The K’s are one of the most exciting breakout British bands of 2024. Hailing from a small working class town between Liverpool and Manchester, the foursome of singer/songwriter and guitarist Jamie Boyle, lead guitarist Ryan Breslin, bassist Dexter Baker and drummer Nathan Peers are making waves in the rock landscape. With a loyal fanbase and incredibly energetic live shows, The K’s are ready to release their second record just a year on from their debut record reaching number 3 on the UK album charts.
Not resting on their laurels, Rockshot Magazine sat down with Ryan Breslin and discussed their whirlwind 12 months, new music and their biggest UK tour to date.
The K's
It’s been a year, since your debut came out. How have things changed for you in that in the last 12 months? It was only held off the number one album spot by The Libertines and Beyoncé which must have been a bit of a crazy week, right?!
Yeah, we was number two and we kept Beyoncé off for six days and then on the last day she got us. But to even say that we’ve gone against The Libertines and Beyoncé in a top three battle for a debut album is fucking unreal for us. We are absolutely proud of everything we did and we wouldn’t change any of it. We put everything in. That week was mental. We were doing all these in-stores and I actually dropped down ill because we were working so hard. You’ve got to be 100 miles an hour. It was such a mad week, but it was worth it in the end. We had a good celebration. We got number three for a debut album. And then fast forward a year, now we’re doing album two. We’ve got the biggest tour we’ve ever done and then we’ve got loads of festivals being announced. We’ve just come back from America too. It doesn’t feel like a year because it’s just been that mental. You can’t keep up with yourself, it’s like a snowball that just gets bigger and bigger and you look back and think, fucking hell, how has this happened?! We’re just rolling with it and we’re putting everything into it and we’re just going to try and fucking enjoy the ride.
There’s the famous saying ‘you have your whole life to write album number one and then a year to write album two’. So Pretty On The Internet, how did the record evolve?
We tried doing some stuff last summer, when we knew it was going to be on the cards. We started to try and piece things together, in between touring. It was really hard because we toured heavily until December last year and then the deadline to deliver the album was February. So we had just over a month to get in the studio and get it all recorded. So we were under the cosh. But yeah, it was crunch time at the back end of last year and the start of this year, it was like, ‘we’ve got a deadline’. Then the deadline got moved, the vinyl companies said, ‘we need it a bit earlier’. So we was like, shit! We had to just pull it out of the bag, but it sounds mega. Like you say, we’ve had album one that was done over so many years and crafted, but we feel we’ve developed and we’ve stepped it up on this album. We’re all happy with it.
You said, this new record was written over a short space of time. Was there anything fundamentally different in terms of writing style compared to the first record?
We were just getting stuck in and seeing what came out. Jamie did really well pulling out the songs. Album one, we had a lot more time, so if I had a melody or anything, then Jamie put something to it, or if I had a bit of a song, we’d work together. But because this was such a short time, Jamie really pulled it out of the bag with the songs and then we’d get together and a lot came together in the studio, that’s where a lot of the magic happens. We also worked with a new producer, Jim Lowe, who’s a great producer. He’s worked with a lot of big people. So it was a new experience for all of us. That was initially scary, but it turned out it was a perfect match, it was brilliant and we’re absolutely buzzing.
One thing that’s apparent in your music is the focus on the guitar, which I love! It’s a more traditional rock sound as opposed to the indie style of bands of the late 2000s. I mean there are actual guitar solos in your songs! Which is rare in 2025.
I think a lot of it is based on my influences from the guitar world. Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Chuck Berry. I listen to a lot of older guitarists like Blues Rock and also Johnny Marr and John Squire. So it’s a combination of all of them, but I always think melodically, there’s a lot of things you can do with instruments as well as vocals. A lot of our crowds will sing the instrumental parts, as well as the vocal parts. Sarajevo was the first song we released and that was a prime example where guitar solo and the riffs came together with the vocals. But we’ve developed it into a new sound on this album, whilst trying to keep our true identity. So it is a conscious decision to keep that punkiness and rock edge. Sometimes I’ll just jam a solo and if we think that sounds fucking mint, that’s stays! Or if it doesn’t really suit a song, we might put a middle eight there or we’ll put something else there. We just try to keep it real and true to ourselves and our influences.
On the latest single, Gravestone, that came out a few weeks ago, there’s some interesting lyrics on there as well. ‘I hope I work it out. I hope it ain’t for nothing. I hope I’m hoping I earn my place in the coffin.’ How exactly do you earn a place in the coffin? Is it about working your ass off, achieving something in particular?
It’s a bit of a dark topic, but when you’ve got your name on your gravestone, you’ve got a legacy. Not just musically, but about remembering your family, your friends and things like that. So I think just earning your place and I hope we work it out and earning your place in the grave and making sure you’ve made a change, a change to someone or something. It’s basically having done enough to be worthy of being remembered.
There’s some other lines on there as well, ‘I try to be cool, I try to be brave, trying to stay cool and fight.’ It sounds like it’s wrestling with identity as well.
It’s an honest reflection of Jamie, it’s a mental battle. Not so much putting a face on when you go out, but there’s so many social interactions in so many different places that we go and sometimes you want to be a recluse. You go back home and it brings them feelings out. The first single, Breakdown in my Bedroom, again is quite open about mental health and touches on anxiety. When anxiety takes over and things like that, I think the idea of staying in your bedroom and locking the world out always seems the easiest option, even though it’s not always the right option.
And on Breakdown in My Bedroom, the lyrics ‘You choose a strange job for a person who can’t be out in public.’ It’s almost like, because you’re public figures and you’re on stage in front of hundreds or thousands of people, you can’t have these sorts of feelings. Is that something that resonates with yourself or Jamie?
It does. It gets to a point where you’re on stage in front of thousands of people and you’re so high off adrenaline and you come off stage and you just crash. You need a bit of separation and sometimes you just want to lock yourself in a room. Then sometimes if you’re in a big crowd and everyone’s come to see you and everyone obviously wants to say ‘hello’ and get a bit of you, it can sometimes get a little bit overwhelming. Sometimes you just want to keep yourself to yourself and take a minute. It works both ways because equally we do love going out and we love having the craic and we love going to the pub.
The K's
So when you do come off stage after that big high, like you said, how do you decompress?
It’s a bit of a mixed bag really. We’ll get off stage and we either get on the bus and just debrief or we go to the merch table and sign and do photos. You have certain days where, you’re not feeling well and you just get on the bus and keep yourself separate. But most of the time, you think, fuck it, I’ll have a pint. Sometimes you have days where you want to go out and sometimes you don’t. Because we’re so intense on stage, we put absolutely everything into it, a lot of the time you get off stage and you’re just like, ‘oh, I want to collapse.’ But we love it.
I’ve watched a lot of footage of your gigs on YouTube. Not just the energy you have on stage but the connection that you have with your fans is unmatched at the moment.
Yeah, we always try to make an effort because we grew up in a working class area and we’re like, ‘well, you’re here to watch us’, so we’ll do the best we can. If everyone’s made the effort to be in the same room together, then let’s just make it as best we can. We like to be hands on with the stage, the lighting, everything. At the end of the day, it’s our show and we want to make sure that it’s the best. We put absolutely everything into the live show because that’s our strong suit. Because if people are buying tickets and making the effort to get out and get trains and travel and get taxis and all that stuff, then we’re going to put on the best show we can for every single night. We try and put everything into it because people will be going away saying, ‘that was fucking mint.’ And if we’ve done that, then we’ve done our job.
This is your biggest tour to date. What does being on tour look like for you guys as a band?
It depends but a lot of the time, we always try to have a day somewhere and we’ll get up and we’ll go and walk around the town, we’ll go and see what’s happening in that place. If they’ve got any famous landmarks, we’ll always make a point of going to see them or walking around famous buildings or things like that and then have some food, sound check and then see which pub does the best pint of Guinness after the show! That’s pretty much it.
Are there any cities or particular venues that you’re looking forward to playing on this tour?
We can’t wait to do London Roundhouse because, we played the Roundhouse before but as a support band a couple of years ago. I know it’s Dexter’s favourite venue, it’s one of my favourite venues. I can’t wait to get down there because London’s always bouncing as well. They’re all going to be absolutely sick, like Leeds, Newcastle, Bristol. The Dublin one’s a big one because, I just love going back to Ireland, my family are from Ireland, so I always love going back over there. And Belfast. Nottingham’s always good, Rock City.
Last year you graced the main stage of Reading Festival, Leeds Festival, the Isle of Wight. Is that a surreal moment to think you’re on those historic festival stages?
Definitely. I was 16 years old in my first festival at Leeds and I stood there and I was like, ‘I’ll play that one day’. Then the second time being there, we played it last year. So that was definitely a top 10 moment for me. Glastonbury was fucking amazing. That was sick. That was another pinch me moment to walk out and say ‘Hello Glastonbury’ to thousands of people. You don’t realise when you’re in it but then you look back and think, fucking hell, we did that! They’re all pinch me moments. And we just announced Benicassim, that’s another one in the top 10 festivals I’ve always wanted to do. So I’m buzzing we’re going there.
You mentioned earlier you’ve just come back from America. You did a few shows in Austin, Texas right? How was that?
That was mega. We did five shows in five days. I flew out and I was really ill. I thought I was going to die right at one point. And like the first three days I was in bed, so we had to cut the first set short because Jamie’s voice was going, I was fucked. But the rest of the shows were incredible. We met so many people. It was just amazing to see those places. These are just places you hear about in films or TV but when you go, it’s like, fucking hell. Just to get the opportunity to see the places, never mind perform music that you’ve made in a little fucking town in England, so far away. It’s amazing.
When you’re playing live, do you have a favourite song to play? Is there a new song that’s on the new record that you can’t wait to play live?
There’s so many. Hometown, that used to be the favourite and then it went to Chancer for a bit, that always seems to go off. But on the new album, I’m trying to think what we put out so I can remember what we can announce! Of the new songs, there’s two songs that are in the set for this tour that I can’t wait to do. And there’s a big surprise in one of them, which is going to be amazing. I think they’re all mint. Also like the slow ones. There’s Hoping Maybe, and Lights Go Down, which brings you back down to the intimate level. It feels like you’re not on a stage and there’s not a crowd, it’s like everyone’s together as one in the room. And you seem to never lose that connection with the fans.
You guys are from Earlestown, right? Which is in the North West, between Liverpool and Manchester. Are all four of you from that area?
So the three of us, me, Jamie and Dexter, we went to school together. Nathan is from Warrington, which is just five minutes down the road.
And what was it like growing up there?
So it’s a working class town and we all grew up on a council estate and we all loved it. I had the best childhood. Me and Dexter, he lived two streets from me and Jamie just a little bit further down the road. It’s a bit of a fuck up, but it’s our fuck up, do you know what I mean? It’s a working class town and everybody knows everybody. It’s quite nice when you come back off tour, you’re back home where you can walk down the street you people recognise you but for being you because you grew up together.
You’ve got some cities with big musical heritage either side of you.
It’s a unique place. As you said, it’s right in the middle of Manchester and Liverpool. So we’ve got both on our doorstep. In the early days of the band, we did a lot of gigs in Manchester. But now it’s levelling out. We’re doing really well in Liverpool. There’s so much heritage from both cities. It’s the reason a lot of musicians picked up a guitar or an instrument or started singing, because of those bands. We were quite lucky. Artists in towns that are remote don’t get any help and it’s really difficult. With having both cities so close, enabled us to go and do it ourselves. Going and asking pubs or clubs, can we do a gig? We had venues on our doorstep. Then a promoter got us our first gig in London. That’s why grassroots venues are so important and why we should be doing everything to keep them open, because we did a little pub in London for our first gig and now we’re doing the Roundhouse! If we didn’t do that pub, we wouldn’t be here!
Yeah, the top 0.01% of artists that can sell out Wembley Stadium 20 times and that’s fine. But most artists don’t get to where they are without those 50, 100 capacity gigs to get them going. Being recognised by winning best breakthrough act at the Nordoff Robbins Northern Music Awards must have been another pinch me moment?
Yeah, it’s unreal. We got the Nordoff Award which was amazing, we were so honoured to receive the award. To be recognised and to be even nominated for things like that is just incredible, as you say, coming from such a small town. But it just shows that if you just stick at it and put the work in and sort of believe in what you do and enjoy it, it rubs off on everyone else.
So where’s your ceiling? Where do you see yourself going? Do you see yourself, you know, get into arenas and stadiums, you know?
Yeah, definitely. I don’t feel we don’t have a ceiling. I think as soon as you put a ceiling or a limit on yourself, then who knows where things may go. It might change for the better, it might change for the worse, but you’ve just got to ride with it and expect good times, expect shit times. But our sights are set at the top, so we’ll continue to work. And I think you’ve always got to be that way, because that’s why we put so much into it, especially in the live side of it. And that’s why the venues are growing, like doubling every single tour. So I don’t think we’re that far off. talking about arena’s and things like that, hopefully if everything goes to plan. So yeah, we’re definitely aiming for the big boy leagues.
The K’s Pretty On The Internet tour continues and you can catch them on the following dates:
MAY
8th – Rock City, Nottingham
9th – O2 Academy, Birmingham
10th – O2 Academy, Leeds
13th – Roundhouse, London
14th – Resident Music, Brighton
15th – The Bullingdon, Oxford
17th – O2 Academy, Bristol
22nd – O2 City Hall, Newcastle
24th – Neighbourhood Weekender, Victoria Park, Warrington
JUNE
6th – The Piece Hall, Halifax
7th – The Piece Hall, Halifax
14 – Lincoln Castle, Lincoln
Interview with Ryan Breslin of The K’s by Chris Lambert.
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