Throwing Combos

Although they’ve been delivering beat-downs on the dance scene for a number of years, Kobra Kai are now a certified force thanks to the release of their eponymous debut album.

As Scott Middleton (aka MC D-Tech) explains, the record is representative of a band with various backgrounds and styles. â€œIt delivers a good spectrum of what we’ve been doing lately. It's not just drum & bass, and it isn’t just dubstep. It’s a mix of drum & bass, dubstep, hip hop, reggae, breaks – there’s a bit of something for everybody. What we try to do is just write music that we like, because there are a lot of different influences in the band – I used to play guitar and sing in a punk band and a lot of other members are into punk, and there’s also a lot of reggae and roots influences.”

First coming to prominence in 2007 after winning Triple J Unearthed NSW, it has taken Kobra Kai a long time to get to this point. Scott admits this is partly due to the evolution of their sound, and partly because releasing an independent album isn’t that easy. 

“When we started, the band was a little different and had more of an organic sound. Everything had been run through MIDI for a very long time, and we were only using certain sounds on the drums. We then started to transition from an organic sound to a mixture of organic and electronic. So nowadays, the drummer has a complete acoustic and electronic kit that he can tap in and out of. The songwriting has really matured too – there’s a lot more structure involved in and around what we do.

“Recording the album was quite a long process – we’ve been working on it for quite some time. We wrote so many tunes over such a long period, it was hard to nail down ten of them and say ‘right, we’ll put those on an album’. Every musician will tell you it’s a massive struggle – especially releasing independently. But it’s been worth it, and the best thing is this time we’ve written another album, so I guess once summer is over we’ll try to hit the studio again and get another one out. We’re gonna steam roll off this tour.”

Kobra Kai play the Hi-Fi Nov. 10 and the Buddha Bar, Byron Bay, Nov. 12. They also support The Upbeats at Uber Nov. 11. ‘Kobra Kai’ is out now.