Clean Cut Kid

Clean Cut Kid came together in 2014 as a Liverpudlian indie-pop quartet. Husband-and-wife duo Mike and Evelyn Hall led the group from the outset, beginning as a pair until bassist Saul Goodman entered the picture and they rehearsed briefly as a trio. Ross Higginson completed the roster on drums in November 2014. Mike’s childhood obsession with music already ran deep; he constantly played the Beatles’ Blue and Red albums plus Michael Jackson’s Dangerous on his Walkman, later picking up guitar in his teens once his father handed him a battered three-string acoustic. That lifelong affinity for classic pop shapes the band’s sound, which pairs unabashedly romantic lyrics with instantly memorable melodies. Early momentum came through a run of singles that opened with “Runaway” and “Vitamin C” in 2015. The combined pull of Fleetwood Mac, Peter Gabriel, Joni Mitchell, and Paul Simon helped secure a Polydor deal after just their second live performance. Clean Cut Kid’s first full-length, Felt, arrived in 2017, followed the next year by the Painkiller EP and the standalone single “Deafening.”