Sirens With Sharp Teeth: HPR Exclusive Interview With Kamilla

Fargo metal band Kamilla is hosting a release party for their second CD “Beneath the Roots” Friday, November 13, at Ricks Bar in Fargo. An appropriate day, considering Kamilla chose their name from a book about vampires and this mostly chick band rocks like goth girl Amy Lee on speed.

Kamilla’s three founding members—Aubrey Kurtz, lead guitar; Christina Sabot, bass; and Jennifer Rathert Hughes, keyboards—started out in the band Liquid Confidence in 2000. They played around Fargo opening for bigger bands, but like everything else, all good things must come to an end. Their drummer went off to college and the band decided to call it quits.

Luckily, in 2006 the three women got back together for a jam session. The spark was still there and they had a desire to keep going so they decided to start up again. Kamilla was born. They moved Jen to keyboards, hired Sarah Braaten as lead vocalist and brought in their first drummer, Patio. About seven months ago Kamilla replaced Patio with Johnny Holland, another guy drummer. Patio replaced Johnny in the band Mata Hari 18 years ago so in a way, things came full circle.

Why a male drummer in a primarily female band? “It balances us out,” Kurtz said. “We have a strong rhythm section and it’s kind of a core piece of what we are, that strong metal background just drumming away back there.”

Every band has to start somewhere and it isn’t unheard of for a band from the Midwest to make it big; Slipknot came from Des Moines, the BoDeans from Waukesha. What’s it like starting out in Fargo? Kurtz and Holland agree that Fargo is a good place to be.

According to Kurtz, “We would like to get out of town more often. But our families are here, which is important. If we get signed we’ll take off but I think we can do anything we want to from here and still get a tour here and there. We can accomplish our goals here. I think if we went to L.A. we would probably sound like them where we have an originality coming from here. We aren’t the same run of the mill band.”

“The market has changed so much for bands. You no longer have to be in L.A. or New York. The chances of getting huge are minimal regardless of what you do so why go starve in L.A. (with all the other starving musicians) when we can do the same thing here and not hate our lives in the process?” Holland added.

Kamilla established themselves in Fargo by playing local clubs like Rick’s and the Monkey Bar. They also play Bismarck and Minot. However, having proven themselves by releasing two CDs, they are ready to go out and tour farther away in support of “Broken Roots.” The Internet is working in Kamilla’s favor by allowing them to reach fans in Japan, England and California. “Now we need some promotion to get the word out here but who would have thought we would sell our CD in England and California. The Internet is very cool and has helped us a lot,” Kurtz said.

Kamilla puts on one heck of a show. All you have to do to is check out their video for ‘Nothing’s Left’ at http://www.myspace.com/kamillagirls. And with songs like Ignorant, Under My Skin and Live or Die, their fans can relate to the lyrics, whether listening to their CDs or checking them out live.

“I just sit back there and enjoy the view,” Holland said. “They’re very aggressive players and they’ve got great stage presence. The crowd goes nuts.”

When the band started, they played covers, but now that they have so much of their own material the tables have turned. “We have two or three covers that we’re doing at our next show,” Kurtz said, “but it’s awesome to have so much of our own material that we play all of our own stuff. We have more passion because it’s all music we wrote.”

“I like people to identify with our songs and come up to me at the end of the night and say, ‘I loved Dead Leaves’ or ‘That was an awesome song that you just did, was that a cover?’ And we’re like, ‘Nope, it was an original.’ It’s very rewarding to see people enjoying and relating to your songs. It’s an awesome opportunity to share things through music. We have the faces that you see wherever we play and it’s fantastic. When we play Minot they treat us like we’re rock stars. We’re like, ‘Do they know we’re from Fargo?’ These people like us and keep us going…we’re on our second CD because people like it.”

Holland elaborated, “When they first called me to audition, one of the things that appealed to me about the band was that they write such really fricking great songs. Everyone that hears them, the music just hits you and this new album is fantastic. I’m proud to be a part of it. There’s nothing cooler than seeing people react to your music. Whether it’s very heavy or poignant people react to it.”

“Whatever happens…we’re having the time of our lives right now doing what we want to do,” Kurtz added. “If we get signed, awesome. If we don’t, we’re still doing what we want to do. Of course we’re going to have goals. We want to make another CD at some point because we love to write. I would like to get out of town and show everybody else what we’ve accomplished.”

And what should we call Kamilla’s music? “That’s tough,” Kurtz said, “because it’s a couple of genres…rock, hard rock and maybe even a little Goth metal. It’s so hard to categorize bands these days. Green Day was a rock choice for an award for MTV Video and we’re like what? That’s not rock, that’s more like alternative.”

“Just make sure that people know that we’re not country,” Holland asked.

No, these five Fargo rockers are definitely not country… they are metal through and through and Fargo better be ready for an explosion when they hit the stage. North Dakota might never be the same.

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INFO:

What: Kamilla, CD Release Show “Beneath the Roots”
Where: Rick’s Bar
When: Fri & Sat, Nov 13-14, 9 p.m.
How much: $5, 21+ID