Brighton has always had a habit of producing bands that exist somewhere between chaos and brilliance. The city’s venues feel like they’re held together by old gig posters and good intentions, and its musicians seem to thrive on equal parts community, chance encounters and late-night revelations. Kitchen Lover belong firmly to that tradition.

Part garage rock bruisers, part psychedelic daydreamers, Kitchen Lover have spent the last few years carving out a reputation as one of Brighton’s most unpredictable live acts. Their debut album, The Circus Sideshow Dream, feels exactly like its title suggests: a ragged, colourful collection of songs born from cramped rehearsal spaces, friendships forged in the local scene and a love of music.

The current line-up is Lars Larsen-Barker (vocals, guitar), George Weller (drums), Edson Chillery (bass) and Hayden Sudlow (guitar, harmonica). They didn’t arrive through some grand master plan. Like many great bands, they found each other through support slots, shared stages, and the pull of Brighton’s underground circuit. “Lars, Ed and I swapped a few support slots in the early days of both of our projects,” recalls Weller. “Back when Kitchen Lover was a garage-y two-piece. A few months went by before he stole me from my peaceful life.” Edson’s recruitment followed soon after – although, according to the band, he was the instigator – while Hayden entered through producer Erik Miles, becoming an essential part of the group almost by accident. “We roped Hayden in to help us out on our in-the-works second album,” says Weller. “As soon as we started working with him, he stumbled his way into our official line-up. He’s one of our own.”

It’s a fitting origin story for a band named Kitchen Lover. Depending on who you ask, the name either comes from the title of an early B-side or, as Lars jokingly suggests, from where they were “conceived in the kitchen, probably physically.” Like all good myths, both versions deserve to coexist.

The four-piece arrive from different corners of southern England, Wiltshire, Surrey, and East Sussex, but Brighton is the place they’ve chosen to call home. It’s a city that runs through Kitchen Lover’s DNA, from the musicians they collaborate with to the venues they’ve packed out over the last year. “The Brighton scene is a bit of a fever dream sometimes,” says Weller. “You never know when Super Hans is going to show up round the corner, or how close the venue you’re in is to physically blowing over. The venues are quirky but classy, and the community is better than any I’ve experienced in the country. I bloody love it.”

That sense of community is all over The Circus Sideshow Dream. Although released in 2025, much of the record dates back to 2023, when Kitchen Lover were still operating as a two-piece. The album features contributions from several members of Brighton’s thriving underground scene, with producer Erik Miles playing bass on almost every track. “It feels very old already,” the band admits. “It’s juvenile and raw, and we love it for what it is.”

And that’s precisely the charm of Kitchen Lover. They aren’t interested in sanding down the rough edges. Their songs breathe because they’re imperfect, and because they carry the fingerprints of everyone involved.

Their influences read like an impossibly eclectic record collection. Fela Kuti sits comfortably alongside The White Stripes and Pablo Moses. Psychedelia, blues, jazz, country, soul, ska, rockabilly, disco, and punk all find space at the table. Hayden Sudlow’s personal list alone feels like an entire wing of a record shop. “I love all things 50s onwards,” he says. “Especially 60s garage, blues, R’n’B, punk, psychobilly, rock, pub rock, psych, soul, funk, funky soul, country, folk, rockabilly, reggae, rocksteady, ska, jazz, Latin… to name a couple.”

That eclecticism filters directly into their songwriting process. Lars typically arrives with the skeleton of a song before the rest of the band tear it apart and rebuild it together. “Generally, Lars will write the main body of a tune and bring it into rehearsal,” says Weller, “before we all perform unspeakable acts upon it. Standard stuff.”

It’s an approach that seems to be working. In 2025, Kitchen Lover experienced several milestones that transformed them from promising locals into a band with genuine momentum. There was the album release show at Brighton’s beloved Green Door Store, a surreal 3AM performance in front of hundreds of people at The Cottage in Falmouth, and perhaps most notably, supporting the ever-explosive Frankie And The Witch Fingers. “Our album release show at Green Door Store was a good one,” says Weller. “We felt like an actual band for a night.”

They’ve already completed their first self-booked tour, a baptism by fire that taught them the realities of life on the road, and they’re wasting no time looking ahead. Their second LP is mostly finished, with whispers of new material arriving before the end of the year. “We’ve got a few standalone releases to put out before,” the band says, “if the gods permit us to get up off our arses.” But beneath the humour and self-deprecation lies a deep appreciation for the people who helped make Kitchen Lover possible. Before ending the conversation, the band is keen to pay tribute to the late Austen Gayton, founder of Black Rock Studios, a pivotal figure in Brighton’s music community. “If it were not for Austen, most of our music would genuinely not have been made,” they say. “The band was formed there. We lost Austen recently, and the city misses him dearly.”

It’s a reminder that scenes are built by people and by the musicians, promoters, producers, and venue owners who create spaces for ideas to grow. Kitchen Lover understand that better than most.

Kitchen Lover remain one of its most exciting wildcards. Their debut may already feel like a relic to them, but if The Circus Sideshow Dream is only the opening chapter, then the next act promises to be even stranger.

And honestly, Brighton wouldn’t have it any other way.