Two young men from the North Shore of Kaua‘i, originally from New Jersey and Texas, respectively, formed a two-man rock band during the pandemic, producing music singles that are taking off and inspiring others nationwide.
Luke Reynolds, 20, from Kilauea, and Logan Krest, 19, from Princeville, have been making waves with their music, surprising even themselves.
“We just recently debuted at number 12 on the iTunes United States alternative chart,” Reynolds said.
“We did over 350,000 streams on Spotify and over 125k streams on our music video in less than three weeks. Based on the success of our third single, “All I Know,” the head of programming at iHeartRadio Honolulu reached out to us to debut our song on iHeartRadio Star 101.9 Hawai‘i’s Alternative.”
Reynolds and Krest created their band, Kaostheory, after meeting through Reynold’s younger sister Lily Reynolds.
“We have released three singles on all streaming platforms,” Reynolds said. “The first single we released was an alternative rock and hip-hop mash-up called ‘Bape Glowing.’ Our second single was a pop-punk heartbreak anthem by the name of ‘Blood Stained Diary.’ Our third and newest single is called ‘All I Know,’ featuring Nathan James.”
Kaostheory created their band’s name after listening to their manager, Luke Reynolds’ dad, Dan Reynold’s suggestion.
“We were playing around with a couple different names,” Luke Reynolds said. “We wanted something that was obviously going to pop, something that was easily rememberable and marketable. My dad gave us the idea for the name to string ‘theory.’ And then it was actually from that name that we started looking at the theory concept.”
After stumbling on the definition of the word “chaos,” and spelling it with a k, Reynolds and Krest said after doing a little bit of research into what that concept was, it ended up resonating with them. And they said they kind of felt like they stumbled on their name by accident one day.
“The actual scientific concept of chaos theory is basically like the law of entropy, which means, in crazy disorder, there’s a magical order,” Reynolds said. “So that’s the magic of our name.”
The band creates music that they relate to and naturally pick out the lyrics to the instrumental music they find on YouTube.
“We personally believe that rock ‘n’ roll at its core is all about pushing the boundaries, asking the hard questions and bringing to light what has been buried by societal norms,” Reynolds said.
“For instance, we feel that covering topics which have greatly affected our lives, such as mental health and addiction, as well as many other young-adult issues, is a huge part about staying true to the meaning of rock itself.”
It’s all about connecting with their fans and creating a safe haven for their followers, they said.
“One of our biggest goals is to obviously create this transparent space with our music between us and our fans,” Reynolds said, “kind of create this relationship with our listeners, where they can feel like they’re hearing the honest and full truth from us. And it’s something that they can actually use and apply to their lives — help them grow as people just as we think we’re trying our best to grow with people.
“We plan to grow our fan base one fan at a time. One song at a time. Whatever it takes. The most important thing to us is that we are able to positively affect and impact the people who are listening and supporting our music.”
People are catching on to their music, and the band is meeting more recording artists on the mainland with future collaborations in mind.
“We have a new single which we will be announcing the release date of shortly,” Reynolds said. “The song is called ‘Razors,’ which was written while we were in quarantine on Kaua‘i after recording a music video in LA.”
One of the sayings that keeps the two band members going through the rough times during the pandemic, they hope inspires their fans too: “That no matter how hard things get, there is hope and we’re all gonna make it,” Krest said. “’Veni, Vidi, Vici, ‘we came, we saw, we conquered.’”
Reynolds and Krest have goals, but they want their music to make a difference more than just being successful on the charts.
“I’m sure there’s a lot of people that want to win Grammys and awards and stuff like that,” Reynolds said. “And while we would be honored to get to that point, for me and Logan, I just know it’s really about helping kids just like us, that are in similar situations, boys or girls, or whoever, just people that maybe are lost or looking to find their passion, or I’ve just had a turbulent spot in the road.
“We hope that our words and our lyrics and our voices can maybe help guide them,” Reynolds said.
Kaostheory’s singles are on all the major music platforms, including YouTube and at kaostheorylive.com.
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Stephanie Shinno, education and business reporter, can be reached at 245-0424 or sshinno@thegardenisland.com.
