Kenny Sukitch: Penn State junior and artist on the rise

While he’s not busy doing his engineering homework, Kenny Sukitch, a junior from Pittsburgh is creating and writing his own music from his apartment. He released his newest single “Ordinary” on iTunes early this week

The Tab sat down with Kenny this week to get the inside scoop on his music.

How did you first get into music?

I first got into music accidentally. My uncle gifted me a vintage bass of his for my birthday and I was bummed because I never had an interest, and then I took some lesson and fell in love with it.

Kenny performing with his twin brother Billy

What genre of music do you do and do you have any musical inspirations?

I was doing mostly electronic, but I’ve been doing a lot of blues and rock lately. Rock challenges me a lot more creatively and electronic just got really boring and I really wasn’t into making it anymore.

Artists that inspire me are definitely Jimi Hendrix, Cage the Elephant and The Black Keys.

Do you use a lot of different instruments?

I use electronic, acoustic, and bass guitars and sometimes I’ll use the keyboard. I digitally do the drums because I don’t know how to play them. Also, I think my roommates would kill me if I had a drum set up here.

Do you have any favorite memories when it comes to performing?

That’s a tie between opening for Howie Day at the Hard Rock Cafe in Pittsburgh and opening for Frankie Muniz’s band.

Can you elaborate more? 

Frankie was very short, like a lot shorter than I expected, but he’s an amazing drummer.

I talked to Howie Day for about 45 minutes, not realizing that it was him. I thought he was another opener and I asked him if he had anything on iTunes. He looked at me with a super confused look the whole time and then it finally clicked to me that it was him. I felt like a pretty big douche, but I got to play with his Apple watch so that’s a plus.

Kenny and Frankie

So, you released a new single Nov. 2. Can you tell me a little about it?

It’s called “Ordinary.” I wrote it about two years ago and I recorded all of the instruments when I was a freshman and I never knew what to sing over it. So it’s been sitting on the back burner for a pretty long time and I showed a couple people the instrumental and they said I should keep going with it so I figured out something and the first time I played it live was at Howie Day. It got a really good response and people were asking if they could buy it so this summer I ended up finishing it and decided to release it now because todays my girlfriend Courtney’s birthday, and I was like she likes this song so then I put it up.

You can find Kenny’s music on itunes and soundclound