Baby Steps to Giant Leaps: Pool Kids On Their Busy Year of UK Shows
Wednesday, 27 May 2026
Written by Emma Wilkes
Spirits are high when Pool Kids congregate in the coffee bar at the front of Archive, a spot in Leeds adorned with fairy lights, ahead of the third show of a UK tour. Nothing, not even the fact that it’s rained every day since the start of the year, can dampen their mood. “It feels authentic!” exclaims guitarist Andy Anaya.
“We’re used to touring a certain type of way in the United States,” Andy continues. “We’ve only been over here one other time, and it's been three years since that last time. It’s just been very, very fun. The crowds have been super warm and kind to us.”
Rounded out by guitarist-vocalist Christine Goodwyne, bassist Nicolette Alvarez and drummer Caden Clinton, the Tallahassee, Florida emo band are on the road following the release of the critically-lauded ‘Easier Said Than Done’ last year, with precious few squares in their calendar remaining blank.
As the year rolls on, Pool Kids are set to carry on digging out the foundations in the UK with their first appearances at Outbreak and 2000trees this summer, alongside a run of shows opening for Free Throw. Then, in the autumn, they’ll swing through again for a tour with indie-rock grandees Death Cab For Cutie.
‘Easier Said Than Done’ has been out in the world for a while now. How has life treated you in that time?
Christine: “We’ve been busy. It kind of just all started happening at once when all the tours started lining up. A lot of our 2026 is back-to-back shows and we like it to be that way for an album year.”
Nicolette: “It’s funny, we have this conversation among ourselves a lot — you need to remind yourself to zoom out and see the big picture, like remembering when we had no music out. It’s so easy to zoom in on [the present moment] and be like, ‘I don’t know if people like it, or if things are going as well as we were wanting.’ And then you zoom out and you’re like, ‘No, the album came out and people really like it.’ We’re playing places we’ve never played. We’re seeing a really exciting reaction to a lot of the new songs. It’s been really good, and we’ve had a lot of positive moments of reflection.”
Lots of US bands say they find a sense of home in the UK, sometimes even before the US has really caught on to them. Does it feel that way for you?
Christine: “We do feel like we have a little bit of a pocket here. It’s cool to have familiar faces, so far from home, and we’ve got enough of them in different spots in the UK where it’s starting to feel like a little pocket of home.”
Caden: “Sometimes we’ll see [fans from the UK] in the States and we have people from the States coming over here now.”
Several songs on ‘Easier Said Than Done’ reference touring and the impact it has on you and your relationships. How do you handle those difficulties and keep yourself sane?
Caden: “Working out in the mornings. That feels good — to do something before the day starts, just being active in some kind of aspect that’s not playing.”
Nicolette: “Something that I really appreciate as a band is that we are pretty good about checking in with each other. Pretty much after every show we have our version of talking about how our days went, things that went well, things that weren’t so great. We make it a point to talk about it almost every single night. I think that definitely has helped me stay a little bit more sane, being able to gauge where everyone else actually is, versus what I might think they’re feeling. Some days we’re all on the same page, and everyone had kind of a rough day and it's not just me letting the homesickness or whatever get to me. On the days where it feels like we all had a good day, it just feels like we’re closer and more connected, more and more like comrades in that way.”
Andy: “A big part of it is trying to remind yourself every single day to be cognisant of how fortunate we are to be participating in this lifestyle. No matter how many people are in the crowd, just taking a second every day to remind yourself, these people are facilitating our dream, and not many people get to do this. Historically, currently, we’re in a very, very small percentage of people who have ever gotten to travel to play music. Even though everyone we know is in this world, and sometimes we’re like, ‘This band is not doing so well, or this band is doing really well, I wish we were in that position,’ [we have to remember] we’re still in a good position.”
You’ve come from a very DIY background, playing house shows and cold calling bars to get gigs in your early days. How has that shaped who you are as a band?
Christine: “We’ve taken baby steps over the years to get to where we are. When you do it that way, or when it happens that way, you feel really comfortable and like you understand how to behave and all the things you have to do and things you shouldn’t do. We’ve seen some peers that didn't come from that background, who get placed into a big room for whatever reason, whether it’s money or a random big label signed them, and you see how they sometimes flounder and don’t know the dos and don’ts. Those moments make me really appreciate that we started the way we started, and came from where we came from, because you feel like you really understand your inner workings.”
Now you’ve had longer to sit with those songs, how much do they reflect the place you’re in now? Have you drawn new meanings out of them?
Christine: “The songs were written about feelings that were a lot more recent. I feel on our last record, I was talking about things that had happened years ago, and so I almost never felt that closely connected to the songs. On this one, I was trying to dig from stuff that was more recent so I guess those feelings haven’t expired yet.”
Andy: “The fact that we as a band have experienced some of the things that Christine wrote about in her lyrics, it resonates with you a little bit more. I love all of our songs. I love the songs from albums that I’m not even on. When you are actually a participant in the stories, it tends to hit you like a little bit more deeply. Then, when people come to the show, they take on a different life every single night, because somebody else is maybe connecting with the lyrics in a particular way. You see the way that they’re singing, or the passion, the smiling, maybe even tears sometimes. You realise everyone is affected by it very deeply.”
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