A Dirty Dozen with HARRISON NIDA and CARLO RIBAUX from VICTORY KID – April 2026

According to a recent press release: “West Los Angeles punk outfit Victory Kid have released their new single “You’re Alright,” out now via SBÄM Records. Inspired by the hook-heavy energy of early 2000s pop punk, “You’re Alright” pairs bright, driving guitars with some of the band’s most vulnerable subject matter to date. Written from the perspective of someone intimately familiar with late-night, throat-closing anxiety, the track captures the push and pull between internal panic and outward reassurance. ” We get frontman Harrison and drummer / co-founder Carlo Ribaux to discuss new music, influences, and more…

1. Tell us a little about your latest release. What might a fan or listener not grab the first or second time they listen through? Are there any hidden nuggets you put in the material or that only diehard fans might find?

Harrison: With Catalyst, this was the first album we wrote while the band was formed and touring. “Clownin’” and “Tuck Frump” were that way from the last record, and we could see a massive difference in the writing there. I would say it’s very important to read the lyrics to these songs as you listen, maybe after the first time. There are lots of hermetic influences that you might find, but don’t ask me to make you see.

Carlo: I finally snuck a triangle part on a record! You can hear it on the second verse of Escape Our Fate. I’ve been wanting to do that ever since I first listened to the triangle action on Ocean Avenue by Yellow Card.

2. What got you into music, and can you tell us about the moment you realized you wanted to be a musician?

Carlo: I had started playing drums when I was eleven. Just a year later I went to my first outdoor-festival, the Open Air Bischofszell. The whole scene was so cool to me that I decided there and then that I wanted to play music professionally. It’s a real full circle moment that we get to headline this exact festival at the end of May this year!

Harrison: My mom noticed that when I went to friends’ houses who had pianos, I always sat down. But she also noticed that I acted very differently from most kids my age, I think I was around 5. I would pick individual notes, or experiment chords, and try to write things that I liked. I quickly realized on my own that if I only played the black keys, I couldn’t hit a wrong note, and I think she was pretty amazed that I was able to figure that out and write melodies and stuff. So she signed me up for a weekend camp with the Ragazzi Boys Choir. I was surprised how much I loved it, and I ended up joining the choir and had an amazing experience from 6-16. At 10 I realized that I wanted to write my own music, and my parents gave me a guitar a couple years after when I was writing melodies and lyrics and begging them to let me play guitar (piano never really clicked for me). I was listening to Goldfinger, Blink-182, Sum 41, Weezer, and it resonated so much with me I knew the voice I was writing from was in that genre.

3. Building on that, is there a specific song, album, performer, or live show that guided your musical taste?

Harrison: So many. From the early days, my tastes expanded a lot. I listen to so many different bands now, especially since streaming has made it much easier to find new music and makes the barrier to entry different. Superman by Goldfinger was something that hit really hard for me, as stereotypical as that is being a 90s kid and exposed to THPS. But going to festivals, seeing so many incredible bands that blew my mind and made me understand types of music I never understood the appeal of is probably what has guided my taste the most. From smaller festivals like Musink to bigger ones like Warped Tour and When We Were Young, you see people so into these bands they love you can’t help but appreciate what the band is doing more.

4. If you could call in any one collaborator to do a song with, who would it be, and why?

Harrison: Honestly, I’d have to say Adrian Estrella. I absolutely love his voice, we get along great (he’s like a big brother to me), and I know that if we were going to do a song together it would be absolute gas. His work with Zebrahead has been awesome, and Assuming We Survive has some new material he’s showed me that is so good it hurts.

5. What is your favorite activity when out of the studio and/or not on tour? What do you like to do to unwind?

Carlo: I’m a huge nerd. I like playing board games, video games and D’n’D.

Harrison: I have a few hobbies I love. Surfing is still one of them, although a pretty nasty wipeout that led to a fractured skull has slowed me down a bit. I love playing basketball, I have a weekly game with some buddies in NYC that keeps me sane. I still play video games, but honestly I’ve been reading a lot. There’s a book series called Dungeon Crawler Carl that is hilarious, well written action and just absolutely gets me hyped.

6. How would you describe your music to someone who’d never listened to you before? What is the one comparison a reviewer or fan has made that made you cringe or you disagreed with?

Carlo: Music that a dolphin on cocaine would enjoy listening to.

Harrison: It really depends on who I’m talking to. Because if it’s someone who doesn’t know pop punk and / or ska and are older, I’d say “we’re like No Doubt mixed with Blink-182”, which doesn’t really accurately describe us at all but gets them in the ballpark. If they’re older and do know the genres I’d say a much closer description would be The Offspring meets Sum 41 and Billy Talent. If they’re younger, and don’t know the genres I’d say Machine Gun Kelly with horns, which is hilarious. If they’re younger and do know the genres then I’d say we’re somewhere between Millington and Keep Flying.

7. When your band is hanging out together, who cooks, who gets the drinks in, and who is first to crack out the acoustic guitars for a singalong?

Carlo: Harrison is the bringer of guitars and good vibes for sure!

Harrison: It depends on where we are, but last time we had a hang we did a campfire night. Sylvain (trombone) went to his local butcher for some sausages, Arion (bass) busted out the guitar almost immediately. I would say Phil (trumpet) is the guy most responsible for keeping a beer in your hand. Carlo always has a bodhran and hilarious stories, and is a great host.

8. When was the last time you were starstruck and who was it?

Carlo: I don’t get starstruck easily. The only time I got truly starstruck was when I randomly ran into Travis Barker and his Kids at a vegan thai place in Culver City a few years ago. Adrenaline rush and everything. I also saw Travis while playing a wedding. Him and Kourtney were making out on a lounge chair. They started walking away, so I chanced playing the “What’s My Age Again?” riff and he smiled and gave me a nod. The last one though was I met Dave Baksh after When We Were Young at the Punk Rock Museum, and it was pretty inspiring. Such a nice guy, no ego at all, and after seeing him play in front of tens of thousands of people, and being from one of my favorite bands of all time, it was harder than usual to form sentences. I think I did ok? He didn’t run away.

9. What is the best part of being a musician? If you could no longer be a musician for whatever reason, what would be your dream job?

Carlo: I’m an absolute show pony! To me, the best part of being a musician is playing live. It’s the purest form of musical connection within a band as well as between the band and the audience. If the music thing didn’t work out I would have gone to school for civil engineering. My dream was to design bridges. If I had to stop playing now, I would like to start working for an alternative streaming platform like Subvert. I‘d love to help the industry to finally move on from the artist-exploiting streaming systems that we have had for the past two decades.

Harrison: The moments where you see you’ve made a real impact on people’s lives. In Berlin, we met a fan who told us that her dad had died hours before the show, and that she was so glad she came because she discovered her new favorite band (us). In Zurich we gave a little kid a pick, and after he was playing air guitar for over an hour I grabbed a guitar and made some chords while he strummed. He smiled so hard I thought his mouth would split open. After that, his mom came over and told me that she was going to find her old guitar and give it to him as a surprise that night. Things like that, where the countless hours of practice and preparation and bad gigs feel like they have a purpose, are some of the most fulfilling things imaginable. If I were to choose another career, I’d figure out the best way I could help the planet. I’m not sure how that would be, but there are so many things going wrong I figure there has to be something I could do to make it better. I can’t stop thinking about that interview with Steve Irwin where he talks about using every cent he makes to buy wildlife in order to protect it. This is the most special planet in the known universe. It kills me that we’re using it like a dirty tissue.

10. What is one question you have always wanted an interviewer to ask – and what is the answer? Conversely, what question are you tired of answering?

Harrison: No one asks you how hard it is. No one wants to hear about the financial investment, about missing time with your families, about the look in your partners eyes when they’re confused about the ambivalent emotions when you tell them you’re going to be gone for a few months. People think the hard part is practicing, the pressure of performing, writing the next record, but it’s not. Those are the fun parts, even though they also have their own challenges. Those are what we can’t help but do because it’s in our dna like breathing. But trying to run a business, do social media, plan tours, mentally tell yourself that it’s all going to work out and it’s okay that you don’t have a 401k in your 30s, no one wants to hear that. If you want to write a novel, you need a computer. If you want to paint, you need your medium. If you want to make music, there is a massive amount of time, energy, and resources you need to make that happen that isn’t true in any other art form. So, musicians are crazy. We do anything for the next gig, anything to keep going. We work multiple jobs, and still go out to shows that we’re not playing, and disappoint everyone in our life in order to keep going. Almost everyone who you talk to supports that as an idea, but would they still support them if they knew what we were risking in order to make that happen? Maybe not. And so they don’t ask. We turn a blind eye as Spotify and social media not only gamify our art, but as ai music takes over the platform and so few people care. The only thing we are hoping for is that people don’t want to go to a show to watch robots, or listen to an empty stage.

Carlo: I’m sick of answering: “What’s the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?“ Everyone knows it’s eleven meters per second.

11. Looking back over your career, is there a single moment or situation you feel was a misstep or you would like to have a “do over,” even if it didn’t change your current situation?

Harrison: There were a few times that I lost momentum with the band. I would say in 2018 we had been pushing for a few years and felt like we weren’t getting as far as we had hoped with shows, labels, or agents. I was burnt out, and I didn’t necessarily take a break but I definitely didn’t work as hard as I had before. I wish that I spent more time trying different avenues to tour more early on, and less time trying to get signed or work with a bigger company. Getting signed with Sbäm was completely organic and made so much sense, and it didn’t come from emailing a ton of people. I also wish that my crippling depression in 2021-2023 didn’t keep me from releasing the record sooner. But I had a lot of work to do on myself, and I did it, so I’m proud of that.

12. If you could magically go back in time and be a part of the recording sessions for any one record in history, which would you choose – and what does that record mean to you?

Harrison: In 2020, I fell in love with Heartwork by The Used. Allan had worked with them a bunch when he was working for Feldmann, and so I was really into The Bird And The Worm, and Berts feature on MGK’s song “Body Bag.” When I heard Heartwork though, it instantly hit a nerve. It was one of those records that felt like it was written for me, even though obviously that’s not the case (we’ve all seen that guy confronting The Beatles). I really love every aspect of that record, Joey Bradfords guitars are so cool and unique, Bert’s voice is primal and raw, the lyrics are poetic and violent, and each song is different from the next. I don’t think I could even add anything, but just to, like, set up mics or help however I can to be a fly on the wall for that one would’ve changed my life.

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Category: Interviews