K*nt & The Gang - 25 years of greatest minor internet hits

Kunt and the Gang is a one-man dark comedy music act formed in 2003 in Basildon, Essex, comprising self-proclaimed ‘minor internet hit singer’ Kunt and occasionally his puppet parasitic twin effigy, Little Kunt. The act has been described by Charlie Brooker as “Life-affirmingly puerile,” and by Stewart Lee as “Fucking hilarious”.

Kunt and the Gang first gained a following online by posting comedy songs and videos onto early social media platforms MySpace and YouTube, with songs often touching on taboo subjects, such as sexual fantasies and serial killers. The debut album I Have A Little Wank And I Have A Little Cry won NME’s 2005 Album Title Of The Year. This would be their last mention in the NME until Christmas 2020.

Meanwhile, Kunt and the Gang started playing live in pubs and small independent music venues, which eventually led to full UK tours and sell-out runs at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and Adelaide and Melbourne Festivals. A ban from Butlins resorts followed, after complaints about a 2008 appearance at dance festival The Big Reunion.

In 2009 Kunt and the Gang wrote Shannon Matthews: The Musical, a comedy musical based on the events surrounding the fake disappearance and search for the missing Yorkshire schoolgirl. With no funding or support to produce the show, it was recorded and released as an audio CD in 2010. Following an unexpected revival as a sell-out stage show at 2022’s Edinburgh Fringe, it was subsequently made into a film in 2024, Shannon Matthews: The Musical… The Movie.

After the release of a ‘greatest minor internet hits’ album, Complete Kunt, Kunt and the Gang saw minor chart success in 2010 with their fan favourite Use My Arsehole As A Cunt, which reached number 66 in the UK singles chart. The song was followed up by the 2011 single Fucksticks, which peaked at number 63, although the greater exposure this brought led to the act’s YouTube channel being cancelled.

At the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe, Kunt and the Gang were awarded the Malcolm Hardee Cunning Stunt award for their promotional stickers shaped like a crudely drawn penis. The ‘Cockgate’ saga, as it became known, was not such a hit with the many comedians and promotion companies who, upon discovering their posters defaced by a sticky phallus, reported Kunt and the Gang to the festival organisers and threatened legal action.

With a lack of any mainstream opportunities for the act, and in the wake of the Operation Yewtree investigation, Kunt’s songwriting took a darker turn. The band’s greatest viral success came when a song recorded as a duet with a Jimmy Savile impersonator, Jimmy Savile and the Sexy Kids, gained over half a million YouTube views (before Kunt and the Gang’s YouTube channel was cancelled for a second time). A second greatest hits album, Kunt’ll Fix It was released in 2015, containing another of the most popular KATG songs to date, The Wrong Ian Watkins, which put a comedic spin on the online confusion between the evil Lost Prophets’ frontman, and his unfortunate namesake, H from Steps.

Burnt out from over 10 years on the road but wanting to finish on a high, in 2016 Kunt and the Gang played a 50-date farewell tour. In 2018, an autobiography iKunt was released via a crowdfunder. One of the stretch goals - to record a punk album of greatest minor internet hits - led to the formation of The Kunts. The rest is another story.