The Kobras were born in the stormy seas of 2020 London, combining Bulgarian eastern mysticism and British stiff upper lip cynicism. We were super stoked to have a chat with vocalist Dessy Baeva and guitarist Harry Thacker about their debut single and more!
Firstly, congratulations on your debut single! How was the creative process for this track and can you tell us about how you came up with the lyrics to “Fuck Boy” ?
(Harry) - Thank you. This was The Kobras first song which was before I had joined the band. So Dessy can tell you more about the lyrical content. When she first showed it to me, instrumentally it was just what you hear in the verses, so I went away and played around with it one evening and put some flashy bits on top of the choruses and added the bridge. I showed it to her the next time we met up and like most of my ideas she first said she didn’t like it but eventually it won her over.
The main character of the song is like John Travolta from the movie Grease. He is beautiful, but dumb and he thinks he can get away with anything, because of his charm. Well yes, but not always. He falls flat on his face and ends up alone.
(Dessy) - Hahah it’s true! I said that it sounded like soundtrack from “Friends”, but once I heard it loud on the amp in the studio I knew it was really good! As for the lyrics it was a way to process painful memories of men who have wasted my time and the time of pretty much any other women that I know and finding a way to laugh about it. The main character/antagonist of the song is like John Travolta from the movie Grease. He is beautiful, but dumb and he thinks he can get away with anything, because of his charm. Well yes, but not always. He falls flat on his face and ends up alone.
Who are “The Kobras” and how did this duo come to fruition?
(Dessy) - I started the band as an experiment almost as a joke some time in 2018 and changed a lot of different guitarists, drummers and bass players. It was really hard to find someone who sticked with it and had the same musical influences as me. Last year I was ready to give it all up and then Harry found me.
(Harry) - In 2020 my New Years resolution was to form a band because I found it surprisingly hard to meet musicians on the same musical tip as me but I joined a few websites that are like tinder for musicians. And I saw Dessy’s profile which had a lot of artists that I was into. Luckily she had left her email address somewhere in her bio, so I sent her an email. Old-school.
I noticed you began this project during 2020 how has the current times with Covid affected you? Have you had an opportunity to perform live yet as “The Kobras”? '
It’s affected us personally the same as everyone else, badly. But we’ve tried to make the best of a bad situation and I’m not sure we would have recorded the EP if it hadn’t forced our hands. Since there wasn’t an opportunity to play live at gigs other than in friends gardens we decided to record the EP to put our music out there and generate some momentum. It also gave us more time to sit down and get creative but took away those things that help fuel your creativity. And like I said we’ve only performed live a few times at friends house, once at a jam night and we also did an Instagram live. Yea for the internet.
If you could go open a show for any artist who would it be?
(Harry) - Led Zeppelin but we’re not picky so I anyone really.
(Dessy) - Yak, Fat White Family, Surfbort, Thee Oh Sees and many, many others.
View the ‘Fuck Boy’ official music video on Youtube
What is the most useless talent you have?
(Harry) - Guitar, I only have one talent so I guess it has to be that.
(Dessy) - Harry is actually very good at chess. I have many talents, but perhaps a useless one would be very neat laundry hanging. All talents are useful though!
What can we expect from “The Kobras” in the future?
Well in the near future we have a new single called “The Sun Song” coming out on April the 23rd and the full EP on June the 4th. Then hopefully we can start playing some live shows and if all goes to plan some of the greatest albums of all time (hopefully).
