Rainbow Kitten Surprise

Hailing from the Blue Ridge Mountain college town of Boone, North Carolina, Rainbow Kitten Surprise play a fervent mix of bright indie pop and earnest, harmony-driven folk-rock. Their mix of tight instrumental chops and jam band finesse helped earn them a strong grassroots following and, after a couple of indie releases, they signed with Elektra to issue their second full-length, How To: Friend, Love, Freefall, in 2018. A year of heavy touring followed and yielded the 2021 concert album RKS! Live from Athens Georgia. After focusing on singles for several years, Rainbow Kitten Surprise returned in 2024 with the ambitious, genre-blurring double album Love Hate Music Box. Formed in an Appalachian State dorm room in 2013 by singer Ela Melo and guitarist Darrick "Bozzy" Keller, the duo recorded and self-released their first acoustic EP, Mary, before recruiting additional members Ethan Goodpaster (guitar), Charlie Holt (bass), and Jess Haney (drums) to complete the lineup. The expansion resulted in the bigger, more energetic sound heard on their debut album, Seven, which was later repackaged with their EP in a release called Seven + Mary. Their second LP, RKS, arrived in 2015 on hometown label Split Rail; combined with the increasing viral success of their single “Devil Like Me” (from Seven), the record brought Rainbow Kitten Surprise to a much wider national audience. In 2017, the band appeared at festivals including Bonnaroo, Firefly, and Austin City Limits, and they signed with Elektra Records for their third album. Recorded at Nashville’s Neon Cross Studio, where the group took advantage of a collection of vintage instruments, How To: Friend, Love, Freefall was produced by Jay Joyce (Cage the Elephant, the Head and the Heart) and released in 2018. A rigorous support tour followed, including a sold-out stop at Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre and a series of shows in Athens, Georgia, which were later compiled into the concert album RKS! Live from Athens Georgia. Prior to its release, Rainbow Kitten Surprise issued the 2019 stand-alone single “Our Song,” with the live album finally appearing in 2021. The band started 2022 with the poignant “Work Out,” an ebullient single about navigating complicated relationships. The equally effervescent “Drop Stop Roll,” a fan favorite that the group had been working out live for over a year, arrived in 2023. In March 2024, Rainbow Kitten Surprise parted ways with bassist Charlie Holt. The news was immediately followed by the release of “Superstar,” the lead single from their third album, Love Hate Music Box. Released in May and co-produced by Daniel Tashian, Konrad Snyder, and Melo, the adventurous 22-song double album marked the band’s first new LP in six years. It also featured a duet with Kacey Musgraves on the track “Overtime.” ~ Timothy Monger