“As an artist, I’m just trying to do the best that I can for however long I have the opportunity to be here,” Devin Guisande, the alt-pop maestro behind Kyd The Band, shares EXCLUSIVELY with HollywoodLife. Kyd dropped Season 3: The Realization today (Oct. 16), a six-track EP that Devin says best blends the sounds established on the previous two releases (Season 1: The Intro and Season 2: Character Development) to give a complete picture of who Kyd The Bland is, sonically.
“I’ve always thought of my music like a TV series,” says Kyd. “All my music is about my life, and so the seasons are those different periods of time. Season 1 was about my childhood and upbringing. Season 2 was me going out into the world on my own for the first time and trying to make sense of how I was raised and who I actually was as a person. Season 3 is taking everything that was those first two seasons and putting it on the table and saying okay, so this is me. Season 3 is now.”
“I feel like I’m finally realizing who I am as a person and an artist, and why. I feel like I’m finally starting to accept it,” adds Devin. This journey begins on “Corridors,” a dance-pop track that sees Kyd The Band break through a prison of their own mind’s making. From there, Season 3 takes the listener on a trip, one that’s full of clever introspection paired with an infectious beat. From figuring out what “success” really means to him (“Make It America”) or celebrating the strength of his family (“Roots”) or the importance of self-love (“Love Someone Else”), Season 3 is an intimate portrait of the artist, one that Devin is happy to share.
“For a long time, I wanted to ignore that I’m the son of a preacher and that faith and all of my personal experiences in the church, whether negative or positive, are all that made me into who I am,” he says. “I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, and that used to torture me every day, and I’ve done a lot of things I am proud of, but I’m realizing that’s all a part of life. I’m realizing that the people that I love are what matter most in my life.”
Kyd The Band first arrived in 2017 with its debut single, “American Dreamer.” At the time, Devin’s brother Kyle was part of the band, and he tells HL that the first official KTB release will forever hold a place in his heart. “It was special because my brother was a part of it, and it just felt good to actually get started and feel like a real artist,” he says. “There’s a really special naivety and excitement when you’re just starting out, and you’re unaware of a lot and just wide-eyed and happy to be there. Obviously, now my brother isn’t a part of this, and now I have a record deal, and I have a lot of music out, and I have a following, and everything just feels more serious. And that’s special in its own way.”
That “special” theme is present on “Make It In America.” Devin says there’s an “ongoing theme” that connects the two songs, one about “what I went through with my family in 2008 and then when I set out on my own at 19 and began trying to make a career out of music. I’ve seen firsthand so many different sides of success and money and loss and poverty, and how all that affects a person. So, it’s a big subject for me and something that’s always on my mind.”
Kyd The Band’s Season 3: The Realization is out now.