There are many words that describe Pittsburgh’s rock scene in the 2020s — “thriving,” “eclectic,” “underrated.”
Another is “equestrian.” On the indie-rock side, the city’s biggest export in recent years are Feeble Little Horse, the droll shoegazers who went from Oakland apartments to Coachella afternoon sets in two years’ time. Coincidentally, one of the most beloved young bands in Pittsburgh hardcore right now is called Kicked in the Head by a Horse. They haven’t made it to Coachella yet, but they did play Rhode Island’s Quahog Clam Jam to nearly 700 screamo kids earlier this spring — and the crowd went absolutely apeshit.
Like Feeble Little Horse, whose fuzzy sound resonated at a time when shoegaze interest was rising nationally, Kicked in the Head by a Horse — commonly shortened to KITHBAH — are gaining momentum in tandem with a nationwide surge in the exact type of mathy, moshy screamo music they specialize in. Since forming in early 2022, they’ve released several EPs and other short-form projects, most recently a must-hear November split with the comparatively mellow Pittsburgh screamo band Morning Dew.
KITHBAH have also become a known quantity on the local live circuit, pleasing Preserving Underground crowdkillers and Mr. Roboto Project push-pitters alike. They even had a few skeptical jean jacket punks nodding along approvingly during a recent gig with Rock Room denizens Speed Plans and Big Baby.
KITHBAH’s sound is a unique amalgam of aesthetic screamo à la Saetia and Orchid and blast-beaten mathcore inspired by The Chariot and Converge — but peppered with the type of cartilage-crushing breakdowns that today’s hardcore moshers slaver for. The way their music offers both emotional catharsis and quickfire physicality allows them to straddle several hardcore micro-scenes that are often rigidly divided among social and artistic lines.
It probably won’t come as a surprise that a band named Kicked in the Head by a Horse started on less-than-serious terms. The quartet — singer V. Kavanshansky, guitarist Larry Rupp, bassist Nate Hoff, and drummer Jacob Laurine — originated as a casual side-project; Rupp had some demos, and the other members asked to collaborate on them. Their patently absurd moniker originates from a list of reasons why people were allegedly sent to the insane asylum in the 1800s, including for getting kicked in the head by a horse.
“That is so stupid; let’s make that the name,” Kavanshansky recalls thinking.
Between their silly name and their cheeky use of Family Guy soundbites as mosh calls (Lois Griffin saying “Peter, the horse is here,” introduces the head-stomping breakdown of “Charles Bonnett”), KITHBAH don’t take themselves oppressively seriously. But they’re definitely not a joke band. Kavanshansky and Rupp both seem like well-adjusted adults while speaking with Pittsburgh City Paper on a chilly December afternoon, but as they begin talking about their unconventional upbringings, I learn about the real-deal darkness fueling KITHBAH’s music. Rupp was raised in a conservative Christian household in Kittanning, where he was both homeschooled and extremely socially isolated.
“The majority of my childhood, I didn’t really leave the house more than once a week,” he says.
Getting the internet at 14 years old liberated him from his bubble and introduced him to heavy music, and, eventually, he integrated into the Pittsburgh metal and hardcore scene — the first secular community he’d ever been a part of. Rupp describes his current worldview as “the complete opposite” of what he was indoctrinated with growing up, and he uses KITHBAH to process the frustrating contradictions of conservative ideology through mind-warping riffage.
“Most conservatives are just full of fear,” he says. “They think that if they react in this certain way and have these certain beliefs, then that’s the proper way to react to that fear. In a sense, I try to channel that through music with chaos and randomness — but have it be controlled.”
KITHBAH’s convulsive music has been a crucial emotional outlet for Kavanshansky as well. Their parents got divorced when the singer was young, and they grew up bouncing between houses, leading them into “stupid kid stuff” in their teens like stealing beer from their parents and experimenting with drugs.
“Growing up moving houses a bunch and not having a solid home to come home to, I was always trying to rebel,” Kavanshansky says.
Their drug and alcohol abuse snowballed in their early twenties and also coincided with some mental health turbulence. At 20, they were admitted into the psych ward and diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. “It was a really weird time because I was doing a lot of drugs, so everything was skewed,” Kavanshansky calmly explains. “I had a psychotic break, and I just remember my dad bringing me into the hospital and them taking all my stuff.”
KITHBAH’s 2024 TV Therapy EP was specifically influenced by that period in the vocalist’s life, and many of the band’s lyrics, which Kavanshansky co-writes with bassist Hoff, deal with themes of addiction and self-hatred. Going forward, however, Kavanshansky hopes that their most trying times are behind them. The singer tells me, proudly, that they’re just over four months sober from alcohol.
“It’s a huge change,” they say. “Basically everything bad I’ve ever done or gotten arrested [for] has revolved around alcohol.”
Unless you tried to decode KITHBAH’s abstract lyrics on Bandcamp, you wouldn’t know anything about the members’ personal backgrounds. Their live persona, especially, seems shrouded in mystery. Kavanshansky’s onstage demeanor is shifty and cryptic; they rarely make eye contact with the audience and never address the crowd between songs. With one arm tucked behind their back (a classic screamo stance) and the mic resting suavely beneath their chin, their shrieking fits appear both poetically coordinated and unconsciously expressive. Sometimes, they get so caught up in the performance that they completely forget that other people are watching.
“When we play live, it’s definitely very freeing,” Kavanshansky says. “I can do whatever I want up there and just flop around and scream and yell, and all that pent-up anger from the years growing up just pours out of me.”
Kavanshansky doesn’t even have to say the band’s name. KITHBAH’s regular set opener, “method acting for playing dead,” begins with a sample of a comedian uttering the band’s titural phrase — which then snaps into a flesh-pounding riff. It’s one of the only predictable moments in the band’s otherwise frenzied live shows, but Kavanshansky, who wants to eventually become more talkative onstage, hopes they won’t be opening their shows with “method” for much longer.
“I’m not sick of it,” they clarify. “I just want to play some of this new stuff.” Rupp cuts in: “The new stuff is a whole other level of chaos,” he says, chuckling.
That “new stuff” encompasses not one, but two, fresh releases — and KITHBAH fans won’t have to wait long to hear them. In early spring of 2025, they plan to drop a split with another rising group of Pittsburgh heavyweights, and then release an additional EP of their own material around the same time. Rupp says that the new batch of songs are “heavy as shit” — especially the four tracks on the split release, which tone down the band’s screamo side and ratchet up the metallic violence.
”It’s totally different from what we normally do, but it’s still us,” Rupp enthuses. “It’s very fast, heavy, and all over the place.”
The songs on the accompanying KITHBAH EP are supposedly even crazier. “It’s basically at the limit of what me and [Hoff, bassist] can play musically,” Rupp says. “I actually hate playing some of the riffs because I’m like, ‘why the fuck did I write this?’”
The band aim to bring those new songs on the road as much as possible next year. They have fans as far as California begging them to play their cities, and have been in talks with a label about a potential signing once they get some more touring under their belts.
But the most excited Kavanshansky and Rupp get during our interview is when they’re talking about Pittsburgh. They’re fully cognizant of how their band is uncommonly appreciated by several different factions of their hometown’s greater scene. In September 2023, they played a free EP release show at Mr. Roboto that brought screamo softies and hardcore tough-talkers together into one pit — and they hope to do it again early next year.
“I feel like over the years there’s been a slight divide between hardcore kids and DIY [punk] kids,” Rupp says. “But I like that when we did that free show, it felt like both those scenes came together a little bit. It was just a mixture of everyone — it was awesome.”
This article appears in Dec 11-17, 2024.
