Rainbow Kitten Surprise is one of those bands that keep you on your toes. This can mean they keep you up on your feet dancing, it can mean that they will surprise you with something more emotional right after something more upbeat, but it will always mean that it is a great listen. With their new album, Bones , the band continues to dial in on the style that has made them one of the most unique and enjoyable bands in alternative music. One of the standout singles, “Tropics,” also has this amazing animated video that we are thrilled to be able to bring you exclusively on Crunchyroll News! Please see below for the video and to hear from the band about how anime worked its way into this new album, as well as one of their standout tracks from earlier in their career, “Ghoul.” The perfect place to start is the brand new album, Bones . What can you tell me about the genesis of the album and the writing and recording process? Ela : Yeah. We started making demos in about June of last year. About seven songs on the record came from that session, and then some kind of trickled in as we went along. Also at this time, Fred Again hit us up or his team hit us up and wanted us to do a collab with him. So then I was like, “Well I need to write songs for that.” So I started writing some songs to send them over. And before you knew it, I just kind of kept going. So far the collab hasn’t happened yet, but we just kept going, and before we knew it, I had like 30 songs or something, and brought the guys over, and was like, “Any interest in picking these up and like really fleshing them out?” Everybody was super down. But we kind of were busy, you know, until earlier this year in January, and that's kind of where we really started fleshing out what the record was. Bozzy : I just, I'll never forget that after Ela had been working on demos for however long, going to her house, and just like everybody was there, like all the band and our friends and whatnot just like the moment “Bones” came on, it was just like, “This is it.” Was anime on in the background during any of those writing sessions recording? Ela : I'm trying to figure out what I was watching at that time. Ethan was giving me a pretty big list to watch. It’s actually funny, when the pitch for this interview came up, it was the first time we’d all ever spoken about our joint history with anime. We didn’t even realize each other liked it! So we just now discovered that everybody else has a show or two at least that was a favorite growing up. I'm excited to see what everybody points out as their favorites here. We knew we all liked anime, but we don't know what everybody likes. Ethan : Actually just the other day I was stepping off like the tour bus going into a hotel and Ela was standing outside the tour bus and we started talking about one of the shows that I've been watching lately, The Rising of the Shield Hero , and I was saying that I'm really into Dungeons & Dragons party style anime. She was like, “Well, actually, I have this Crunchyroll interview coming up, do you wanna join me?” And then we all started talking about it, and we all were like, “Oh, we all like anime.” Jess : It's kind of like music, you know. Anime just brings people together. We didn't even know, though it's funny that we were all eventually like, this is awesome let’s all do the interview together. RELATED: Perturbator and Victorien Aubineau on "Lady Moon," Age of Aquarius, and Akira & Ghost in the Shell Well, I'm glad we could be here to help you all bond and learn more about each other! Before we get into some of the background questions for anime, I'd love to hear a bit more about “Ghoul” being inspired by Tokyo Ghoul . Ela : Oh, wow! Deep cut deep cut. Man knows his back catalog. I was really into the opening theme to Tokyo Ghoul , “unravel” by TK from Ling tosite sigure. I was listening to that band a lot when I was making demos for that record and watching Tokyo Ghoul . This narrative of this person who has now become different in ways that he can't quite express, and that he's afraid people won't understand really resonated with me at the time, because I felt like something dark had like taken a hold and, not scary per se, but I felt like it made me scary, or not a vibe for people to want to be around. Not like I felt dangerous, but I felt sort of alien. That was a new feeling. So that show just kind of hit me between the eyes. I decided I was going to make something that's representative of this kind of spookiness. That's where “Ghoul” came in. Jess : Seriously, shout out to that song. We were actually just talking about it the other day. We're like, you know, what? Maybe we bring that one out for our upcoming shows. Ela : Yeah, that'd be cool. Where did you all start with anime? Ethan : I’d wager it's all pretty similar, growing up in rural North Carolina. The first place I discovered anime was on Adult Swim. Jess : Yep on Toonami. Ethan : So that was really Dragon Ball Z , Inuyasha . Ela : Mobile Suit Gundam Wing was a big one too. Bozzy : That’s the one I was thinking of! I’d also watch the one in the morning like Yu-Gi-Oh! Ethan : And then I got into Fullmetal Alchemist . That's where it all started for me in terms of really loving it. Ela : That's crazy. We've never talked about Fullmetal Alchemist . I am a huge fan of that show. Ethan : I'm actually rewatching it right now. Ela : The original or Brotherhood ? Ethan : Brotherhood , right, now. Ela : Brotherhood is better, at least the way it comes to a close, I think is better. The other one, I was a little confused as to what happened. Did you each find a series from that that you all kind of latched onto like, OK, this is, I don't know what this is, or maybe I know this is from Japan but I'm all about this now? Jess : I mean, I feel like Dragon Ball was just so huge, especially when we were kids, and I mean especially for me. I had two older brothers, so it was even more like, I don't know, it kind of felt like it tapped into that older kid culture. It felt in the same vein as WWE , but my brothers can be into WWE but I'm going to watch Dragon Ball , like that's my thing. Ethan : Yeah, and then in college between Jess and I, we were roommates at college, too. We were collecting the DVDs for the entire Dragon Ball franchise. Jess : Oh, yeah, we had to get them all. You line them all up and you could see this whole image and it's just awesome. Ela : College is a whole other thing of anime for me. I got my education in anime in college. My roommate Grayson was just like a fiend. He got me started down this rabbit hole. We watched Gankutsuou , which is a Count of Monte Cristo retelling but in a steampunk society. It's pretty cool. The artwork is bonkers. It's got all these patterns and everybody's different colors. And it has aliens and robots in it. We watched Death Note of course. Image via Netflix Did Death Note end up influencing your musical direction at all? Ela : I never really got into it. It was mostly playing in the background. I can say that I was writing songs mostly as he was playing Dark Souls , so I think Dark Souls might have had an influence on the early stuff. I remember writing “Hey Pretty Momma” while Grayson's yelling at the computer screen. Bozzy : That’s when the real work gets done. RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: CHASE ATLANTIC Share "FACEDOWN" Video and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Obsession Were there any anime series that anyone watched, that the music really stood out, or that aligned with you all getting deeper into playing music? Ethan : More recently, the stuff that I've been watching like Dr. STONE . The intros are sick and I've been getting really into Japanese guitar rock thanks to them. I’ve just been like holy crap, like the speed at which these guys play guitar is absolutely insane. I've been dipping my toes into learning some of the songs from my favorite seasons. I know it’s going to take forever. These guys are masters of their craft. Jess : My obsession with “Roundabout” the Yes song that was from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure . I could not get that song out of my head. Ethan : I would probably say too the old Dragon Ball Z guitar solos probably made me want to play guitar when I was younger. As well as playing Budokai and just the shreddy stuff going on in the background. Ela : And then they throw jazz in there, too. And it's just like, Wait, what happened? Like, why, these horns? For me, it was Samurai Champloo . I got really into the artist Ikue Asazaki. Her first record I listened to on repeat for like months. With her singing style actually, I tried my hand at it without anybody to really teach me but you can definitely hear hints of that in the vocal breaks. But if you listen to the record you may be able to pick out the influence. Bozzy : I definitely am with Ethan. Growing up Dragon Ball Z and playing all the video games and hearing all the metal solos and stuff, that was influential when I was a kid. This seems like a group that loved AMVs as well. Ela : Oh, man, yeah! Jess : Those were awesome! It was always Linkin Park. Ela : The one I remember most was from a Final Fantasy movie someone made and it was a Linkin Park song over Cloud fighting. I thought it was so cool. Why do you all think that there's such an overlap in anime fandom? And I guess we could call it largely like alternative music. Because I mean you could go to a show and you'll probably see as many anime shirts as you do band shirts and I'm always curious to hear thoughts on why you all think that might be. Jess : This is just a real quick point, but I feel like one can't be an anime fan and not like music. They feel so symbiotic. You’ve got the music piece at the beginning, and then you also have, like the interlude pieces, and then also it ends with a song, too, and it's like, and those are so attached to the emotions of each series. Ethan : I almost feel like they both lean into the counterculture movement as well, at least where I grew up. Anime, when I was in school, wasn't always the coolest thing. Rock music is the exact same way of like sticking it to the man. I get the same vibe from both forms of media. Ela : I think lockdown and the pandemic gave people an opportunity to pick it back up or get into it or get lost within their fandom. I picked anime back up in a way that I hadn't in years because I wasn’t sure what else to do. I was tired of whatever else was on and anime felt fresh. I picked up things that I hadn't watched in years and went down the rabbit hole with it. It unlocked something in all of us where we stopped caring that anyone knew that we liked it. We wanted to show our cards, we’re all weirdos. Bozzy : I feel like anime is already like such a heavy mix of all these different artistries. You have the writing and the illustration, and it makes sense that music is the solid foundation or building block of that puzzle. All the different arts mixed together to make one awesome creation that people can latch onto. Ethan : When you’re binging anime, you’re hearing that intro song a lot. So they end up stuck in your brain.
