Next Wave #882: King Nun

In Association With Vero True Social

Clash is sat with King Nun frontman Theo Polyzoides when he looks us straight in the eye: “We are four people who wanted nothing more in our lives than to show off. And more specifically, show off something that we felt we had to say”.

Having gained the seal of approval from Dirty Hit, King Nun are on a roll, rattling up the indie scene with their ferocious energy and new take on punk rock. When forming the band it seems like the stars aligned in peculiar ways for the London boys.

Theo continues: “I was such a loser in secondary school. I remember my teacher sort of told one of the other kids to sit next to me in assembly. That guy ended up being James who plays guitar in the band now. Then us to just went searching for someone we could form a band with. We found Nathan and Caius through mutual friends, and thank goodness for that.”

The quartet recently released their debut EP, 'I Have Love'. And taking on the eternal subject of love the group have gone deep, though seemingly coming out stronger at the other end.

“'I Have Love' started with this wonderful breakup that I had. It was really fantastic. I mean it put me into a really dark place, but it was so admirable,” Polyzoides tells. “I remember we were in the studio and it came about time to do an EP as a sort of natural progression of the group. It was just like – we had do love songs cause that’s all I could think about. I know, because it’s our group, that they’re not gonna be regular love songs. They’re gonna be kind of Brothers Grimm kind of fairy-tale, weird, twisted, sort of depressing but cathartic love songs.”

Their visceral and twisted take on romance gained the group more than just new tunes. Theo opens up that working on the EP also led to a few interesting insights into the current state of punk music. “I suddenly realised that – because the world is so fucked, punk music has done this weird thing where it’s become escapism in a way that it hasn’t been before. It’s become an outlet for fucking helping people’s spirit, which is super interesting”, Polyzoides ponders. “Now it’s like hippie-punk, and I love it.”

Though King Nun definitely have some punk roots – “we all had a pretty unhealthy obsession with the 70’s New York and CBGB’s scene” – they are weary of being pigeonholed. Their genre-bending bangers draws on a much wider scope of musical inspirations, a mixture that deftly avoids the clichés.

“I would’ve been stupid if I said that we weren’t a rock band,” Polyzoides laughs. “I’m well aware what we sound like, we’re like a power-chordy rock band. But outside of that, something that I find super interesting is what makes a rock song a rock song minus the clichés. Or if there are clichés, we are pushing them to such extents that it couldn’t not be on purpose. What we’re about is to do what we do, comfortably, with denying the conventions that that would usually serve.”

Having just finished their first headline tour, we can’t wait to see what’s next for King Nun, until then, Theo has one last message: “To the people who are looking at this, if you’re with us – stay with us. If you’re not with us – give it a go… 'cause why not?”

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Words: Aurora Henni Krogh

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