Ryan Katz | KILLSTREAK | The Kevin Powell Podcast

Video games and heavy metal? Count me in! Get to know the band KILLSTREAK as Kevin talks to guitarist Ryan Katz about performing at Inkcarceration Fest 2024, the band's origins, how they tie in their love for video games and more!

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Hey guys, Welcome back to anotherepisode of the podcast. My name is
Kevin Powell. I love talking tobands, rather it be brand new band
band. It's been around for awhile, but we're getting ready for Incarceration
Fest twenty twenty four. It's happeningin Mansfield, Ohio. I have I
don't want to say too many bandsinterview because that's good news for me.
I have a lot of bands interviewin one of which is a band that

(00:26):
I fell in love with. Iam joined by Ryan today, So Ryan,
how you doing? Hey Man,how you doing? Thanks for having
me on absolutely thanks for being here. So I want to know, how
does it feel to be part ofthis year's Incarceration Fest. Uh? Really
excited. I've been a part ofsome of the behind the scenes things personally
on a professional level with Incarceration,and I've always admired from Afar as far

(00:47):
as being you on stage. I'vegot to do side stage stuff, We've
got to do some promo stuff andsome media stuff. As I've talked with
you off record, and now beingan official part of the talent aspect,
it's pretty surreal. Every morning iwake up and I'm like, are we
We're doing this. Yeah, we'redoing this. So the days are counting
down, so I can only imagine. So way back in the day,

(01:10):
someone told me, if you're nervous, that's not a bad thing. I
means you're just excited. So I'mimagining the nerves are getting there, right,
the nerves for pluthora of reasons numberone. And this is going to
sound crazy to most of the listeners, but this is kill Streak's first ever
live performance. So we are doingWe've climbed Everest and we're jumping off the

(01:30):
top of the mountain rather than youknow, slowly incrementally making our way up.
And I wanted to do that onpurpose, you know, set the
bar high and show show, youknow, fans that might be interested in
our music that we are official,legit, street cred whatever. So I
wanted to you know, start withit with a big, big show.
But the downside of that is allof the nerves, like you say,

(01:53):
that go into it. It's ourfirst time performing live. It's also our
first time ever using in ears anda click and all of these things,
so we are really gripping the bandaid off. But with that has come
a lot of prep and a lotof practice and things. So we are
we're certainly ready for the challenge andwe really hope to deliver a good show
for everybody, and I think youwill that. I'm impressed. That's awesome

(02:15):
first show. It's gonna be agreat show. A lot of eyes are
gonna be on you, but youknow what, it's gonna be worth it.
Ryan, What do you do inthe band? So? I am
guitar. I was and I guessfounding member if you want to call it
that, But I was the onlyguitarist until about a couple of weeks ago,
and then we just brought on asecond guitarist just to add some beef

(02:36):
and some different different layers because it'snice to with music that we make and
some of the complexities and some ofthe just the more layers you have,
the better, angrier sounds and such. So we have two guitarists now,
but I am was the main guitariston everything you've heard of until this point.
Okay, no problem there. Howdid you guys get on within cars

(03:00):
here? So I have a prettygood relationship with Dan Jansen, the owner
of Incarceration. Like I said,it's through my media capacity and other capacities
that I've had and didn't really expectto be on. And he just asked
us one day when I was withhim doing something else. He's like,
Hey, do you guys want toplay this year? I'm like, yes,

(03:22):
definitely, because we've we've always beenof the philosophy of less is more.
We don't want to be playing likelocal clubs every other weekend. We
don't want to be staying in ourcity all the time. We want to
really branch out and do quality overquantity, because I think that gives your
resume a little bit more leverage ifyou will stay. I think of things

(03:42):
like a manager because I'm a fulltime music manager, so I don't think
of things like an artist very often. And it has its benefits for sure,
but sometimes I overthink things. Anyways, Yes, he offered us to
play, and, like I said, very excited. And there's a couple
of our friends, Kill Streak thatare on, like Fight with from Within
is on and they're good friends ofours. A couple other bands that we've

(04:04):
seen throughout the previous years that I'mreally excited to share the stage with now
and hopefully we can not just youknow, perform, but build some good
relationships along the way. Perfect,So I want to get a little into
the band. Now, can youtell us them a little bit about the
origins of the band. How didyou guys all come together? Yeah,
so it's interesting. I came upwith this idea in my vocalist and I

(04:26):
debate this all the time on whowas first, but I think we did
this kind of together. I actuallymet him through his wife, who is
a messuse, and she was shewas fine, missus. It's such a
weird story, but we were talkingand she's like, yeah, my husband's
really in the metal And at thetime, I was in another band and
I was it was more like anactive rock style of music, and I
was like, I'm looking for somethinga little bit more that I'm more passionate

(04:48):
on, a little bit heavier.And so I talked to her about it,
like what is what is he into? And she's like, you guys
should meet up. So we metup and we were both like, we
love video games, we love metal. What if we did something like eistein
Kills, where you know, obviouslythey write all of their songs about horror
movies. Let's do that but withvideo games. Because I feel like a

(05:08):
lot of bands, and I'm nottrying to throw shade or not trying to
I love most of these bands,but a lot of bands, you know,
where jeans, black t shirts goup on stage and screaming about their
feelings, which is great, butI wanted to offer something a little bit
more outside the box, a littlebit more accessible, and as far as
the entertainment industry goes, the videogame industry is the highest grossing of all
of the subgenres of entertainment. Sobeing able to do something where we're writing

(05:31):
different songs about different video games andoffering we're really offering listeners who might not
be into like super heavy deathcore,but are into Call of Duty or Doom
or Halo or Need for Speed andthey're like, I heard this song.
Not normally into this kind of music, but I really love this video game,
so I'm going to listen to themmore because it's just something that I

(05:53):
can, you know, gravitate towardsand makes something a little bit heavier,
a little bit more fun, anda little bit more accessible. Very unique
approach for sure, and it's definitelygoing to grab a lot of people's attention.
The name, the style, themusic in general. You guys just
put out a new song and itwas around what need for speed? Yep,
need for speed. We originally justwanted to do Underground, but then

(06:15):
I'm like, let's just do allthe need for speeds because why you know,
pigeonhole there. And when we writemusic, we really take that video
game to heart and say, canthe person listening play the game and listen
to the song about the game andit makes sense, right. We don't
want to write a song about Halo, for example, and it to sound

(06:36):
really horror ish. We wanted tosound more sci fi, you know,
soundscapey kind of thing. And thisneed for speed game, I've already had
people hit me up. It cameout yesterday and already had people hitting me
up, going where do I billyou for the traffic ticket that I'm going
to get listening to your song whileI'm driving, And I'm like, well,
listen, We're not liable for anyof that. But we did make

(06:57):
the song with that in mind.It's a song you can drive fast or
play, you know, neat forspeed really fast too. And we were
really fortunate enough to have our friendsinto the grave and no Face, no
case on the track, which reallyjust made it even more ignorant and beat
down and just heavy and hard.And we will be adding it to our
well, we are adding it.We've already practiced it, but adding it
to our setlist for incarceration. Sowe're really excited to debut that along with

(07:19):
everything else. Perfect. So Iwant to know what's your favorite video game
ever ever? Okay, so I'mgoing to give you two answers. The
first one is more of like acult video game that people really don't know
about, but it's called Dungeon Keeper, too, came out in nineteen eighty
nine. We're probably gonna write asong about that. It's a turn based

(07:42):
game that you're essentially like a demonand you have a dungeon and you have
goblins and imps and salamanders and warlocksand all these crazy things and you try
to beat like the good guys.You tried to beat the Knights and all
the dwarves and all that. Soit's almost like Lord of the Rings and
reverse if you compeut it like that. But as far as my most favorite

(08:03):
mainstream game, it's the Halo series. I just that's what I grew up
on. I mean, I startedwith n sixty four, Gold nine and
all that, But Halo was reallyin regards to like the story, the
lore. The soundtrack is amazing,obviously, and when we wrote The Fall
of Reach, it was really coolto be able to take all of that
nerdism that I gathered over the yearsfrom the game and put it into something

(08:26):
that, like, other people couldunderstand, that other people could hear.
So it's always really cool to beable to do stuff like that. I'm
not sure what all you were allowedto share is far as behind the scenes
stuff with incarceration. How long isyour set for this year's inc Are there
any challenges going into this other beingyour first live show ever? I know,

(08:48):
So we talked about club shows fora minute. That is a walk
in the park compared to something likethis, because yes, you have in
years, but so do every bandthere. So now we're talking about frequency
spectrums and all this stuff and anythingyou want to share. Yeah, it's
been a very enlightening. I liketo think that from the marketing and the

(09:11):
business side of music, I'm prettywell versed since it's what I do for
a living, But when it comesto the production aspect, I'm as ignorant
as anybody else in any band,and when I'm filling out these advances,
and when I'm figuring out all thelogistics of when we need to be there,
how we need to be there,what we need to bring, what
we need to rent, all theequipment, all the inn ears, all
the rigs, all that. It'sbeen overwhelming at times, but I'm very

(09:37):
thankful to have a team around methat is really good at what they do.
We have a good production manager,our second guitarist to all shout out,
Mike Skinner. He's also a fulltime producer and engineer. So there
are people where I lack in alot of areas they can pick me up.
And that's really been a nice comfortingthing to think about during this journey.

(09:58):
We do play thirty minutes, soeleven forty five to twelve fifteen on
July twenty first, twenty first Daythree. I know Day three is tough.
Trust me, I've been on theother side of that. As you're
tired, you're like, I wantto sleep in at the campground, or
I want to get there late andjust enjoy the rest. But I promise
it's gonna be so worth it ifyou show up early, because like I

(10:20):
said, number one, you're gonnasee our first live show, whatever that's
worth. But number two between usand Fight from Within and a couple other
bands at the beginning. Man,there's no stopping and you only get this
once a year, so show upearly. That's all I got to say.
Perfect answer. Talking to Ryan fromKill Streep right now, he's a
guitar player. What bands are youexcited to see as a fan at incarceration?

(10:45):
So I would say, at leastI know on day three. I'm
trying to think of the whole billnow, but Brand a Sacrifice Era my
boys in ten fifty six. They'refriends of ours. Kingdom of Giants,
Attack Attack Chimera for sure. Thosedudes I grew up boy, oh my
god, Yeah, yep. They'refrom the same city and they great,

(11:07):
great guys, known them for sinceI was maybe fifteen or sixteen years old.
That they they've opened their doors tomeet. So that was really cool
to see them on the on theset bad Omens obviously, and that's just
funny story about bad Omens real quick. So on your side of things,
when I was doing podcasts, wewere supposed to have them on my podcast

(11:31):
and March thirteenth, twenty twenty isa date that everybody will remember because that's
the first date that COVID happened.And I'm sitting there in the House of
Blues Cleveland lobby waiting about two hoursfor their tour manager at the time,
Matt who's now their sound guy,to come out and escort us to the
green room to interview bad Omens,which in twenty twenty they weren't. They
were big, but they weren't likewhat they are now and it would have

(11:52):
been really cool. And he comesout after two hours of going back and
forth being like, dude, theshow's canceled, the Earth is canceled,
and I just it was. Thatwas the hardest thing ever. But I'm
hoping that someday I can make thathappen again. But yeah, bad Omens
is definitely one that I'm very excitedto see as well. Are you more
of an up close and personal guywhen it comes to being at a live

(12:13):
show? Do you kind of liketo hang in the back or anything like
that? It depends on the band. My machhing days are well over when
I was, you know, ateenager, And it's funny because I'm actually
when I was Teenger, I waslike, this really frail, skinny kid,
but I moshed more back then.Now I'm like, if it's a
band that I'm like super into,I try to get pretty up close.

(12:35):
I know, I just saw amirror a couple of months ago and I
was like, I need to getbear those throw down. Yeah, but
some bands, some bands are honestlybetter far away because you get a whole
experience of everybody, and being aguitarist, I focus a lot more on

(12:56):
what the instrumentals are doing. Iobviously folks on the front man like everybody,
but I'm more attuned to O thosethings and done a couple of side
stages, Like I was side stagefor spirit Box on one of their tours
about a year ago, and thatwas pretty cool. But I will say
side stage can be overrated at times. You don't get the same kind of
sound. They're not performing for youand all that. So I know some

(13:18):
people are like, yeah, sidestage is like the best, you know,
clout thing you can do, butit's not as cool as people make
it out to be. I willsay, if you have like those in
years in you get to listen tothe mix or something, Heck, yeah,
Yeah, sometimes it's nice to justtake a take a break from the
crowd, you know what I mean? True, Yeah, especially and when

(13:39):
it's gonna be a thousand degrees outside, but it's gonna be hot, and
everybody is unintentionally rubbing against everybody elseand you are just nobody's wearing deodorant.
I mean, if there was anything, if I was a festival promoter,
the one thing I would do istake a pool money aside and buy free
sticks of deodorant, like enough forseventy five thousand people, whatever it is,

(14:01):
and just pass them out throughout thedays, and the experience for fans
would be just so much better.But what can you do after incarceration?
What's the plan for kill Streak?So we are we're gonna take a little
break just because of what's all thethings we've done. We've had this release,
we got incarceration, all this we'vebeen just it's been a full time

(14:22):
job being in the spand which isgreat. But after inc we're going to
start writing for our second EP,and that and the way we do our
EPs. Our first EP was calleddeath Match, and that was all first
person shooter games. So every EPis going to be a different genre of
video games. The second one willbe fantasy, so you can use your
imagination or what fantasy games would beon there, but I can say for

(14:45):
for certain the first single is goingto be Zelda, which is my vocalist's
favorite franchise. Perfect and at themoment, it's going to feature Andy Czik
from Monuments, so that'll be reallyfun. They're both big Zelda fans,
and I Hey, that's that's thefun thing about this band is sometimes some
of us don't know anything about thegame, so but even so we learn

(15:07):
about it and we look at thegame synopsis and come up with cool lyrics
and cool, cool themes and Idon't I know nothing about Zelda, to
be honest, but I'm excited todo it just to learn about that.
We do have a show coming upand can't announce the details yet, but
it will be in direct support ofSigns of the Swarm, So really excited
for that. That'll be in thewintertime, and uh, yeah, we're

(15:28):
just gonna be writing and and uhperforming when when people ask us to,
and and uh, I'm pretty excitedfor what the future holds for sure.
Awesome. How do you feel yourband has grown since you guys first started,
Well, we've bonded more as people. I've been in certain bands where

(15:50):
you go to practice you have agood relationship with the people at practice,
but after practice, you don't reallydo a whole lot outside of the band,
and that can on it can hindersome of the camaraderie when it comes
to the creative process. And witha band like kill Streak, we are
all very close. We all havepretty similar interests. That's why we all

(16:11):
came together, so we're able tokind of do things outside of the band
that that really helped within the band. We're all friends. When we started,
we were all strangers. Nobody knewanybody, and it was just it
was really cool that through luck,I was able to come up with a
roster of guys that all really meshwell. So it and going through the

(16:36):
guitarist finding a new guitarist process,you know, it brings you back down
to earth because you're like, thisis this is harder than it looks.
You know, it's finding the rightperson is not necessarily the most skilled person,
it's just everything they have, theall encompassing. So really that's how
we've grown overall. We obviously havea pretty finite direction. We know what

(17:00):
we want to do and that's agood thing because we're not when we go
to write, it's not like whatdo I want to write about? You
know, our our video games aredoing the legwork for us, if you
will, So really the next stepsare like trying to get some sync licensing
done. As far as getting placed. I've been trying to hit up the
guys in Rockstar to get our songon one of the GTA six radio stations,

(17:23):
so that would be really neat ifthat happens. We are happy as
an independent band. I would youknow, if we got the right record
deal along the way, that'd begreat. But right now we own all
of our masters and because I doa lot of the management stuff already,
it's it's great because we don't haveto spend the money to for a label
to do these things. But ifwe did get a we've had some offers,

(17:45):
but if we get the right offer, we would love to sign.
But we're happy where we are andreally excited to tap in because it seems
like with like I said, thefantasy EP, and then we're going to
do a sci fi EP, ahorror EP. If it seems like we're
not just tapping into new games,but new fans of those games, because
somebody who plays Call of Duty mightnot play Final Fantasy. Sevin, Right,

(18:07):
So if you're writing songs about othergames like that, you should be
tapping into fan bases you might nothave already. So really excited for that
prospect too. Wow, you reallythought of this and I love it.
It's very really well thought out.Any advice you would give to maybe new

(18:27):
bands trying to make their mark inthe music scene, sure, Like I
just said, find the right people. That's really important because you could put
together four or five guys that arevirtuosos at their instruments, but if they
don't get along, it's it's allor not. It means nothing. Also,

(18:47):
something that I try to preach prettyoften is treat yourself like you're already
a big band, because other peoplewill view you as such, whether that's
through your posting your social media,whether that's through the shows you accept,
whether that's just through the music youmake, the amount of money you spend,
what you invest in, what studios, what producers, what kind of
marketing and promo. If you treatyourself and even even in person, even

(19:11):
networking. If you treat yourself likeyou're already a big band, people will
treat you with the respect of beinga big band even if you aren't,
and that has a tendency to avalancheinto something really, really great. So
that would be my probably my numberone advice anyone that's ever asked me like
the same thing. Be professional,take it to the next level best you

(19:33):
can. You can't accept the smallshows every single time. You can't accept
the big shows every single time.Be friends with your bandmates. Have fun.
That's the most important part. Justhave fun. And that's the thing
that we want to bring back toTo interject, but to bring back to
metal in general is fun. Youknow, we don't want to be and
I love Electric Callboy, but wedon't want to be a joke band like

(19:55):
Electric Callboy. But we don't alsowant to be to take ourselves too serious
either. And I think that youknow, if you've seen our music videos
and if you've seen the way wejust we have certain things, it's all
very calculated to the point of wewant to bring fun back in the metal.
We want we want, you know, good looking girls back in metal
music videos, and we want carsand just skate parks. We did a

(20:19):
video and you know you we wantto bring that era back. I call
it the MySpace era back when youknow every MySpace deathcore band was just a
house party music video. I wantto bring that era back, and because
what that does is that, honestly, it brings women back into metal.
And we would be kidding ourselves ifwe didn't say women, especially younger women,

(20:41):
are the taste makers of all music, not just metal, and they're
a very important part of what becomespopular. And I really am trying to
broaden our demographic just from thes asdeath corey is to be the the Reddit
males, if you will, Iwant I want to bring that more to
a We try to bring up popsensibility. I know it's heavy music,

(21:03):
but we try to bring up popsensibility in the sense of broadening our music
to all generations. And so far, the demographics, at least on Spotify
and things like that, seem tobe lining up with that, so I'm
hoping that continues. Fantastic answer,Thank you for sharing that. Any final
words you want to say to fans, go check us out on all platforms.
All social media is kill Streak.Us. We are on TikTok,

(21:26):
Instagram and Facebook, all those things. We just came up with the song
yesterday. Like I said, mostWanted featuring No Face, No Case into
the Grave about Need for Speed again. Show up early Sunday morning at Incarceration
eleven forty five. We will probablyplay a song, you know, and
if you don't know any of oursongs, we will play a song about
a video game. You know.That is guaranteed, So go check out

(21:48):
our merch as well. We gota merch store up on te Spring.
Just google our merch and yeah.That's about it. And I appreciate you
having me on absolutely. Thanks forbeing here today, Ryan. I love
talk talking the bands, and Ilove just getting to know the nitty gritty
stuff. So thanks for spending alittle bit of your morning with me today.
I'm gonna talk to you here ina little bit off air. Okay,
sounds good. So that's Ryan fromthe band Kill Streak. These guys

(22:11):
rule. If you love video gameslike I do, you're gonna fall right
in love. Maybe one day they'llwrite a Sonic Adventure two song for me.
Who knows, I'm just kidding.Anyways, you gotta check them Out
of Incarceration Fest. This year,they're playing Sunday at eleven forty five.
I'll be there so I hope tosee you guys there, And thanks for
checking out this episode of the podcast. We'll see you guys next time.