Valley band Kongos is made up of four brothers, raised in England and South Africa, who blend a love of Beatle-esque pop, jazz, progressive rock and electronic music into their distinctive sound.Brandon Quester Special to Get Out

Local spotlight: Kongos deftly blends influences for a complex, catchy CD

By Chris Hansen Orf, Get Out

May 10, 2007

Back in 2004, Kongos released what was one of the most impressive EPs in recent Valley music history, a debut containing five songs that were at once brimming with pop hooks yet dizzying in their musical complexity, and the best thing about it was that the band had already begun work on a full-length follow-up CD.

Long-awaited releases are nothing new in the annals of pop music. It took Beach Boys genius Brian Wilson 37 years to finally release “Smile,” and rock fans are still waiting, after nearly 15 years, for Guns N’ Roses guru Axl Rose to release “Chinese Democracy.”

But 2005 and 2006 ticked by with no CD from Kongos, leaving Valley fans and music critics who gushed over the band’s EP to wonder, “What’s going on?”

“We felt like we were almost there with the EP,” says drummer and songwriter Jesse Kongos, who is joined in the Paradise Valley-based band by his brothers Dylan (vocals, guitar), Daniel (guitar) and John J. (keyboards, accordion).

“But we felt we had so much to learn in the meantime — everything from production to the performances — we felt like we just needed to grow a little, so it took a long time because we were doing everything ourselves.”

The band’s self-titled debut full-length CD was finally released in early 2007, and the wait has been worth it. Kongos sounds like no other band, not just in the Valley, but in the whole of mainstream rock music, blending elements of Beatlesque pop, hard-rock riffs, jazzy interludes and the atmospheric rock of bands such as Coldplay and even Pink Floyd, sometimes all in the same song, such as in the standout tracks “Remember Me” and “The Way.”

“Since we didn’t have an outside producer, someone that was skilled in the engineering and the production part of it, we had to learn that process throughout the album,” says Dylan Kongos of the long recording process, which included multiple takes and re-workings of several songs on the disc.

The brothers, who range in age from 18 to 25, literally grew up in their home studios. Their dad is John Kongos, the South African-born and Britain-based singer/songwriter who scored two Top 5 singles in the U.K. in the 1970s with “He’s Gonna Step on You Again” (recently covered by Def Leppard) and “Tokoloshe Man.”

With the complexity of the studio album, how does the band pull everything off live?

“We’ve found ways between the two guitar players and with all the keyboard sounds to basically cover everything,” explains John J.

Besides playing Valley clubs, Kongos has played to enthusiastic crowds at L.A.’s Viper Room and hope to jump on the road this summer with a touring act. And the band has begun work on a new disc.

Valley music fans can only hope it doesn’t take another three years to make.

>> Kongos perform 6 p.m. Saturday, May 12, at Club Red, 2155 E. University Drive, Tempe. $3. (480) 966-4733 or myspace.com/kongos

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