There comes a point in every band’s career when they get to that “make-or-break” show, when they know it’s time to sink or swim. For the D.C. area band Kenin, that point comes Friday. when, the group will co-headline with State Radio at the 9:30 Club, the venue that they dreamed of playing while growing up.

Last April, The Hatchet sat down with Kenin to talk about where they were musically and what they were planning. Since then, a great deal has changed. In an interview with Devin McGaughey, drummer and founding member of the group, it became clear that they have really come into their own.

“At that point, we were about to release our first major independent release (Just Another Blast, 2004) . and at that point, it was just like a chaotic machine exploding down the freeway,” he said. “At this point, it’s a much more streamlined organization. Our musical direction is much more defined. We have a much stronger, more established scene in D.C. I feel like it’s just moving a lot faster at this point.”

To Devin and the rest of the band, the difference between their 2002 album Left Behind and their newest record Just Another Blast exemplifies the difference between an amateur college record and a legitimate, professional album.

“It’s so different. Left Behind was really just us messing around in a studio down in North Carolina over the course of four or five years . we just put down whatever we felt like. It was cheap. We were having fun. We were in school and didn’t really care much about it,” he said. “But I’d say that the biggest difference was that we weren’t serious about it. It was more of an expression of the free college spirit, just doing what you want to do. But with Just Another Blast, it was more like, ‘We are now professional musicians.’ This is what we care about, and it’s much more sophisticated. It’s a lot better all around.”

Kenin has certainly been making a name for itself in the local music scene and are looking to take it to the next level. In fact, in the 2005 Washington Post Reader’s Choice Poll, they were named among the top three bands in the D.C. region, right behind OAR and ahead of the Virginia Coalition. However, with all of their recent success, the band is still “fired up” about the coming show. “I think the reason the 9:30 Club is our favorite venue is best exemplified by the first time we played there. It’s really the pinnacle of east coast rock clubs. What’s different though is the way they treat you on the inside. The very first time we played there was about two years ago. We were the opener for the opener, and they treated us like we were Nirvana.”

When asked what he hoped to get from the show, Devin replied, “our dream is for it to sell out, and there’s a huge potential for it to. But secondly, this dude Chad [of State Radio and formerly Dispatch] was one of our biggest influences . and to finally be able to share the stage with him in that way, you can’t really ask for anything more than that.”

For a band who hates nothing more than to qualify their music into a certain group, Kenin says that they “want people to walk away thinking that it was the most dynamic show they’ve ever seen . We love variation and for that reason we’re going to go from big African drum jams to singer-songwriter acoustic things to big rock back to country-ish sounding things. I’d really like people to walk away saying, ‘Wow, that band did a lot of different, interesting things, but I still have a sense for what their sound is.'”

Kenin will be playing Friday, at the 9:30 Club, co-headlining with State Radio and Honor By August. Tickets are $15.