Waitress is a Professional Band

Waitress is a new Las Vegas band consisting of frontmen Kennedy James McClendon on vocals/guitar and Sam Knapp on bass with Gabriella Devine on drums and a live member, Daniel Andaya.

McClendon and Knapp met in a UNLV online jazz class. The professor was reviewing counterpoints when she purposefully misplayed the piano. McClendon and Knapp immediately took to the Zoom chat, talking about how cool breaking the rules of piano sounded. From there, their friendship took off. McClendon invited Knapp to tour with his band, Desert Bloom. They completed 40 shows across the southwestern U.S. before going on an indefinite hiatus. McClendon and Knapp decided they wanted to create a different sound, and together, they formed Waitress.

The name Waitress came from a line in the song “Piledriver Waltz” by Alex Turner: “Your waitress was miserable and so was your food.”

“I just loved that line,” McClendon said. “I knew I wanted to do something with it.”

The band has fun with their name during live shows with quips like: “We’re serving,” “We hope you’re satisfied with your service,” “Would you like some lemon water?” and “That performance was gratuity free.”

But being named “Waitress” isn’t always sunny side up; they’re often mistaken for the Broadway musical.

“We’re in a streaming competition,” McClendon laughed. “It’s one-sided.”

Waitress’ music couldn’t be further from the musical, however, with their self-described “goblincore” sound.

“Goblincore is a state of mind,” Knapp said.

They achieve this goblin energy through experimenting in the studio and creating weird transitions that lead to their genre-jumping songs, such as “Applauding God.” McClendon likes to play around with his voice too, doing character work within songs and recording with different voice effects. This goblinish product has fans taking notes, comparing Waitress to mainstays of alternative music such as Oingo Boingo, The Garden and Paul Dano’s band, Mook.*

*McClendon and Knapp are currently investigating a Paul Dano sighting in Henderson. The possible Paul impersonator is said to be driving a black sports car with the license plate “mook.”

“Trust Me, I’m Lying,” McClendon and Knapp’s favorite song title, will be released May 4 with a live show to christen the song. 

“I remember thinking how cool the title was and then having a family member bring up the book ‘Trust Me, I’m Lying’ by Ryan Holiday. I might have subconsciously ripped that,” McClendon said.

The title stems from McClendon’s family past in telemarketing. He divulged that a lot of his songwriting comes from his personal life.

“Lyrically the songs do have something to do with my life. You know, I usually tell a story with a character that I relate to, or the songs are an encapsulation of my life during a certain period,” McClendon stated.

All of this honesty caused Knapp to let slip that McClendon can tap dance, and then McClendon revealed that he’s been wanting to include a tap dancing break in a song, which probably wouldn’t help the Broadway musical accusations but would be fun for live performances.

Waitress has done two live shows so far, but one of their favorite parts of performing is the crowd.

 “As long as there’s people there, it’s awesome,” Knapp said.

However, the pair mentioned one of their favorite memories of a live show was during their very first performance as Waitress at Taverna Costera. A longtime fan who supported them from their Desert Bloom days, Claire, was singing along word for word to “Applauding God,” which dropped only three days before the show. So, they invited her up to sing the outro with them. This is a sign that you should learn all the words to their songs before you go to a Waitress show.

Waitress shared some goals before saying goodbye. They’d like to play the Las Vegas Brooklyn Bowl and make music videos with Paul Dano and Ice Spice.

“We’ll do that [Ice Spice music video] and then end the band,” Knapp stated.

Waitress is moving to Los Angeles, so catch them while you can. The band is looking for a California King to turn into a bunk bed for their future LA apartment as well.

If you’d like to follow Waitress’ journey or offer them a bunk bed, you can find them on Instagram and TikTok at @waitresscore