Interview with The Bambi Kills.

In another life, Vanessa and Elly Velinsky, both played in their own respective bands – Vanessa from indie outfit With Valentine and Elly from the Mannequin Death Squad – but decided in a moment of clarity that together they actually made a great collaborative team. And so, with a sassy new name, an edgy attitude, along with an exciting electro grunge, dark pop vibe, they threw caution to the wind and created The Bambi Kills. That said, with two wonderful songs now under their belt and apparently enough ready-made material in the works for a potential debut album, I felt moved enough to see if The Bambi Kills were willing to shed some light on as to why new fans like myself find them so infectious. Here’s some of what we talked about.

What was the inspiration that brought two Melbourne sisters together to form The Bambi Kills?

We have always kind of done our own thing in music but at the end of the night we always ended up sitting out on the porch together harmonizing with eachother and doing covers just for the love of it.

It kind of clicked with us one day ‘Why the fuck aren’t we making music together?’
The songs just flow out, we’re exactly on the same page with music, it’s a beautiful thing and sometimes scary…. haha.

I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t ask you about the name for the band. I’m picturing Disney’s Bambi in a horrible Halloween scenario. Say it ain’t so?

Very funny! and also not far off.  We love writing beautiful poppy tunes but at the same time we love things being dark, so i guess The Bambi Kills sums that up pretty nicely. We wanted to give you all something pretty and then taint it 😉

How much does your experience and influences playing in former bands like With Valentine and a Mannequin Death Squad come into play in what you will do as The Bambi Kills? Is it fair to say that the introduction of keys is indicative in where you might go sonically?

Playing in other ‘Rock’ bands has enabled us to bring together our ‘Heavier’ side and merge it with our love for good pop and other instruments such as electronic drums/keys. However thats not necessarily the path we will take always. We want to do everything and anything & do not want to be limited by genres. It really depends on what is best for the song, if it requires just electric guitar, so be it, if it requires a keyboard and string quartet we will feed the song that. 🙂

Congratulations on the release of your second single Lust. Can you tell us how it came about?

Lust started with a very sinister bass  sound and ness on guitar and we jammed on that, with el yelling through chorus. The lyrics just kind of fell together but from a very true place. We feel we describe the song best through our self made video. Because Lust, can be crazy.

What are your earliest memories of a musical influence or hero?

Earliest memories are of our mum sitting us down in front of the tv and playing us Blondie DVDS. She would also drive us to the beach singing the whole way to Linda Ronstadt & Edith Piaf. At night she would gently put us to sleep singing songs from The Carpenters.

What are some of the earliest or most influential concerts you have attended?

Seeing The Breeders play at Bilboards was a life changing and truly awakening experience, we had never seen a band so joyful to play in our whole life.  They just radiated happines and we thought, well thats what music is, it should make you feel. You could see they just loved what they did and that just really resonated.

I understand you went to Europe to finish writing your forthcoming album. Was it strictly a writing expedition? Did you get to road test some of your new material?

It actually wasn’t a strict writing expedition to begin with, we went on a holiday back to our home country ‘Macedonia’ and whilst we were there bought a guitar and couldn’t help but being creative, we even got to shoot a music video for what will be our third single in Montenegro, which may be a hint of whats to come… whoops!

How do you find writing songs together? Are ideas fully formed before you present them or is it a case of bouncing ideas back and forth until you get something?

Sometimes either of us will bring a song we have written the bare bones for and we’ll glue it to a finish together.  Other times we start with one note/sound or riff and we both keep adding things back and forth. Both are fun ways.

Can you tell us something surprising about your musical partnership?

Were both utter control freaks and Elena is really funny when she’s nervous.

Finally, will fans get the chance to see you play your new material any time soon?

Yes!  We will be playing The Vineyard on the 24th of November with The Mercy Kills & Goodtimes Forever Festival on December 8th at Bombay rock.

We will endeavour to keep you posted as new announcements filter through about The Bambi Kills. In the meantime, check out their singles Headlights and the Lust via bandcamp. Follow them on Facebook. Follow them on Twitter.