B-Side Guys

Salt Lake City is not the most obvious city to build a queer alt-pop career, which may be exactly why leetham’s music carries the urgency it does. KINK, the four-track EP out June 5th, is not a record made from a place of comfort or safety. It’s made from a place of deliberate declaration, every track a refusal to make the kinds of accommodations that a queer artist in a conservative city might otherwise feel pressured to make. The result is twelve minutes of music that earns its unapologetic framing rather than just claiming it.

The sonic territory leetham has mapped out sits between emo-tinged alternative rock and what they describe as gritty, bubblegum-pop coded club music. The Charli XCX and Fall Out Boy reference points are useful precisely because they seem contradictory until you hear how the combination actually works: the emotional directness and arena instincts of pop-punk running underneath the glossy, kinetic energy of hyperpop-adjacent club production. Both traditions are, in their own ways, about excess and sincerity worn simultaneously, which makes them more compatible than they first appear.

“Scream” opens the EP with the energy the title implies. The opener sets the register immediately: loud, physical, unapologetically present. It announces an artist who has spent enough time making themselves heard in rooms that weren’t built for them to know how to command space when they get it.

“blackBOOTS,” featuring Grant Brett, brings a collaborator into the framework without the song becoming a duet in any conventional sense. The track feels like the EP’s most club-leaning moment, the bubblegum-pop coded production meeting the emo rawness in a way that justifies the genre description leetham has given the project. Grant Brett’s contribution adds texture without redirecting the song’s energy away from what leetham is building.

“Hate Me,” featuring Indigo Heaven, is the EP’s darkest track emotionally, the title carrying the particular defiance of someone who has heard that instruction enough times to turn it into armor. The second collaboration on a four-track EP signals that leetham’s music is built around community as much as individual expression, which fits for an artist who has described the queer community as both subject and audience. Indigo Heaven’s presence gives the track a second voice that sharpens rather than softens the central emotion.

“Turn Me On” closes the record as a statement of desire unhedged by apology or qualification. As a closing track, it functions as an arrival: the EP has moved through screaming, attitude, defiance, and lands on want expressed plainly. It’s the right ending for a record that is fundamentally about the right to be exactly who you are.

leetham has played Utah Pride, Utah Beer Festival, and Mesa Music Festival, and has shared stages with CupcakKe, The Unlikely Candidates, and others, building a reputation for stadium-sized performances regardless of venue size. That live energy is audible in the production choices across KINK, which is music that wants to be played loud in a room full of people who needed exactly this record. An opening slot for rising pop sensation Zee Machine later this year will give leetham a wider audience for what they’ve built here.

Twelve minutes is precise. KINK uses every second of it.

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KINK is available June 5, 2026.