Chasing Kites are a Bristol-based indie rock band who, in recent months, have been gaining a lot traction. From radio play to festival slots to headlining tours of the UK, the whole project was the brainchild of singer-songwriter Matt Donnelly.

“I was self-taught,” Matt tells Post-Burnout, on how he became a musician and songwriter. “Yeah, I never actually had…I think I had one classical guitar lesson – like, had an acoustic guitar up here [Mimes playing the guitar with it strapped up towards his chest], like this – and I just hated it. Like, I didn’t get on with the teacher at all; I found the teacher really patronising. So, I had one lesson, I was like, ‘Well, that’s it. I’m not playing guitar ever again.’ And very soon after that, [I] sort of discovered that that wasn’t what guitar was all about, really. I mean from a very young age, I’ve always written words. I’ve always liked writing words and stories and poetry, and that sort of came before music, really. When they came together, that’s sort of where I found my passion for songwriting, really.

“But, yeah, completely self-taught. I wasn’t really aware of singing at all, or me singing, until about the age of 12 or 13, when I was in a music class at school, and everyone was made to stand up, one-by-one, and sing accompanied by a piano, which is obviously just traumatising for a 13-year-old boy in an all-boys school. Just the most embarrassing thing ever. But I did it and everyone was like, ‘You know, that was actually quite good,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, OK. Fair enough.’ So, I took a part in this play and never looked back, really. I sort of fell in love with it. Completely stumbled upon that. I had no intention of being a singer, no intention of being in a band, and just kind of fell into it, really.”

The idea for Chasing Kites started around six years ago when Matt moved to Bath to attend university. He explains, “I was in a band from the age of 12 to 19, when I went to university, the same band. And we did quite well, and things were going well. That’s why we took the year out, between school and university, to try and sort of give it an attempt to make something of ourselves. It didn’t quite come together. And that band was very sort of indie pop-influenced; relatively soft, commercial sounding. With this project, with Chasing Kites, I really wanted to sort of capture a more sort of raucous, aggressive sound, a straight-up indie rock kind of tone, which is sort of more in line with my influences; they’re sort of like Arctic Monkeys and The Strokes and bands of that ilk, really.”

Initially, Matt struggled to find artists to collaborate with and Chasing Kites began as a solo project. He says, “I kind of became a solo artist by default. Linked to that story I was telling you about going to university, I was hoping to find all these musicians and just couldn’t really find them, and I was like, ‘OK, cool. Well, I’ll do it by myself, and, yeah, produce in my bedroom and do it all myself,’ and it’s very lonely. I found it a very lonely existence. Kind of once I decided I wanted to do a musical project, I was only ever going to be in a band, I think. I think the solo project was probably just, yeah, out of desperation, really. I think in the back of my mind it was always supposed to be a band.”

He continues, “I came to Bath University sort of with this idea that I was going to be surrounded by hundreds of like-minded musicians and it would be really, really easy to start a band. That wasn’t actually really the case; I struggled for a long time to find musicians who fit the sound and eventually, through a number of line-up changes and things like that, and then the final line-up – we actually arrived at the final line-up only a couple of years ago – and that was actually down to a load of adverts, sort of ‘musicians wanted’ adverts, which was sort of like my last resort, a final attempt to find sort of a strong line-up. But, luckily, it fell into place just at the right time.”

With this consistent line-up now in place, Matt emphasises just how important the band are to creating the sound that he wants. He explains, “James [Hunt], our drummer; Liam [Hope], our guitarist; and Nathan [Price], our bassist, they each bring such an important element to the music. I’ll write the song behind closed doors, but that’s only one part of it, that’s sort of the bones of the song. The energy that we have on the record and when we play live comes from all the other elements. The energy isn’t there when I write the songs; it’s often quite sombre, quite sad. So, yeah, absolutely. I would be absolutely nowhere without them.”

But for someone who writes such personal and autobiographical lyrics, we asked Matt if he felt comfortable sharing these lyrics with his fellow members. “I do feel comfortable putting music out about myself. I couldn’t tell you why,” he says. “I think, possibly, when I first started releasing music, it was quite exposing, but also very exciting. I think, yeah, the fear probably does wear off every time you release a song. And, with regard to the other band members, I think they don’t tend to ask many questions. They’re completely welcome to, and I’d answer with complete honesty, but they don’t tend to ask many questions. I’ll bring a new song to the rehearsal room – and that’s how we work; I’ll sort of write the bare bones of the song, the sort of chords, melody, lyrics, behind closed doors on an acoustic guitar – and then either bring it to the rehearsal room or I’ll send it over to Liam, our lead guitarist, and that’s when the song comes to life, really, when Liam puts the guitar instrumentation over the top and, obviously, the drums come in and stuff. That’s what brings it to life. So, when we get to that point, I think rather than ask questions about lyrical content, it’s more sort of, like, ‘We’ve got a job to do here. We’ve got to turn this into a proper song, now.’ Yeah, I think if they do ask questions, that comes a lot later.”

In addition to the other members, another person responsible for the band’s sound is Sam Winfield, the music producer best known from his work with Bring Me the Horizon. “Sam is an absolute genius, I think,” says Matt. “It is always slightly hit-and-miss with a producer. They’re going to sort of inflict their own sort of taste and style on your music and, yeah, it is a bit hit-and-miss. Whereas Sam understands us completely; he completely understands what we’re trying to go for, this sort of raucous, loud guitar band, but also, we’re really trying to stay sort of commercial and radio-friendly and things like that – which I think is a perfect recipe for us, really – and Sam completely gets that. I think through skill, he’s just an absolute genius. I mean, like, I am a very, very basic producer. I know very, very little about that kind of thing. I produced demos – really low-level demos, when they started as a solo project – but I really know nothing. I’m completely out of my depth when we get in the studio. But just, yeah, absolute genius. We owe a lot to Sam.”

For now, the band plan on releasing more singles and performing live throughout the year to continue their momentum. Matt hints that if the band were to record a full-length album or even an EP, he would like to make it conceptual, stating that his favourite projects are usually concerned with telling a narrative.

You can keep up to date with Chasing Kites on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok. You can hear our full interview with Matt, where we go into further depth about the topics discussed, as well as his thoughts on storytelling and grander musical concepts in the era of bitesize attention spans, songwriting, how TikTok influences musicians of today, further plans, performing live and more on today’s episode of POSTBURNOUT.COM Interviews…, premiering today on YouTube at 17:00 (IST) and available elsewhere afterwards.

Aaron Kavanagh

Aaron Kavanagh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Post-Burnout. His writing can also be found in the Irish Daily Star, Buzz.ie, Totally Dublin, The GOO, Headstuff, New Noise Magazine, XS Noize, DSCVRD and more.