Jenny Woolworth’s Women in Punk Blog

This is the band Kaputt. They live in London but some of them come from other places. Silke Steidinger sings and plays guitar, she is from Germany. Matt Yeates also plays guitar, Dave Ansell is the drummer and Ben Roussel plays the bass. Their sounds explodes like a brilliant pop rock firework in the starry indie sky. I saw them for the first time in the low ceiling-ed tiny basement of the Betsey Trotwood pub in autumn 2007, and they literally raised the roof a few centimeters to make room for their big bright sound.

The song available here is “Dishes” from their first single, released in early 2006. Their next release is the “Family Tree” single out on Too Pure Records in May 2008. Check out their myspace page for upcoming shows and more detailed band information. In the meantime here’s what Silke had to say to my questions…

JW: What is one of your favorite sounds and what does it mean to you?
SS: Sea gulls. Still reminds me of growing up at Lake Constance.

JW: Tell me about one of your most cherished records and why it is so important to you.
SS: Interpol’s “Turn On The Bright Lights.” Together with The Rapture’s first album what made me want to learn to play guitar and start writing songs. For me it’s just the most “life-changing” album in the last 10 years or so. And in the meantime only Arcade Fire got close to it with Funeral. I know some people say it’s just a bad rip-off of Joy Division but I think they’re way better. Never was that big on Joy Division but I love Paul Banks’s voice, the parallel guitar stuff that is going on, and probably more than anything the drumming. And the production and and…

JW: What is the stupidest comment/joke you have heard about women in the music business?
SS: I was playing the drums in my second London band and we had a gig at The Mean Fiddler (then still in Willesden). The monitor was broken and I told the sound engineer. It was totally dead, nothing coming out of it. His response was “There’s nothing wrong with the monitor. The problem is that you’re not hitting the drums hard enough because you’re a girl.”

Download: Kaputt - Dishes