Good Kid: Nick Frosst (lead vocals), Jon Kereliuk (drums), Michael Kozakov (bass), David Wood (guitar), and Jacob Tsafatinos (guitar).

We caught up with Jacob of Good Kid to dive into the fast-paced energy, video game nostalgia, and genre-blending style that fuels their infectious sound. With a loyal fanbase and sold out live shows, it's no surprise they've earned the title of our February 2025 Mid Cap Top Seller.

Let's Begin!  

Give us a little background on Good Kid and how you started.

Good Kid:  We've been a band for a while now. I think it's been almost 10 years. We all met in university.

We were all studying computer science, and we just had this shared love for music. For a lot of us, this is maybe the second or third band we've been in. As other projects were winding down, we really wanted to find other musicians we could jam with. One by one, we kind of accumulated the group, almost like forming a party in a game, like Dungeons & Dragons or something. You know what I mean? It really felt like building a team.

 

It started with me and our bassist, Michael. Michael told me, “I know this guy who can sing” and that’s when we brought in Nick. Then we found Jon, our drummer. Eventually, we realized Nick couldn’t sing and play guitar at the same time, so we needed another guitarist. I was like, “I know a guy who can play guitar.” We brought in David, and yeah, that's pretty much how we started. Just a bunch of us coming together over a love of music and shared interest.

What kind of music did you listen to when creating your most recent album?

GK:  Definitely, whether intentionally or subconsciously, I grew up learning how to play guitar by learning songs from The Strokes, and like, indie rock bands and pop punk bands. A lot of our influences are bands from the early 2000s, like the post-punk wave, the indie wave, or pop punk. Probably bands like The Strokes and Bloc Party are big ones on the more indie side. And then, honestly, bands like 22, NOFX, Rancid, more punk rock bands from that era, too. On the vocal side, it’s interesting because our singer actually doesn’t really listen to a lot of popular music. He listens to a lot of folk, and Celtic or Irish traditional music and stuff like that, so that’s where that influence comes from. So it’s definitely a pretty big range of influence, to be honest. Our drummer also comes from a jazz background, he played a lot of big band jazz and metal. I think we’re actually the first indie band he’s played in. Other than that, in terms of songwriting, we watch a lot of anime, so I think unintentionally we’re also very influenced by Japanese rock, which itself is super influenced by pop punk and similar genres.

What has been the most memorable stop(s) of your tour so far?

GK:   Hmm, it’s actually really hard to pick. There are so many places that I love. First off, Denver was a standout show. The crowd was insanely loud. One guy asked to do a backflip on stage. You’d be surprised how many people ask to come up and do something but can’t actually do it. Early on, I figured if someone asked, they must be good but that wasn’t always true. So when this guy asked, I was nervous thought he might hurt himself. But he turned out to be an amazing gymnast. He did three backflips in a row. It was wild and definitely one of the most memorable moments.

 

Secondly, Mexico City, in particular, stands out. We got to go there for the first time this year, and it was so much fun. The fans are great everywhere for us, we actually hit a milestone on our USA tour back in February but Mexico City was just something else. The fans there are wild in the best way. That was the first time we played a show where we stepped outside the venue and fans literally swarmed us. They’re just so excited about music. And I think part of that is because not a lot of North American artists make it to Mexico City. I’ve heard it’s because it’s honestly pretty hard to get to as a musician. It’s expensive to travel down there, and you don’t make nearly as much money whether it’s from merch or ticket sales so financially it’s tougher. But I’d recommend it to any artist. The energy of the crowd is just… I don’t know how to describe it. It’s completely unique. I’ve heard the same about a lot of Latin America, actually places like Brazil too. It’s just an experience. And Mexico City itself? It’s beautiful. There’s so much culture, so much good food. It’s amazing. It’s kind of daunting too. It feels like you’re in a bunch of different cities at once, it’s that big.

Day of a show what does your routine look like?

GK:  For me, it’s a bit different from the other guys, I’m also a Twitch streamer. I stream on a band account I made a while ago. On tour, I usually wake up early, find a good coffee shop (I’m obsessed with coffee), and plan my day. I’ll check in with the mods who help run my stream, then go live from the road. I usually give myself a challenge like take photos at the top five landmarks or find out the city's population without going to City Hall. I’ll run around streaming for a few hours. It’s a lot of fun. My voice is shot today, I did a marathon stream this weekend. I try to stream before soundcheck. I can’t do it every day, but I aim for every other day. After that, I find local food. Touring in the U.S. is great, every city says they’ve got the best something: BBQ, wings, cheesesteaks. It’s fun trying them all! Then it’s soundcheck, followed by our VIP program. We don’t get much downtime after that. If there’s time, we hang with the opening band. I try to catch their set every night. We just toured with Phoneboy, they’re great friends and top merch sellers too. We love them. Then we play. After the show, we try to meet fans, if the venue stays open or fans are still buying merch. It means a lot to connect. If it weren’t for the fans, we couldn’t do this. That mindset has helped our band grow.

Setting Up For Merch Sales

What city had the best crowd and why?

GK: I think the UK crowds are incredible. They love their chants, like football fans with all the songs and chants they've made up. It’s really fun hearing the different ones in each city, sometimes even mid-song.

It’s cool because wherever we go, the energy is different but amazing.

On Stage Good Kid Perform To A Sold Out Crowd

Can you talk about your favorite venue(s) so far?

GK: My favorite venue so far might be... Turner Hall! It  was very beautiful, everything about it.
It’s a very old venue, been around for like over 100 years. Apparently, it was all owned by the same family. It burned down twice, and the family that owned it used to keep the ashes of their dead in the walls of the venue. But yeah, yeah… that’s not really why, it’s just a really beautiful place. Well, I love a venue that has a story, you know what I mean? This one’s iconic it's just really cool. In the basement, it’s like a rock climbing gym, which is crazy. It was so much fun. They even had a barista, just working all day for the musicians and everyone else. That was super cool, really, really nice. A really beautiful venue, sounded great, and then the spookiness was really cool too. They gave us a tour of the attic, the boiler room, all this spooky stuff. I really loved that venue. It definitely sticks in my memory.

Jacob On Guitar Touring Through The States

Naturally, we would also love to know your favorite Festival so far? 

GK:  I mean, luckily, we got really lucky last year. Our first festival ever was Lollapalooza, which would’ve been a dream festival. But I think, obviously, Coachella would be great. I really want to play Governor’s Ball. That one’s more sentimental because me and my bassist, Michael and I have attended together and it was a lot of fun!

Tell us a little about your merch? You guys have such bold and interesting designs! 

GK: So in general, not just with our merch, but across everything. I think I mentioned earlier, musically we draw a lot of inspiration from anime, but also artistically and visually. We’ve been working with the same artist since our very first single to create all of our cover art. Our artwork never features the band it’s always an illustration, because we really, really love expressing our music through illustration and characters. It’s all been done by this one guy: Gabriel Altrows, who’s an incredible artist. For the most part, not every single merch item, but the majority our merch is also designed by him. And I think that just makes for a really authentic-feeling merch experience for our fans. It allows us to not just make cool designs, but also tie the designs into the overall lore and visual storytelling behind our music. For example, we have a song called "Bubbly", and for Bubbly we created this bubbly soda drink concept. So, we sell pins that are like bottle cap pins. And the pins are still branded as Good Kid, but for people who are in the know, it’s really exciting. Even if you don’t know, it’s still just a cool-looking pin. We take our merch designs very seriously, but we also have a ton of fun with it.

Good Kid Taking Their Traditional Crowd Shot with Fans Post Show

What's next for Good Kid?

GK:  We’re doing a very short EU/UK tour, which is a big one for us because we’re playing Reading and Leeds Festival, along with two other festivals that haven’t been announced yet. That’s gonna be really fun. We’re really, really excited for Reading and Leeds. So many artists we love have played there, and it’s also got a crazy good lineup this year, so we’re gonna go all out for that.Our next big goal is obviously just focusing on the production for that. And then otherwise, we’re always writing, trying to figure out what we’re gonna put out next. So we’re currently in the writing/recording process, and we’ll see what we come up with!

Who would you like to see us interview next?

GK:  An interesting artist for you to interview from a different angle might be this band we just started kind of working with on the merch company side called INOHA. They recently had a viral success, and they’re still figuring out their merch operation. So they’re interesting in terms of being a band in the middle of figuring it all out, rather than someone like us who’s already pretty established and more sophisticated when it comes to merch. Other than that Phoneboy. We love Phoneboy! I think they’ve got great merch designs. I also really liked that when they added a new member, Jordan, to the lineup, they did a merch line called "Mrs. Phoneboy." It used to be just three guys, and then when they brought Jordan in, they announced her with a drop, and I always thought their merch approach was super interesting as well.

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