Niki Kaos (WAMM) – An Xperience Interview

WAMM – An Xperience Interview – by Rob Smittix.

RRX: And we are in business.

NK: Very cool.

RRX: All right, time to get excited. You don’t sound excited enough. Get excited!

NK: I gotta be honest, it’s a little daunting to be on this side of the interview because it’s been a little bit.

RRX: I know. I wouldn’t even know what to do if I were getting interviewed now … it’s kind of weird.

NK: It’s a little weird, I’m not gonna lie, but it’s cool. I’m glad if I have to be interviewed, I know that you will do an excellent job, so I’m not that nervous.

RRX: Yeah, we’re not even interviewing, we’re chatting. We’re shooting the sh**. That’s what’s going on. And we’re, we’re shooting the sh** about Women Are Making Music, The WAMM Fest 2025, Sunday, September 14th at the Hangar in Troy. Is this the first WAMM fest, or have you done this before?

NK: This is our first one, and we’re extremely excited. It really emerged out of a suggestion that it would be fun to have a festival of women artists from the Capital Region. It’s a little nod to the Lilith Fair vibe that we all loved from the ’90s, many of the members of our group. I’ve been working on producing shows, and I figured we’d give it a go. So we set it up!

RRX: Well, I’m all about it. And you’ve got a lot of really great, talented artists from the area involved. Luminous Crush, Kitty Rodeo, Va Va Voodoos, Amy-Lin Slezak, Gloria Duo, Joanne DelCarpine, Mark and Jill, Erin Powers, and Shannon Tehya and the Troupe is headlining, I believe, right?

NK: That’s it. You got it all. We’re really excited to have such a great lineup and also to present a format that keeps the music flowing all day. We’re gonna have an indoor and an outdoor stage at the Hangar, and I’m also excited to be partnering with them again. Because when we did the fundraiser for Deb Cavanaugh there, it was such a welcoming venue, a great place to see music. I’m glad that they were available and wanted to work with us.

RRX: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. The Hangar’s great.

NK: And, you know … I got that connection through RadioRadioX, who’s our media partner on this adventure. The community has really come together to be supportive of our first event, and we hope it’s going to be the start of many more. We’re really looking forward to it.

RRX: What’s cool about this event … just because the women are making the music doesn’t mean that the guys and gals and everybody in between can’t come out and have a good time and enjoy it as well, which is nice.

NK: Yeah, it’s funny that comes up a bit. I think people … when they see an event that’s women-focused, they think it may be anti-men, but that’s so not the case. The reality is that there have been some challenges for women in the music industry. With certain opportunities, production opportunities, the percentages are still very low for women-led events or productions. So that’s just one area we’re hoping to work at. We just want to set an example for the younger women who are up and coming. There can be all different types of women performing at all different levels of their careers and having a great time with music. We have a bunch of male sponsors for our event, and we’re super happy to have the support of the guys. We think anybody who comes will have a great time. It’s family-friendly, we’re gonna have vendors. It’ll be a good time for anybody and all the bands are amazing.

RRX: I haven’t really put a lot of thought into it until recently. As far as women making music and what’s available until I looked in our computer here at the radio station. We have a category that has just women in it. And I’m like, wow, it’s really crazy because you don’t realize with genres like rock and roll, for example, there really weren’t as many women doing rock and roll music as there were men.

NK: No shade on the guys. Again, it’s so funny that we can’t celebrate both. A lot of people get hung up on that, and I think part of our message is we don’t wanna have it be a competition. We just want to have fun too.

RRX: Girls just wanna have fun!

NK: There have been some real trailblazer women artists who inspire me, like Cyndi Lauper is a great example. Love her or hate her, Madonna is a huge industry businesswoman and a talented artist. When you look at the Billboard charts, when you really drill into the stats. Rolling Stone had an article in 2024 around this. It’s just that the opportunities are not really there for women as much. So, we’re gonna do our part to try to shift that a little bit and have some fun while we do it.

RRX: It’s Sunday, September 14th. How long is this show going on for, and when does it start?

NK: It starts at 1 pm and goes to 7:30 pm. So if you can only make it for part of the day, that’s great. Otherwise, we’ll be rocking all day long.

RRX: Well, excellent. I look forward to it. Anything else that you wanted to put out to people to get them excited about this?

NK: You should check out wamm518.com to get more details on the lineup and who’s performing. WAMM has events throughout the year, so we’re always welcoming new members and female musicians in the Capital Region.

RRX: Absolutely. Well, Niki Kaos, I appreciate your time, and one of the things that threw me off about this event was that I don’t see that you are performing here, but you’ve got your hands full putting this whole thing together.

NK: Something I learned through experience. As much as I enjoy performing, I really can’t do a good job trying to do both on the same day. However, we do have the WAMM Jam All Stars, which isn’t on the lineup list, but we will be closing out the night. I’m glad you brought this up, actually. The WAMM Jam All Stars members have been getting together and practicing over the past several months to do a special selection of cover songs at the end of the night. And I will be performing a cover song. That’ll be at the conclusion of our day.

RRX: Well, I hope I didn’t spoil the surprise, but I’m really glad we’re gonna see you up there on the stage, at least for a tune.

NK: No, I’m glad you reminded me to tease the surprise. I’m just not gonna tell you what song it’s gonna be, but I have no doubt you’re gonna love it. We’ve been really rocking it in the rehearsals, so we’ve got 4-part harmony going on. It’s pretty banging. I appreciate you checking in with me, and we appreciate RadioRadioX’s support of our festival. Thank you so much.

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