Q&A: KAPUT Embraces the Healing Power of Anger in Debut Album ‘One’
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY KIMBERLY KAPELA ☆
Photography Credit: Kirsten Miccoli
LETTING ANGER BE A TEACHER — KAPUT’s debut album One is a fearless exploration of anger in all its forms—a deep dive into the emotion that refuses to be minimized or ignored. The Chicago-based post-punk/no-wave trio, comprised of Nadia Garofalo, Brian Fox and M. Sord, channels the energy of their influences—Kim Gordon, Brainiac and This Heat—into a raw and experimental record that challenges conventional boundaries. One doesn't shy away from the messy, transformative power of anger, instead leaning into it as a tool for self-expression, healing and empowerment. With each track, KAPUT demands space for this often misunderstood emotion, embracing it as a force that shapes both the personal and the political.
One’s themes reflect Garofalo’s own work in therapy, where she’s confronted her anger head-on and explored its roots. This record, for her, is an act of reclaiming that anger, of making it not just acceptable but empowering. As a woman who has been socialized to apologize for any form of emotional outburst, KAPUT is a loud, unapologetic defiance against that narrative.
“I think for me, the lyrics and feeling of the album, it's a lot of explorations of anger, and I think that that can be anger in any way,” Garofalo says. “Anger is such a complex and multifaceted emotion, and it can be such a great teacher if you delve deeper into it. I think that for me, it was exploring the different sides of that, what it looks like in different moments or different situations, and exploring that in a way that felt meaningful to me.”
KAPUT’s One is as much about rage as it is about healing. Tracks like “Teal” and “Sucker” embody this duality, offering both a scathing dissection of frustration and a nuanced embrace of what anger can teach.
What’s particularly striking about One is the space it creates for emotional release. Rather than tiptoe around the discomfort that comes with expressing anger, KAPUT lays it all bare. “This album became a space for me to channel those emotions,” Garofalo says. “Ultimately, I think this record is about learning to embrace your anger, especially as a woman, and not feel the need to hide or apologize for it. It’s important, and it’s a message I hope resonates with others, particularly women, who might struggle to express that side of themselves.”
With One, KAPUT challenges listeners to reconsider what anger can be. Rather than an emotion to suppress or fear, anger is explored as a potent and powerful force capable of both destruction and creation. For women in particular, the album offers a space where embracing anger is not only an act of self-liberation but an act of defiance against the societal structures that have tried to silence it for too long.
LUNA: Thank you for talking to Luna. Our readers would love to get to know you and your music more. For any readers who aren’t familiar with you yet, what inspires your artistic style and sound?
NADIA: We have a lot of different inspirations, for sure. Life in general is an inspiration and the experiences we're working through. Especially for me, lyrics are always something I pulled from. But for this record, we definitely took inspiration from Kim Gordon and her older work and the work she's making now. We’ve been listening to her collective album and it’s helped guide us in the right direction.
BRIAN: Musically, bands like This Heat or Swans, or a lot of darker music and a lot of more avant garde bands have been major inspirations sound-wise. Nadia does poetry, so spoken word is something that she already had going on. I was looking for something new to do, and Nadia had just left her band, so it seemed like the perfect time to start this because we've known each other for so long and it seemed like the right time. I think we both have similar viewpoints on what we wanted to do with a band, so it made a lot of sense at the time.
NADIA: We definitely had similar ideas of making music and what that means for both of us and collaboration. Poetry is always an inspiration for me. I read a lot of different poetry. I really love speech policy. I tend to gravitate to more female voices. I think queer voices tend to resonate with me more in poetry as well.
BRIAN: We experiment a lot and since I'm an engineer, we have access to a studio pretty much anytime we're writing. The two go hand-in-hand a lot. We do have a lot of stuff that is a failed experiment too. It was a lot of experimenting to get to where we ended up, and there was a bunch of failed experiments in there, but kind of finding what we felt the sound was, at least for this record.
LUNA: Say if someone hasn’t heard of your music yet, which song would you introduce to them that best encapsulates your sound and artistic maturity?
NADIA: “Sucker” or “Small Talk” are good examples of our sound, because they're not the heaviest ones and they're not the most experimental sounding ones, but they sit somewhere nicely in the middle for us. I think that those are good examples when it comes to the record.
LUNA: You guys are part of Chicago’s punk and DIY scenes, and for any readers who aren’t familiar with Chicago’s music scene, how has the scene and its community inspired or impacted your sound?
BRIAN: When I first moved to Chicago, a lot of the bands were pretty harsh and they were just not commercially viable bands. I love seeing people playing music, like really good music just because they're passionate about it. I think being exposed to moving to Chicago when I was 18, and getting exposed to a lot of that really inspired me on being totally fine with not being able to write music that wasn't pop music.
NADIA: That's Chicago. I've always found Chicago to be pretty supportive and pretty open and unpretentious, in the way that I don't think people are not really out there for the goal of anything other than creating their art. I think that's always felt really great to me, and that's where I've always wanted to live artistically. I'm going to make what I want to make. I'm going to do my best to get it into as many ears as possible, but I'm also not going to compromise, just because it might not be the most marketable, popular thing to do at the time. I'd rather make something that feels like I'm trying to reach someone else's goals. All that is to say that the scene here really nurtures that sort of creativity.
BRIAN: There's a lot of resources here because it's a pretty big city, so there's a lot of great resources here and there's a really strong community, and a lot of different genres and music going on. They crossover sometimes, but live in their own worlds that you get pretty much the best of everything.
LUNA: One is an incredibly bold and confrontational debut. What is the inspiration behind the album and what themes and emotions do you explore?
NADIA: I think for me, the lyrics and feeling of the album, it's a lot of explorations of anger, and I think that that can be anger in any way. Anger is such a complex and multifaceted emotion, and it can be such a great teacher if you delve deeper into it. I think that for me, it was exploring the different sides of that, what it looks like in different moments or different situations, and exploring that in a way that felt meaningful to me. Especially as an eminent person, it feels like you're not allowed to be angry and that is off putting, or you're not allowed to own anger. I think that's something I've had to struggle with throughout my life, figuring out how to own my own anger and what to do with it so that it becomes something that's useful and not just something that’s turned on myself.
LUNA: Nadia, you’ve spoken about wanting to explore the many forms of anger, particularly through a feminine lens. Can you share how that concept guided the lyrical and emotional arc of the record? NADIA: It felt like listening to the songs take shape as we worked on them. Some of the ideas were ones Brian had already started, and we would dive into them together, building on what was there. The lyrics often emerged based on how the music resonated with me, or from something I might have in my mind that seemed to fit the mood. Sometimes I'd think, ‘I have this line that I think could work,’ and we'd build from there. The process was organic, and things would evolve as we went along.
The themes in the lyrics also reflect my personal journey, particularly my work in therapy, where I've been exploring and confronting my own anger. It’s about understanding where that anger comes from and finding a way to own it, rather than hide or minimize it. This album became a space for me to channel those emotions. There are moments of confrontation in the music, but also introspective moments. Some tracks, like “Teal,” have a more reflective, quieter tone, while others explore a balance of positivity and melancholy. Ultimately, I think this record is about learning to embrace your anger, especially as a woman, and not feel the need to hide or apologize for it. It’s important, and it’s a message I hope resonates with others, particularly women, who might struggle to express that side of themselves.
LUNA: Can you walk us through the creative process behind One? How did ideas come together between the three of you, and how did the songs evolve from the initial idea to its final version?
BRIAN: A lot of the ideas started with me just writing down whatever came to mind, without any specific direction, just to get the creative juices flowing. Nadia and I would then get together to write, and I’d share a bunch of these rough ideas with her. Some of them would resonate with her, and we’d dig deeper into those concepts. The initial ideas were pretty basic—just a drum machine beat and a simple melody—and many of the songs began that way. At the time, we weren’t focused on making everything sound perfectly cohesive; we were more about experimenting and figuring out what our sound was. That approach led to some songs I really love, like “Runner” and “Sucker.” They’re on the same record, but they’re quite different from each other, which I think adds an interesting dynamic to the album.
NADIA: The process involved a lot of experimentation and hard work. Take "Small Talk," for example—it was one of the last songs to come together for the record. We wrote, rewrote, and reworked it until it finally felt right. In fact, that could be said for almost every song. We were fortunate to have access to studio space, which allowed us the time and freedom to keep refining and experimenting until everything felt in place and efficient.
BRIAN: “Sucker” was one of those tracks where the texture, especially the fuzz bass, didn’t really come together until later in the process. We had a lot of time to experiment and figure out the right textures for each song. There were plenty of ideas we tried that didn’t make the cut, but that experimentation was key. Every three months, we’d head to Kalamazoo, Michigan, where we’d run through everything, track drums and work out the details. We recorded at Electrical Audio in Chicago, Key Club Recording in Michigan, and also our own warehouse space. We were fortunate to have access to such great resources, especially with Nadia’s experience in video and studio work. Our process blended writing with recording, so songs like “High Wire” feature Nadia’s first vocal take, and it just sounded amazing right off the bat.
LUNA: Is there a particular song on the album that each of you connects with most deeply? What makes that track stand out to you—musically, emotionally or personally?
BRIAN: “Therapy” always hits me. I love Nadia's lyrics. It just feels, for better or worse, like a good soundtrack for the current moment.
NADIA: For me, it’s so hard. I love all my children. “Yikes” feels so viscerally angry, and it came together for me really quickly lyrically, and then it also just felt really great to me to do that one. I loved how that one came together, and it was the most fun for us to perform.
LUNA: How did you celebrate the release of One?
BRIAN: We were together the night before and went into the studio and made sure everything was ready to go for the release and started writing another song.
LUNA: What are you most excited for listeners to experience when they hear One in its entirety?
NADIA: I hope that people do take the time if they're interested and they like it. I hope they do take the time to really listen front to back, just because I do think there is a spiritual narrative in there in terms of the emotions and the anger. I feel like it brings me through what I feel like is a cohesive, cathartic experience.
LUNA: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like for you that you would like to share with Luna?
NADIA: We're got back to writing, and then we're practicing and we're getting our live show together. I just hope people keep spreading the word and liking what we're doing. Getting into more ears is always a good thing.
Photography Credit: Kirsten Miccoli
