“Young Fathers is one of those bands I use to describe the ambition of KCRW,” asserts DJ and former Music Director Chris Douridas. “A band core to the sound of our relevancy, to the urgency, and our wanting to be living on the edge as a new music station. Early in my time here it was Massive Attack, then came TV on the Radio, now it’s these guys — multi-racial, genreless, rooted in possibility, heavy heavy underpinnings, hip-hop leaning.”
More: Young Fathers (MBE, 2015)
Emerging from Scotland in the late-2000s, they eventually nabbed the Mercury Prize in 2014 for their debut LP DEAD. Such early prestige no doubt stemmed from the way they established themselves as a group wholly resistant to categorization. They combine dissonant guitars, oddly constructed hip-hop bars, misplaced gospel runs, and crunchy electronics all with the result of keeping listeners on edge. Scrub to 02:05:22 as they stop by KCRW’s Annenberg Performance Studio (in between rocking Saturday afternoons at Coachella) to deliver cuts from the acclaimed 2023 LP Heavy Heavy — including “Rice” and “Geronimo.” And lean in for their meaty chat with Douridas as they extoll the virtues of taking breaks, spontaneity, real life fatherhood, and keeping their cool about the fact that John Cale is actively trying to find a way to join forces with them.
More: John Cale on the power of collaborations, releasing ‘Mercy’
