Kid Sistr Is Here to Rock Your Socks Off, in a Gay Way

For Kid Sistr, growing up doesn’t mean growing out of the things that brought you together. The trio has built a sound around alt-rock, pop-punk and chaos, pairing the angst of queer girlhood with the humor that makes their music and personality unmistakably theirs.

On Oct. 15, Kid Sistr returns to Salt Lake City alongside The Wrecks, bringing new music to a city they’ve previously visited through its DIY scene. “I love playing in Salt Lake,” they say. “The shows are always really energetic. I feel like the people are always really into it.”

After playing Kilby Court a couple of times, the band is excited to experience the city with a bigger venue and crowd. They’ll also be bringing new songs to the show, giving local fans a glimpse of what’s next.

Kid Sistr’s evolution hasn’t meant abandoning the foundation that brought them together. When asked what they’ve carried from their early garage-band days, the members pointed to their “iconic power trio vibe,” their emphasis on live performance and, most importantly, their friendship. “A lot has changed, but I feel like our humor has pretty much stayed pretty similar,” they say.

That consistency extends to the band’s relationship with identity. Queer girlhood, romance and rebellion are central to American Teenage Prophecy, themes that have evolved alongside the members themselves.

“I feel like, in terms of the queer part, it got gayer,” they say, prompting immediate agreement from the bandmates. “When you’re more comfortable with yourself, then you can create better art,” they explain. “It’s all positive when you start to embrace who you are. Only good things happen.”

That openness also informs Kid Sistr’s recognizable humor, from their “Boy Quiz” series to their shared love of comedies like Booksmart and Superbad. Rather than a carefully constructed brand, their comedic identity developed naturally through friendship. “We’re going and going and going, and I feel like that’s kinda what made us click as people,” they say. “It was a very natural progression that brought us into the creative processes as well.”

For a band whose chemistry is central to its identity, humor is more than an online personality. It’s how they connect, create and make room for one another to grow.

That sense of belonging came up again when discussing Salt Lake City’s creative community. Sara Keden, who has close friends in the city, sees its artistic underground as inseparable from its landscape and religious history.

“There’s this kind of very rich creative underground because you’re so fed by the landscape of Utah and of Salt Lake City, and also having to resist a lot of these, like, more fundamentalist, like, religious things that are happening around it,” she said.

She pointed to SLC Punk! as a reflection of the city’s complicated artistic identity, noting that creativity can emerge both in opposition to and alongside religious culture. The coexistence of these communities is part of what makes Salt Lake distinctive, creating space for different perspectives to shape its music and art.

As someone who has experienced Salt Lake City from outside its immediate cultural context, I found that description familiar. Independent publications like SLUG help sustain that creative ecosystem by documenting the artists and communities that make the city what it is.

Kid Sistr’s next chapter arrives with “Accelerator,” released Oct. 8, just days before the Salt Lake City show. Asked what listeners can expect, the band’s answer was characteristically direct. “We’re here to rock your socks off … in a gay way. Rock hard, rock and roll, forever, till we die.”

Pedal to the metal, no apologies. On Oct. 15, Salt Lake City gets to experience a band that’s grown more confident in its sound, its identity and its friendship without losing the humor that brought it all together.

Read more interviews from Indi Tejeda:
Silver Cup Finds Its Way Home on STILL SILVER
The Art of Dedication: A Conversation with Mirah

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