Kevin Rogers of Kickstand Boyfriend | photo by Olivia Whelan | courtesy of the artist
PREMIERE: Kickstand Boyfriend paints a raw picture of South Jersey life with “Born to Be Destroyed”
Singer and songwriter Kevin Rogers grew up in the small Camden County borough of Stratford, and like many small town artists, his surroundings had an indelible impact on his work.
“I wanted to portray what it’s like to live [here] and see all your friends become drug addicts,” Rogers says. “It makes you crazy…it’s just kind of a fucked up thing to see something I grew up in be so rotten when I thought it was so beautiful.”
Last year, Rogers started channeling these feelings into Kickstand Boyfriend, his low-fi one-man musical vehicle. But as he began performing out at spots like Studio Luloo and introducing his observational songs to his peers, the band began to grow. Today, Kickstand Boyfriend has four players in addition to Rogers – alternating bassists Jaime Casey and Brian Barrett, lead guitarist John Barrett and drummer Quinn Fisher – and they’re readying their debut album Christ’s Night Out for a May 2nd release on Cherry Hill micro-label Como Tapes.
Today, we bring you the premiere of “Born to Be Destroyed,” a meditative, Death Cab-esque song from Christ’s Night Out. Rogers has this to say of the song:
I guess if I tried to pin down what ‘Born to Be Destroyed’ is for me, it’d be the cynical ideas that come from boredom and loneliness. No one really owns up to their own feelings; we can always blame God, our romantic relationships and even our friends. If you keep running into the same problem, you’re the problem.
Listen to “Born to Be Destroyed,” watch a video bio of the band in the studio and catch Kickstand Boyfriend’s album release party Saturday, May 2nd at The Fire. Tickets and more information on the show can be found here.