Such is their unassuming manner and patent lack of bravado, if you were to bump into Panda Kopanda, you might well think that you’d found the perfect, polite chaps for a spot of baby-sitting or house minding. But allow me to advise some caution with this mob. Because beneath the well-spoken and wholesomely indie exterior, you’ll discover a four-piece packing serious heat.

“All the guitars on our new EP,” reveals frontman Gavin Reid, “were recorded down the barrel of a shotgun.”
Don’t start running for the exits just yet, however. The rumoured Ballymena v Carrryduff slow-core blood-feud is not on the verge of going ballistic. According to bass player John Mills, the band’s use of firearms (while providing an ingenious indie-rock solution for the perennial decommissioning problem) is entirely in the service of their art.
“My Mum and Dad live on an old farm and it was lying around,” he explains. “We record in an old barn and it’s a really brilliant environment. We’re always looking to experiment and try new things and we gave it a go one day and the results were brilliant. We used a kick drum mic on the speaker cabinet and a condenser mic pointed through the gun barrel. It gives a really interesting, metallic sound. And you know, having a shotgun handy tends to come in useful when we’re recording. It keeps everyone on their toes.”
There’s no need to beat yourself up if Panda Kopanda have thus far failed to register on your radar. In the 3 years since they were formed, the band have made no great effort to demand attention. Placing their faith in melody and classic song-writing values, they’ve spent little time trying to get themselves noticed.
“We just do our own thing,” says Gavin. “There is this thing with punk bands that if you’re going to be good live, you smack on the distortion pedal and go nuts. We’ve never really done that. We rely an awful lot more on tunes. We can rock out, but anyone can do that. We prefer to concentrate on writing songs.”
“We’re never going to be a brash, in-your-face, foot on the monitor kind of a band,” adds John. “But I think recently we’ve began to feel an awful lot more confident. We’re more comfortable with the sounds that we make and the music we’re writing.”
A recent six-month break from live performances has proven to be a great creative success. Their new shotgun-assisted EP, ‘Letting Go’, benefits from a more considered and studio-based approach.
John: “Taking the break has been really healthy. When you play in Belfast all the time people do get sick of the sight of you. People thought we were doing nothing or that we’d split up, but we were working harder than we’d ever done. We’ve put an awful lot of work in and anyone who has heard the new material or seen us live, they seem to have noticed a difference.”
In the time they’ve spent hidden away in the sticks, through a mixture of necessity and single-mindedness, Panda Kopanda have grown into an intriguing and self-sufficient local prospect. ‘Letting Go’ may not be the kind of EP that lights fires around the nation, but in its own thoughtful and laidback way, and given the band’s determination to do as much for themselves as possible, it promises more rewarding days ahead.
John: “We’re complete control freaks so it makes sense for us to get involved in as much as we can and having a basic studio set up is perfect. When you go into a studio everything has to be done so quickly – the clocks ticking, the costs are rising – it can be a really pressurised environment. Doing it yourself liberates you from that kind of pressure. We can act on impulse – experiment. You can be an awful lot more imaginative in your production when you have the time. Most bands who record demos can only really afford to replicate their live sound.
“Nobody really knows how things are going to turn out in regard to the record industry, so we’re not really going to worry about that. We’re happy enough as we are at the moment – doing it ourselves, keeping control.”

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