trip anthem. It’s about a massive trek across the USA, loosely following Route 66, from the East Coast to the West. The band hits a sell-out gig at every single stop, but the higher they climb, the worse it gets for the poor guy at the centre of the story. He’s drifting further away from his girl back in England, and the distance is tearing him apart. It’s a love story told through miles and miles of open highway, where the cheers of the crowd don’t drown out the silence of missing someone. The frantic layering of the vocals captures that desperate, scattered feeling perfectly.
They’re never going to get rich doing this. The release costs more than they’ll ever make back, and they know it. But they don’t care. They’re doing it for the sheer hell of it, and that’s the most rock ‘n’ roll thing about them. KaiserKillers have delivered a track that’s built for windows-down, volume-up driving. “5000 Miles (26 mix)” is out. Turn it up, let the guitars fly, and enjoy the ride.