Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground is an indie band started by Kirk Huffman and Kyle O’Quin of Gatsbys American Dream. Like Gatsbys, the band draws influence from a wide variety of musical genres. Though the band only has 3 official members, they have been known to perform with as many as 11 additional musicians on stage.
Kay Kay got its start when Gatsbys American Dream went on hiatus, shortly after the release of their 2006 self-titled album. Huffman and O’Quin had been writing songs together while on tour and brought in Huffman’s friend Phil Peterson to round out the group.
The band first released a handful of tracks for streaming on Purevolume and MySpace. These songs later appeared on a cassette single released by ECA Records in 2006.
A copy of the band’s cassette found its way to John Sidel of V2 Records. The band signed an initial agreement to record a full-length album, but V2 was bought out by Universal Music shortly thereafter and a finalized contract never materialized.
In early 2007, the band released Live at the Pretty Parlor, a two-disc set featuring a live DVD and accompanying CD. The DVD was filmed at an independent clothing store in Seattle in late 2006 and released on the band’s own label, Bombs Over Bellevue.
In mid-2007, they played their first out-of-state shows in Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon. On June 13th, 2007, the band made their national television debut on Last Call with Carson Daly. According to Huffman, the band’s DVD found its way into the hands of Carson Daly who then pushed to have the band on the show. The band performed “Hey Momma,” reducing the song’s length due to time constraints.
On February 19, 2008, the band released their debut self-titled album on vinyl through Vinyl Collective, a subsidiary of Suburban Home Records. The album is a double LP (with a digital download code included) and pressed in three variations, totaling 1,000 copies: rainbow transparent vinyl (200), rainbow milk vinyl (300), and orange with red speckles (500). The album was also made available digitally through several retailers, including Amazon MP3 and eMusic. To celebrate the album’s release, the band played a sold-out show at The Triple Door in Seattle, where Huffman declared “I thought we’d be playing for ten people. This is the greatest night of my life.” The band was also featured in Seattle weekly newspaper The Stranger for the album release.
