User:WreckR/sandbox

Kangaroo Knife Fight is a rock band from Kansas City, Missouri, consisting of Anthony Avis (lead vocals), Ian O'Connell (drums), Brandon Skeens (lead guitar) and Gus Rechtien (bass guitar, backing vocals).

HISTORY
In 2009 Ian O'Connell's band The Whitest Light (fka Happy Endings) finished their last tour and called it quits. Attraction to a certain female brought him to Kansas City where he quickly settled into the trade of hair styling. This trade placed him in contact with another female that happened to be Gus Rechtien's significant other. Given their common musical backgrounds, Ian and Gus met up to discuss working on music and started recording some basic ideas. In time, a bass player and singer were added to the mix and a band called Little Rosco was formed. Given that Gus had typically been a bass player in prior bands, he began taking guitar lessons from Brandon Skeens in order to fill the role of lead guitar in Little Rosco. Little Rosco released a self-produced full length record in late 2010 and played monthly in Kansas City until February 2012 when they performed their last show with Candlebox.

A few months after the last show, Gus started working on new songs with his former guitar teacher, Brandon Skeens, for potential publishing submission. They brought in Ian to put down the drums and initiated the search for a singer. As luck would have it, Anthony Avis, then living in Canberra, Australia, was planning a move to Kansas City and seeking out a band. Once Anthony showed up, the four hammered through various genres to find a coherent voice. With Anthony's strong old school blues background and Ian's strong pop rock drumming, there was a divide to be conquered.

The first few songs that survived were diverse in sound and style, but over time a sound agreeable to all began to emerge. In early 2014 the band began recording its first EP using their own gear. Samples of early mixes made their way online and began to circulate among certain audio engineering communities. The first song that was mixed, Shattered Head, was an offer from a Canadian audio engineer by the name of Amir Jamm. With his mix posted, Gus was introduced to Noah Shain (producer and mix engineer for Dead Sara) who agreed to mix the balance of the EP. Thereafter, Mark Chalecki, formerly of Capitol, agreed to master the EP and it was finalized in late November 2014.