The Knews
Cullen Kiesanowski is a memorable person. We met in a busy Ōtautahi café on a Sunday afternoon. Cullen was warm and friendly. I’d told him that I had to delay our interview by a few hours because of food poisoning from some dodgy leftovers I’d had the night before. In fact, I was suffering from a heinous hangover. I was sure he saw right through me. However, he was more than accommodating when I asked to delay the interview, and when we met up one of the first things he did was ask how I was feeling. His friendliness and honesty carried through our whole conversation.
I first heard of Cullen when The Knews opened for Molly Payton at Wunderbar in Ōhinehou (Lyttleton) in March of 2021. Cullen’s curls, trimmed on the top and left longer on the back, sit up on his head in a mullet-esque mane. Their energy on stage was high. The songs were good. A couple of them stuck out to me, especially ‘I Don’t Like You’, The Knews’ debut single. It’s a catchy, guitar-driven indie track about jealousy and overthinking things.
“I don’t think of myself as a jealous person, but I definitely am sometimes and it sucks. A whole lot of the time it’s unwarranted. It’s just you overthinking shit and then acting on it and making a dick of yourself. I guess I was kinda channeling that into a song.” The jealousy definitely does come across in the track. There’s an angst in the notably literal lyrics that can be related to experiences that everyone has. When you listen to ‘I Don’t Like You’ for the first time it’s easy to feel what Cullen felt writing it.
“I love listening to music where you can go ‘oh man, I know exactly what you mean. I can put myself in their shoes.’ There definitely are some songs that get me. White Ferrari is one of those. That song gets me quite emotional every time I hear it.” He says. “I reckon listening to other music is really important to my creative process. Every time I listen to music I get inspired to write my own music. A lot of people listen to music while doing something but I can’t really do that because every time I do I want to go and write. I also watch heaps of movies. That brings out emotions, if I get all emotional from a movie that inspires me to write. I’ve been listening to a lot of beabadoobee. She’s got a very grungy cool vibe and is a great storyteller. Listened to some of the Current Joys stuff, real cool lo-fi vibe. I like their jangly guitars. Both of Snail Mail’s two albums are great. Listening is important. You can take ideas and make them your own.”
Until 2020 Cullen was in Ōtautahi band Nomad. “It was a classic high school band story.” Cullen recalls. “We were put together in about year 11 to do Rockquest and ended up getting a manager in high school. We released ‘Oh My My’ and that went really well.”
Really well is an understatement. ‘Oh My My’ made it to #2 on the Top 20 NZ Singles Chart and received plenty of mainstream radio play. If you think you haven’t heard any of Nomad’s songs then go and have a listen, you probably have. The success led to extensive New Zealand touring as well as a few trips overseas. “We went to Germany and London once and Australia one time to record. We opened for Sunrise Avenue in Germany, who we hadn’t heard of, in front of like 13,000 people in this small wee town. A bunch of people came from other small towns around it. People came up to us and we kinda felt like celebrities in this little German town for a day.”
“The last couple of years we weren’t really up to much and we were growing our tastes. We didn’t have a harsh breakup or anything. It was nice to be able to sit back and say ‘that was a great ride but we are ready to do our own stuff.’”
“The music was a poppier vibe and near the end of it we wanted to get away from that. We were somewhere in the middle of pop and indie music. We also had to compromise on stuff sometimes, not so much the music but things like artwork. I guess now with The Knews I have complete say and a clear path I want to go on. It’s more of a solo project. There’s a band when we play live but I write and record everything.”
The Knews has been around for over a year. “It’d been a long time coming. During Nomad I would write songs and they just wouldn’t feel right for Nomad, and sometimes that would suck but it was also exciting because I was like ‘Oh, I get to start my own project.’ It’s definitely a solo project, but I play live with a band. Up until now it’s been lots of gigging and writing. The first gig was in August last year. We’ve probably done 5 or 6 gigs. It’s only really gonna start now. I’d love to play some festivals.”
Cullen has recorded an EP with Will McGillivray, also formerly of Nomad. “He’s done a great job in his wee home studio.” Says Cullen. “We sort of just sat down and did it song by song. We would go in and work on a song for a day and then end up sitting and chatting for a day. We started on mostly just doing guitars and bass. I played everything except the drums, which were done by Matt Andrew, who drums in the live band. It was so good. Will and I have been mates for so long so it’s nice to be comfortable with someone in a creative environment. If you give an idea that’s not good then that’s ok, we try everything out and figure out what works. It’s cool that we felt comfortable to try all of our ideas because a lot of them worked out well.
It probably took us six months to finish it in the end. I had nothing released so there was no rush, we made sure everything was just how we wanted it. I wanted to get everything ready together and release it all at the same time.”
As Cullen and I are talking, someone comes up to our table. They’ve recognised Cullen. They chat with each other for a while. He’s as friendly as ever. Quietly, I’m stoked that my hungover brain has a minute to rest.
“Do you get that much?” I ask. “I suppose you would’ve had it a few times over the years.”
“Yeah, I get it every now and then in cafés and bars.” He replies. “Sometimes after a set too. I love it when people come and talk to me about the music after gigs. Obviously you want to hear that people enjoy it. I think it’s really cool that I’ve had it with The Knews a couple times even though we’ve only played a few gigs. I guess from here the plan is to release the rest of the EP. Around then I’ll do a tour. Auckland, Welly, Christchurch, maybe Dunedin?”
Cullen is easy to talk to. We talk about the perks of all of the different venues in Christchurch and Dunedin. We talk about the recently shut-down Starters Bar and the importance of venues to a city’s music scene. He’s someone who obviously really loves everything around music. Eventually, we wrapped up our chat. A few days later, when we met up again to take photos, I came clean about the hangover thing. I was right, he saw right through me.
To find more of Cullen and The Knews go to:
Instagram: @theknewsmusic
Spotify: The Knews
