Kai Bosch plays a lovesick cowboy on new single ‘Rodeo Romeo’.
In August, Kai Bosch kicked off a new era feeling crazy in love. Months may have passed but on ‘Rodeo Romeo’ it’s clear the rising star is still smitten with his relationship, and it’s a thrill to hear.
Photos by Sam Taylor Edwards
The Kai Bosch we meet again on the new single is a far cry from the one that arrived in full on 2023 debut EP Spider and April’s follow-up Love, Throw Me A Bone. Those head-turning projects saw the songwriter toy with gritty synths but, all of a sudden, there’s a feeling the artist has been unshackled.
First hints of a new dawn came in summer single ‘Everything Is Beautiful’. An under the radar Elite Pick, on that track Bosch turned the glaring lights of dating apps into a frenzied love song that saw him flirt with the world of electropop.
That grungy production returns as ‘Rodeo Romeo’ fizzes into life, but Bosch now mixes in a twisted country inspiration to that trendy pop sound. “It’s supersonic and my heart is working overtime,” he flirts off the bat.
It’s nothing short of genius the way the 22-year-old has assembled his country moodboard for ‘Rodeo Romeo’. While there is a foot-stomping guitar line and the sound of a whip cracking, Bosch’s western inspiration more strikingly manifests in the lyrics and imagery that come with the track.
Rocking a cowboy hat and star-spangled shirt on the single’s artwork, Bosch evokes the familiar Hollywood typecast of the genre in the details - there’s an emotional dosey-do to the star’s head spinning “around and around until I let go”, a wildness to “the wind in my hair or a hurricane” and it’s impossible not to mention the iconic crack of the whip before the first pre-chorus once again.
First debuted as part of a DJ support set to an intimate Nieve Ella headline show in Camden last week, Bosch orchestrated a mosh pit to the track’s final drop. He’s right to do exactly that - ‘Rodeo Romeo’ is a dancefloor filler - but the songwriter laces the bop with heartfelt admissions of love.
The lovesick butterflies of ‘Everything Is Beautiful’ are back in between the scene of neon lights, heat and glasses of wine he sets. The brief hesitation between a “fling or feeling I’ve been trying to find” nods to a vulnerability that has become somewhat trademark for the artist and remains ever-present despite the swashbuckling production.
Speaking about ‘Rodeo Romeo’, Bosch said: "Rodeo Romeo continues on my campaign to become the biggest gay pop star in the universe. With my new material I’ve really been trying to take myself less seriously, both lyrically and sonically and for me, this is my crack at a Eurovision-worthy belter - it’s campy, it’s got the guitar solo and I get to belt for 14 seconds straight.
"Rodeo Romeo is about being so infatuated with someone that you cannot let go of them - even if it’s sometimes for the best. I saw it like a bucking bronco, refusing to lose someone even if they’re trying their hardest to fling you off.”
“It’s my favourite song to date, purely for the fun I had making it, it felt like every silly idea me and my producer Duncan Mills had ended up making the cut (if you listen closely, we hid a plethora of horse noises into the song for you to find.) I cannot wait to perform it at my headline show next month (@ The Courtyard, Nov 22), I’m gonna go full on cowboy for it and live out the campy-country-popstar fantasy I’ve always been destined for."
9/10
Kai Bosch’s ‘Rodeo Romeo’ has been added to under the radar’s Elite Picks.