Interviews

Darren Cordeux - Kisschasy 'Coming Back At The Top Of Our Game'

Kelsey Trevan

May 23, 2025

8 min read

18 years. The year that in most countries (I’m looking at you, America), teenagers reach the legal drinking age, and it’s a time to celebrate. For Kisschasy, it’s also a time to celebrate. Hymns For The Non Believer turns 18 this year, and it’s also the first time the album is going to be pressed on vinyl. Today also marks the release of the first new Kisschasy song in 14 years, 'Lie To Me', and oh boy, is it wonderful!

Wall Of Sound was lucky enough to grab some time with frontman extraordinaire, Darren Cordeux to chat new music, the bands upcoming tour and more.

Last time we spoke, which was almost 2 years ago now, you said that it wasn’t the right time for new Kisschasy music. Why is now the right time?

It wasn’t about the time, it was about when the songs were there, you know? When we got back together for Good Things, it was one of those things where I was like okay, lets just dip our toe in the water. A lot of life had happened between when we’d broken up, and when we did those shows. We were living in a post-Covid world, kind of a collective world trauma, so I think when we played those shows we were like, okay wow, this feels really good, it feels like we still have a lot to offer as a band, at least as a live band.

When we played together we had so much chemistry and the feedback we were getting was that we were playing better than ever.

The reason why I didn’t go headfirst into writing new material was because, for the same reason that we broke up, because when we called it a day in 2015, the main reason really, was because I’d written a potential fourth album, and none of it felt like it was good enough to put the Kisschasy name on. We were like, rather than tainting our little legacy, and disappointing the fans because that would be disrespectful, let’s just leave on a high and leave that in tact. I truly believe that because we did that, [it] was the whole reason we can come back now and play these big shows. We didn’t water things down, or dilute anything. My main stipulation for any new material was that it has to be at least as good, if not better than what we’ve already done.

There’s been a few times since we last spoke, where I’ve sat down with the guitar and I was like ’it just doesn’t feel right, so I’m not going to do it’, you know? It wasn’t until October last year, that all of a sudden it just clicked. It took some reframing in my mind, I think when I was first toying around, tinkering with the idea of new material, I think I had this kind of image of what Kisschasy were, I put them in this little box, and when I went back and listened to our music I was like, you know what? Kisschasy are more eclectic than I think I was giving us credit for. I think it’s true of any band, the main thing is as long as you keep the essence of what makes the band special, you can move the genre around a little bit.

It’s good when bands evolve, as long as they don’t lose themselves in the process.

With Kisschasy, it needs to have a certain energy and power, and the lyrics have to be a bit snarky, a little bit funny, and I need to sing with a certain push to my voice. As soon as I understood that, all of these songs started pouring out, and it reinvigorated me and the rest of the guys, were like wow, this is what mad us fall in love with our own band. It wasn’t that the time chose the songs, it was the songs chose the time.

With the new songs you’d been working on, were you nervous to show the rest of the guys, or was it more of a ‘hey guys I did a thing’ situation?

I really don’t want to sound arrogant, but I also don’t want to sound fake humble. I was just so confident, I was so so thrilled with the songs that I was like ‘they’re gonna love these, there’s no way they can’t!’ I guess the hardest thing, in life, especially in this day and age we live in, is cutting through the noise and getting people to pay enough attention. It took them a while to get back and so after a while that was when I was like oh maybe not, but then they got back to me and they listened and they loved it and I was like okay I was right. You’re always going to be a little bit ‘maybe I’m crazy’, especially if you have too much time to think.

From the way you’re talking, it sounds like there’s more than 1 song. Is there an album coming, Darren?

Ahhhh, all I’ll tell you is that there’s more than one song. I don’t want to say too much, but there’s definitely at least 9 other songs that have been recorded so we’re working all that out right now.

Well, hopefully there’s more to come, ‘Lie To Me’ is great, and it still sounds like Kisschasy. Last time we spoke, you talked about how exciting it was to hear Australian bands singing in an Australian accent, and you definitely still sound that way.

That’s very important to me, and that means a lot, so thank you. That was the other thing, we just wanted to make sure, it wouldn’t make sense to come back and be this completely different thing. It was about distilling the essence of what we are and I think we’ve certainly done that.

The main reason we’re chatting today is about the tour, and 18 years of Hymns For The Non Believer and it’s coming out on vinyl. What was the conversation like that brought this about?

So, Summit Distro, who did United Paper People, we have a nice relationship with them, they reached out to us to do that record when we were touring in 2023, its funny because at that point, United Paper People had been out 18 years and now this record is 18, which is a really random number, but we didn’t want to do things strictly by the book I guess. That went down really well, the vinyl looked and sounded great, they were really good at fulfilling all the orders for the fans, so we felt like it really made sense when they reached out to us about Hymns, and we’d never released it on vinyl, Seizures was the only album we did a limited run of on vinyl, it was inevitable I guess that Hymns especially, being our highest selling record, it was just a given it was going to happen at some point.

When they reached out to us, we were like hell yeah let’s do this. Last tour was so much fun, so let’s do it again. Everything worked out so well last time and it was so much fun, and we thought why not?

‍Aside from the hometown show in Frankston, and the second hometown show in Melbourne, is there any shows in particular you’re looking forward to most? Are they all venues you’ve played before?

I think we’ve only played The Roundhouse twice, once in the early days of the band, we support The Ataris and we did our own show there in 2008 which was amazing. All of the others are completely new spots for us. We’ve never played The Forum and it’s a bucket list venue for me. I think its so beautiful. All of the venues are stunning actually, Australia, even though its sad so many have shut down, we have some really beautiful venues though, so I think its cool they’re able to survive and its cool to be a part of that.

The Forum is one of my absolute favourite venue’s in Australia, I usually liken it to being inside a music box when I do these chats with bands playing there. Do you remember what the first band you saw there was?

Oh my god that’s a great way to put it! I think I saw You Am I play there years ago, I saw Jimmy Eat World with Joel Vanderuit (Bass), from Kisschasy, maybe The Breeders? I’ve been to a good handful of shows there, some I remember better than others and it’s never ever sounded bad. Not only is it aesthetically pleasing, it sounds incredible. Its also so central and in the middle of Melbourne and I’ve always wanted to play there and its funny it took 'til now for it to happen.

Especially now after hearing ‘Lie To Me’ and you saying there’s more songs, I’m so excited for you guys to come back.

It’s hard for me to contain my excitement, one of the things, it’s a blessing and a curse of not being in the same country as the other guys there can be a little bit of improvisation when it comes to these kind of thing. We used to have to do press, media training before we went in for an interview, and we’d all have to be on the same page with what we were saying, and obviously that’s not happened this time and I’ve spilled the beans!

Well, I can keep a secret, but I can’t promise that my editor (also me) can! I’m so happy for you guys, congratulations for the vinyl, and good luck with the tour! Any final thoughts?

I’m just really really thrilled to come back, not only to play places like The Forum, in honour of Hymns, which I’m still really proud of, but to feel like we’re coming back at the top of our game with new music that I feel is the best we’ve done and I can’t wait for people to hear more!

Interview by Kelsey Trevan @kelsey_139

Stream new song 'Lie To Me' here

You can catch Kisschasy on their Australian tour this June, and tickets are available for all shows (Except Melbourne) here.