First Published Nov/Dec 2024 Issue 18
Words: Jonny Hayes. Images EV Zhang
Kid Bookie has been going to war over the festival season, decked out in tactical black military gear. A self-described “underdog with extreme backing,” he’s expanded his fan base through collaborations with Corey Taylor of Slipknot, Oxymorrons, and Wheatus, as well as touring with I Prevail. Plainly stated, Kid Bookie has turned a musical corner. Ninety degrees later, ASBO meets Kid Bookie on a smoke break, and it’s a good point to check in with him as he’s in a philosophical mood.
“Practicing thought… We all think – but what are you thinking? I think it’s very important that when we sit with our thoughts, we’re conscious enough to understand where they are coming from. Why are you having them?… I’m like, what am I thinking?”
He muses, “That’s big for me; I’m always practicing thought. I take that into everything I do.”
“I’M VERY INTENSE BUT THAT’S BECAUSE I FEEL SO MUCH. I AM VERY AWARE BECAUSE MY BRAIN’S WIRED THAT WAY.”
in for an emotionally charged ride.
Close your eyes and strap in because it’s a roller coaster rather than a railroad. “A lot of this album is about feeling inadequate,” admits Bookie. “There are different facets and layers of that inadequacy, and it covers most of my inadequate parts, whether that’s my art or feeling inadequate in terms of love.”
Bookie bends the listener’s ear back to nostalgic pop-punk sounds with “Love Drunk,” echoing the energy of his live performance with Wheatus at Download for their version of “Teenage Dirtbag.” Often explosive and hard to contain, there’s not really an easy way to pigeonhole Kid Bookie, as he’s more than the sum of the individual parts he’s picked up through life
Decked out in a black denim jacket provided by @moondrix, with shiny leather pants and shiny boots, the six-foot-plus Bookie leaves an impression physically and mentally as he goes through unfiltered take after unfiltered take on the world he inhabits. Kid Bookie has just finished a new album: Songs for the Living//Songs for the Dead, which features some heavy hits. Listening through the tracks, it is the most diverse album yet from the South London native, yet it’s all recognizably Bookie. From the opener “AI (Save Yourself),” the lyrics muse on possible futures with an autotuned hook that elevates the listener with its James Bond supervillain energy. The next cut, “Purgatory,” plunges the listener into a more tender and self-reflective note. Kid Bookie is letting the listener know from the outset that they are in for an .
Now he’s raining eclectic influences down on his tunes and creating a dedicated following for his authentic music and shows as he progresses. For a flavour of his influences, think of the flows of Rap God Eminem to the energy of Run DMC, occasionally flirting around the genres of pop-punk and the exposed nerves of emo and more. It is all a musical melting pot to Kid Bookie.
“It’s all part of the same mothership; there are completely different sectors in the ship… but it’s all in the same ship, so it’s still in the same house, but it’s just broadened views all the time.” “I’ve never thought, should I make pop today? I just make music. I still don’t even know how some songs are popular that have like 60 million plays; that’s nuts.” It’s a refreshingly grounded take, but it just shows that these songs come from the heart rather than being carefully crafted sonic marketing exercises.
There’s a rawness to Kid Bookie’s output that tells the story of the creative journey to get to this point, shedding limits—be that ones imposed by others on musical ambitions or self-imposed imposter syndrome. Kid Bookie has come a long way from the grime mixtapes that gained him notoriety, and he has expanded into a sound and image that’s uniquely his own.
Then there are the shiny leather pants—not everyone can pull them off, and we have to ask what inspired them. “It’s weird; I have never really felt like a fashionable dude. I don’t really wake up and feel like ‘I am a style God!’ You know what I’m saying? I just don’t… I like tactical dark military shit. I feel like that is what I orchestrate my whole band to do; when we are on stage, everyone looks like they are about to go to war… It is my favourite type of shit, but I also like leathery. I’m a boots dude, and I like flared stuff. I’m kind of daring, but I don’t always get the chance to express it. I’ve never had muses for what inspired me for fashion.
“ONCE I STOPPED GIVING A FUCK… IT WASN’T ABOUT SUBCULTURES, CULTURES, OR PEOPLE; IT WAS MORE LIKE, I’M FEELING SEXY TODAY AND I DON’T GIVE A FUCK.”
With the authentic fusion of fashion and cultures, how did Kid Bookie come to be? He grew up in South London, and his father was a significant musical influence. “The Nirvana In Bloom vinyl was in my dad’s collection, and that was such a massive catalyst when it hit me. Hearing blown-out distorted guitars has always stuck in my head as a really resonant sound. Then his hip-hop collection included a lot of Run DMC, LL Cool J, and he even bought me my first Eminem CD, so hip-hop and rock music have been such a parallel to me in my musical course.”
