A year ago today, the genre-bending band Rainbow Kitten Surprise (RKS) released their fourth studio album, “Love Hate Music Box,” on May 10, 2024. In the year following, the band has become intimately familiar with the album, its songs and re-acquainted with their fans.

“At first, people were kind of taken aback, I feel like, because it was pretty different from a lot of the stuff that we’d put out before,” RKS lead guitarist and vocalist Ethan Goodpaster said. “But I think as people sat with it, they’ve really got to dig into it and find the fact what they like the most out of it.”

The 22 track LP has been described as a “left-turn” by some reviewers, but it’s all a part of RKS finding their new sound after a six-year gap in albums.

And in the past year, they’ve been able to find those fans who are ready to stay and leave behind those who are jumping ship.

“What I was really enjoy seeing is different different demographics, different places; whether it be state to state, or country to country,” Goodpaster said. “To see what songs are popular where. Sometimes we’ll be in a random place in Maine or something. And this song that we don’t play the whole lot, but decided to play the night, everyone screams their hearts out for. So instead of it being one song, I think it’s really cool to see that different songs really reach people differently across where we go.”

The band also brings a specialness to their live shows by seeing their songs as malleable.

“One thing we like to do is change stuff up the longer we play it. Like the way we play songs we released 10 years ago is way different. We add things, we take things away for the live show, and so it’s really cool to see those special songs evolve,” Goodpaster said.

One such song is the closing track of “Love Hate Music Box,” “Thanks for Coming.”

“One thing on the past couple tours that we did with it was that whoever was opening would come out and jam on that song with us a little bit,” Goodpaster said. “So it was cool that with different people who are out there with us on the road, getting to see that song shape and represent their time with on us on the road.

On the song he enjoys performing the most, he said, “Superstar off the last record because we’ve all worked out some pretty intricate vocal parts, singing all together at the same time. So that’s really fun. And Bearwalk is really fun as well. We do a guitar solo or go back and forth.”

The group is starting another tour leg this month, kicking off the “Thanks for Coming Tour” on May 11 and 12 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, before moving into the U.S. The first stop in Iowa for a performance at Vibrant Music Hall in Waukee on May 16.

“And then we also just finished recording another record,” Goodpaster said. “So it was fun to see how much our how much our sound changed from the last record [a year ago], and then even going into this new one, and digging into some more of our roots and sounds from our beginning. So it’s really cool to get back to.”

Goodpaster said it feels like they’ve all honed their craft more on this new record, started writing together more.

“It’s been really cool to work together on this latest record, to kind of come up with some new ideas,” he said.