Listen to "Bad Energy" by Little Kid 23 Jan 2024

Photo by Aisha Ghali

Toronto, ON indie rock band Little Kid have released "Bad Energy," the epic second single from their forthcoming album A Million Easy Payments (out February 23 on Orindal in the US & Gold Day in the UK). “Bad Energy” features performances by core band members Brodie Germain (drums, guitar), Paul Vroom (bass), Liam Cole (drums, percussion), and lyricist Kenny Boothby (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards) as well as guest performances from Eliza Niemi (cello samples) and Aaron Powell of Fog Lake (backing vocals).

In Various Small Flames’ premiere of “Bad Energy,” writer Jon Doyle describes the single as "a song that follows Dylan’s ‘epic song’ tradition. And not only that. It also holds a similar gravitational body at its centre. However, as the title suggests, the uniting force here is not a specific event but instead pervasive mood. The evil seam which has always run through the centre of the American or Western project... Boothby lays down the wide-ranging subject matter with a careful hand, drawing on universal themes via a personal perspective to deepen every topic beyond its simple surface... This ability to vary the focal length of its perspective so gracefully is a signature of A Million Easy Payments."

From Little Kid's Kenny Boothby:

“Bad Energy” is a song with many verses. Each verse talks about the concept of “bad energy” from a different angle. My overall goal with this song was to implicate Christianity - or, at least, the twisted, Americanized version of it that I grew up with - in a lot of the evil going on in our world: war, genocide, rape culture, capitalist greed, resource exploitation, climate change… There is some personal stuff in there, and some pretty universal stuff.

I was pretty preoccupied with form when I wrote this one (and the other long ones on the record), and I think I was pulling a lot from Bob Dylan’s approach to his longest, most repetitive songs. David Byrne summed it up well: Dylan lifted the style of his “epic songs… from old folk ballads with their many many verses, but then he added a genetic mutation to the form — surreal imagery and metaphors rather than the traditional narratives of the old ballads” (from this Stereogum feature on Bob’s 80th birthday). I think Gillian Welch’s “I Dream A Highway” (my favourite song) might do this even better than Dylan’s best ones did.

Dylan paints some incredible pictures in those long folk songs, but I often find his rhymes unsatisfying. Or maybe too satisfying. I don’t like perfect rhymes. I spent a lot of time working as many imperfect internal rhymes as possible into each line of this song. It was a rewarding process, but it may have ruined songwriting for me because I no longer feel content rhyming only the last word of each line. Finishing songs has become much harder since I wrote “Bad Energy”... But I’m proud of what I was able to do with this one, and it’s generally the first song people talk about when they hear the new album.

Pre-order A Million Easy Payments on "brick" colored vinyl, classic black vinyl, cassette or digital formats HERE.

Vinyl & cassette orders begin shipping first week of February.

Little Kid will play two A Million Easy Payments album release shows in March:
March 22, 2024- Toronto, ON @ Tranzac (w/ Advance Base & Eliza Niemi)
March 23, 2024- Montréal, QC @ Casa Del Popolo (w/ Advance Base & Laughing)