The day before he hit the stage at Long Beach Warped Tour, KennyHoopla and his band rehearsed… for the first time. They’d simply been coming together “on the fly” — though when we stepped into their rehearsal space that Friday, you wouldn’t have guessed it. Surely, they’re seasoned and talented musicians, but there’s also something about Kenny’s music that embraces rawness, and moves with nothing but instinct and heart. His forthcoming EP, conditions of an orphan//, embodies this, and last week we got our first taste.
“[This album] is the closest to Kenny that I’ve gotten,” he says. It’s a bold statement, and a poignant one coming from the young artist, who has released four previous EPs, each one a sonic shift from the last. New wave, pop punk, shoegaze, he’s run the gamut. And he’s more or less nailed it every time — a result of his talent, and of his pure gumption, two factors that are more present than ever before on the new project.
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The first single, which arrived last week, “orphan//,” doesn’t waste time in letting listeners know where Kenny is going — sonically, and sentimentally. Produced by Paramore’s Zac Farro, the track is a brocade of early aughts indie rock, Kenny’s distinctive, strong voice wrapping around references like Bloc Party, Two Door Cinema Club, and Foals. Lyrically, Kenny lays his feelings out, frankly, with an air of maturity that can only come from lived experience — and being an active participant in one’s own creative growth. The track holds shiny sonics in one hand, and pain in its other — unraveling the artist’s experience with unbelievable loss, to the tune of nostalgia.
“In the winter, I was just trying to make a lot of songs and let them flow out of me. It just started, basically, because my mom passed three years ago, and then someone that’s super close to me, her mom passed. It’s like we were trying to build each other up, or I wanted to make her stronger and help, but there’s no right way to grieve. It just felt like I was an orphan,” Kenny tells AP. “Then it also felt like I was an orphan as an artist. I’d left my label, and had no team at that moment… It felt like I really had no one in my corner, and I was just starting from the ground up.”
Like his work, Kenny has a penchant for organically, and so casually, dropping immense nuggets of wisdom. “It’s OK to have no one in your corner,” he explains. “That’s what it is. And that’s what it costs to build something yourself. Adversity means getting to know yourself. I think that’s a blessing. [This project] came from the concept of being an orphan like that.”
The world of conditions of an orphan// isn’t just literal, Kenny is saying. It is also conceptual — and this is a gift he gives to listeners. However hyperpersonal his experience, we can all relate to loneliness and loss. And in turn, we can all feel hope and resilience on the other side.
Before streaming took over, liner notes were where you found the story behind the music. In this episode, KennyHoopla invites us into his rehearsal space for an intimate acoustic performance of “orphan//” and opens up to Alternative Press about his brand new EP, conditions of an orphan//, which arrives Sept. 19 via The Orchard. Watch Kenny and his band get into it — below.