Listen Up Kid breaks through

Kingston native band talks performing locally and remotely

The band formed in 2012.
Image by: Supplied
The band formed in 2012.

“Radio friendly but noisy,” are the first words that come to mind when describing the sound of Kingston-native five piece band Listen Up Kid.

Drawing influences from bands such as The Beatles, The Used, and heavy California-based rock band Thrice, Listen Up Kid includes a wide variety of sounds and styles in their music.

This is especially evident in their latest album, The Process Of Progress and The Possible Side Effects.

“It’s very harmonic, melodic, lots of harmonies going on, catchy choruses, fairly atmospheric and ambient. We’re all pretty influenced by the same stuff,” said Dennis Clark, the band’s lead vocalist and guitarist.

Clark has been with Listen Up Kid since its conception.

“I came up with the name two years ago. It came out of an acoustic side-project band that I was half-heartedly in,” Clark said.

“Now that I got all of these guys together, who are my friends from different walks of life, we’re working on stuff that we’re all equally really proud of.” The members of Listen Up Kid include Clark, who’s the lead singer and guitarist, Jeremy Head on bass, Eric Lavigueur on vocals and guitar, Charlie Thomas on vocals and lead guitar and Justin Andre as drummer and vocalist.

When it comes to playing shows in Kingston, Listen Up Kid is familiar with the crowd and has had much success in the Kingston music scene. This being said, they don’t take just any gig they can get their hands on anymore.

“We formed in Toronto and we like to keep our business as out of town as we can. We try and limit Kingston to opening for good touring acts if we can. We have the advantage of opening for good bands,” Clark said.

“We opened for Aaron Carter, which was a sold-out show.” Besides opening for Aaron Carter, Listen Up Kid also placed first in Kingston and third in Ontario for Landmark Event’s Showcase Festival — a battle of the bands type event — in July of this year.

According to Clark, playing shows remotely and experiencing the Toronto music scene has been a great learning experience, but nothing beats his hometown of Kingston.

“I’m really glad I moved back to Kingston two years ago and Toronto I found was very ‘everyone’s out for themselves’ — understandably so, everybody goes there to make it — but in Kingston everyone is a lot more laidback and we’ve got a good team right now,” Clark said.

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