Ahead of the Mucky Weekender Festival which takes place over the weekend of 9/10th September, we caught up with KIOKO and chatted about naked tree hugging, spending time in the stdio and of course, their three top tips to survive a music festival. For all of this and more, read on….

You’re playing at Mucky Weekender in September, I’m guessing that Barry Ashworth may have been involved in booking you?

Yes it was Uncle Barry who was involved in booking us for Mucky Weekender. 

Do you know yet which stage, time and day you’re playing?

We will be playing on September 10th for an hour, we are not sure on the stage or time yet. 

What is the STRANGEST/FUNNIEST/WEIRDEST thing you have ever seen at a music festival? 

There are always strange things happening at festivals, most of them involve illegal substances. We haven't seen anything too bonkers, just people getting naked and hugging trees!!

I am sure I’ve seen you guys before, maybe supporting Dub Pistols a few years back in Plymouth?

We did indeed play with the Dubs, at the Plymouth Hub back in 2017. We were truly channelling the Mucky Weekend spirit at that gig. I remember a lot of alcohol, then some legend in the crowd gave us a tub full of edibles. We spent about an hour free-styling backstage playing empty liquor bottles, completely out of times. Good times.

How does it feel to be back playing live after such a long break caused by the pandemic?

It feels great to be back doing what we love. We’re focusing mainly on recording some new material at the moment so we’re only doing a few shows here and there, but we obviously couldn’t say no to Mucky Weekender. If anyone coming to a show wants to bring us some more edibles, that would be totally fine too.

Your new single is called ‘Kakaroach’, how has that been received by your fans?

Yes our latest single is Kakaroach, we have had a great response from our fans and other artists. Seeing audiences connect with the hard subject matter as well as dance to the roots-rhythm tells us that we are doing something right! 

I saw some posts of you in the studio recently, can we expect more new music anytime soon?

We're hard at work in the studio at the moment, and are putting a lot of energy into creating a body of work. Although we can't say much at this stage, what we can say is that we're proud of the results that we're getting and can't wait to share new material with everyone. 

Apart from Mucky Weekender, which other festivals or shows do you have planned for 2022?

We're keeping some things in mind, it's been a quieter time whilst we get some work done in the studio but for sure we are heading to a fantastic event called Drive In at The Farm. A great friend of ours, Eddy Smythe, hosted a similar event just as we were trying to escape the pandemic, and we're glad to be heading back down to Chinnor in Oxfordshire to play again. Saturday 17th September for that one, and the line up is a killer, so check that!

Finally, music festivals can be ‘mucky’ affairs, please tell me your top 3 festival survival tips

A tough one, there are so many that are needed! I'll go for, get something to put water in, choose your footwear wisely, always bring an emergency toilet roll. 

Don’t miss Kioko on Saturday 10th September at Mucky Weekender https://mucky-weekender.co.uk

Their latest single “Kakaroach” is out now!

For all the latest news head to https://www.kiokomusic.co.uk