Meet Kendall James: Lead Singer and Keyboardist for Neon the Bishop

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kendall James and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kendall, what is the most important factor behind your success?
The most important factor has to be those who support us sacrificially with their talents and finances. Everyone knows that it’s really hard to make money as a new band playing original music. That being the case, putting out high quality content consistently is no easy task, as EVERYTHING costs money. But it is so important in today’s industry to succeed. Releasing just one single takes producers/engineers, studio space, artists, photographers, videographers, and I could go on. All of these things cost money. We do attempt to do as much as we can on our own, but that can take away from quality and two things that we never want to be without: Collaboration and Community. So, we have many folks to thank for helping us get this art out into the world. Without them we wouldn’t exist, except maybe in a basement somewhere.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
In music today, a lot of weight is put on the expectations and qualifications of a hit song. Like you should hear the chorus within the first 20 seconds of a song. That song should only be three minutes long. Stick to a basic chord structure. Etc. We do sometimes look at these rules depending on the song we are writing, but for the most part we like to write based on the live performance. Will it move people? This is what I believe sets Neon the Bishop apart from much of the scene today. We LOVE to put on a show people will remember. A show that our fans take away with them and cannot stop talking about. I think we’ve succeeded in that so far. We are always upping our live-performance and I’m very excited to see how they evolve in 2021-2022. We’ve got some BIG ideas up our sleeves. One of the hardest realities for me early on as an artist, was that I didn’t know everything and I couldn’t do it on my own. When I first started co-writing with others, it was very difficult. I thought I always knew better. I could be a bit toxic in these writes as I held all of my ideas with a tight fist. I wouldn’t allow what I thought to be a “genius” idea be “tainted” by someone else’s input. Once I worked through this and discovered the wonders of collaboration, my creativity only blossomed. Now, I am obsessed with it. This has been a big part of who Neon the Bishop is. My favorite collaboration so far has been with our graphic designer, Kelsey Gainer. She is an incredibly talented artist that has done the art for our first three singles. She has also worked with us on comic strips and merch. Neon the Bishop is a story. We want to tell that story through music of course, but also through graphics, performance and film. We are excited to see where this story takes us. We have a music video for our single “A Death Full of Life” releasing very soon. Keep an eye on the YouTube.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I love the city. So for starters, just taking a stroll through some of my favorite areas in Denver. I’d probably start in the RiNo district. There’s incredible street art everywhere you look. We can get some coffee from Crema, then head down the stairs into the Meadowlark bar for some drinks and an open mic. We’d probably hit up the Highlands for some Little Man Ice Cream and head south to Wash Park. I don’t know if it counts, but my favorite brewery is in Centennial, CO. It’s called Peak View Brewing, and their beer is bueno! So we’d definitely go there. I’m a big fan of clothes, so we’d most likely check out Buffalo Exchange. And I can’t forget to take him to my favorite wing spot, Cho 77. This is all just the tip of the ice burg. Denver is great. There’s so much to do. Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Definitely want to shout out the families of Neon the Bishop. This includes our wives, kids, parents, aunts and uncles. We have so much support from them. Without that support, much of what we do could become burdensome. Succeeding in this field takes a lot of hard work, and an army of support, and we feel like we have that.

Website: www.neonthebishop.com
Instagram: @neonthebishop
Twitter: @neonthebishop
Facebook: www.facebook.com/neonthebishop
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCENjERYT3ZQSayy8ZC8BaDw

Image Credits
Sarah West, Kelsey Gainer