For people who doubt the unifying power of music, The Kilbanes will make them believers. The Oakland-based theatrical rock band founded and led by vocalist/guitarist/bassist Kate Kilbane and multi-instrumentalist/sound engineer Dan Moses excels in music propelled by the rhythms of rock and soulful songwriting. The original quartet remains in place, with Kilbane and Moses joined by electric guitarist/vocalist Josh Pollock and drummer Dan Harris.
When East Bay Express caught up with them in 2018, the band was rehearsing in a backyard garage-turned-studio. Kilbane and Moses are married and were at that time the parents of one child, 2-year-old Hazel Moses. The band was preparing for the premiere of Weightless, a rock-opera adaptation of the tale of two sisters told in Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
In 2025 Hazel, now 9, is joined by Eliot Moses, age 3. Numerous projects, live appearances and three full-time jobs between Kilbane and Moses make for a hectic life. Still jamming in the backyard when not appearing in theaters and clubs across the Bay Area or on tour, the conversation now focuses on The Code. The pop-rock musical is poised to receive its second production April 25-27, featuring students in Oakland School for the Arts (OSA) Theater Pathways program.
The American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.)’s Young Conservatory in San Francisco originally commissioned the pop-rock musical, with book and music written by the couple. In an interview, Kilbane recalls being heavily involved and holding dozens of interviews and workshop sessions with A.C.T. students. From those interactions, Kilbane wrote an ensemble drama that tells the story of two groups of students who attended the same school 100 years apart. With OSA youth, a shorter, 10-day interaction provided an opportunity for updating and exchanging important performance information.
The plot contains a mystery Kilbane says puts the audience on the same footing she had while writing it. “What’s exciting is the stakes of solving the mystery,” she said. “It’s great to feel you’re in partnership with the audience. It’s like we’re all trying to figure something out together; move toward a conclusion. When I wrote an early draft it was the same: I didn’t know where it would go. The process was figuring out the unknown.”
During early revisions, Kilbane made cuts in the text, including characters. “I ended up cutting one character I realized we didn’t need,” she said. “We could learn the information he had without it coming out of his mouth.”
Moses said about the score, “We love to be style chameleons. We asked the students what they were listening to. We made a collective playlist and tried to match that pop aesthetic. We were going for all electronic drums, heavy synthesizer for keyboards and rhyming.”
Rhyming, in Kilbane’s vernacular, is not limited to actual word rhymes, but to matching elements within music that might share in-common word choices, slang, tone or other mirroring techniques.
Kilbane said it’s always a revelation to hear someone other than the band sing a song they’ve written. Listening to students rehearse, they learned vital lessons that shaped the musical.
“We learned to use only a little bit of real estate to deliver a lot of information. We learned the moments of a song that felt resonant in their bodies,” Kilbane said. “That laid the groundwork. The songs about what intense grief does to a human body were unexpectedly harder for students: We sensed hesitance. We learned that we needed to give a song a chance to build. It’s a lesson we can apply to humanity. I might be immediately emotionally connected to something, but everybody else needs a doorway.”
Moses said one song, “Holy Ground,” is the only one sung from a teacher’s perspective, not a student’s. “She’s an enigmatic teacher who loves their school like it’s their church,” he said. “The chords and melody tell of a place where she and students gather and the rituals of education are holy.”
Kilbane selected another track, “A Perfect Life,” that fulfills the band’s rhyming/mirroring philosophy. “It’s a good match to ‘Holy Ground,’” she said. “It’s a student who feels she’s perfect. ‘Holy Ground’ is about chasing your own path and not being like anyone else. ‘A Perfect Life’ shows you can figure out who you want to be and chase that.”
While the OSA students trace their journeys, The Kilbanes will delve deep into their current project, an adaptation of Willa Cather’s My Ántonia commissioned by Theater Latté Da and slated for the Minneapolis-based company’s 2026-27 season.
