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Q&A with Kevin Kerby Words and Pic: TJ Deeter Kevin Kerby is Texas-born. He migrated to Arkansas when he was 18 to attend Harding University. Since 1992, he's called Little Rock home, leaving Texas forever to his musings. He's played in numerous bands around town, most notably Cosmic Giggle Factory, Ho Hum, Go Fast, and Mulehead. His latest project is a solo record entitled Secret Lives of All Night Radios available on Max Recordings. Localist: How long were you in Mulehead? Kevin: The concept of Mulehead was going on before I was even in Ho Hum [from 1992 to 1998]. Just with different people. L: What made you decide to put an end to Mulehead and move on? K: The main thing that got me thinking about it was, I was going to have a baby. Which kind of freaks you out a little bit. So I started thinking, “I'm going to have to slow down anyway,” and then Brent LeBeau had another kid and Geoff already had a kid and Dave was getting married, so it just kind of like, we couldn't really keep going at the same intensity. Which was not that intense, but I guess I was really looking for an excuse to end it and start something new. L: Did you have ideas about something different for a while? K: Yeah, as far as like the genre we were in, the alt-country thing. I think it's pretty much gone as far as it can go, and it's getting kind of ridiculous. There are guys who were playing in '80s-metal tribute bands the week before they did the alt-country thing. L: It became flavor of the week. K: Yeah, they don't really listen to country music. L: So you wanted this new project to be more rockin'? K: No, well, more scaled. I don't know if it's more rockin', but it's scaled back for sure, and there are fewer solos. I've always taken heat—probably only from myself—for relying on solos and really good musicians to fall back on so that I really only have to half-ass write a song. I really love to write lyrics, but with Mulehead, it was kind of like, ok, well this will get me back, then Dave can play some really bad ass solo, or Brent can sing back up, or play some really great bass lines so that if this part of the song is not as strong as the others, nobody's really going to notice. So really, I guess it's a combo of just wanting to step back from the bar band thing that we had going on and become a better songwriter. Because I think I'm pretty good at what I do, but if you become dependent on great musicians—which I think is a really important part of the mix. But you can't become too dependent on it. L: So it was a chance for you to hone your songwriting skills, in terms of writing complete songs, and then bring them to a band, which is what you have with Kevin Kerby and Battery, rather than just calling it Mulehead? K: Yeah, and this is also the first time that I've used demos. I would demo stuff here on my eight-track then take it to Geoff and say, “Here's the sketch of the song. These parts that I have down here definitely need to be in there. If you want to flush them out that's fine, but we can't take anything away from this. If you want to add anything to it you know, then good.” And generally what he would add was the right thing. L: Tell me some more about the people in your new backing band, Battery. K: Geoff definitely wanted to play guitar; he wanted to do something besides play drums. Which is fine with me because he's really a better guitar player than I am. I was probably the worst guitar player in Mulehead, by the way! Which is weird to me 'cause I'm usually still better than the drummer, but not in this case. But, yeah, Geoff helped me out a lot on this record. He's a great musician. It was his idea to get Marcus Lowe because Marcus can do the whole laid back thing. I mean he's a real flashy drummer, but he doesn't have to be, you know what I mean? Like, he's really, really in the pocket, which is what we needed because on the record it's sort of drum machine-y, sort of human click track. And Marcus kind of jazzes that up a bit live, but that's the guy that Geoff wanted to play. And Geoff being the former drummer, I trusted his opinion. L: You have Josh Bentley on bass. K: Yeah, Josh was kind of the automatic choice. We wanted to have a bass player who wasn't a country bass player, maybe a total rock bass player trying to fit it into a sort of country-ish—I guess roots is a better term for it—situation. Jason Weinheimer is playing piano, just because he's kind of the one who inspired the way that I wanted the new record to sound because I really liked the way the Boondogs record sounded. L: Geoff not only plays guitar, he also helped you produce the album, right? K: Oh yeah, absolutely. He definitely is a producer. He was the one. It became apparent really early on that I was going to have to trust him even if I didn't agree with his opinion, or if I didn't have an opinion that he was going to be the go-to guy. Like if I wanted to overturn one of his ideas and he let me, then that was probably alright, and if he stood firm on something, then he was probably right. I would get done singing the song, and he would load up another track and say, “Alright. Do it again right now.” L: You mentioned earlier how you wanted to scale back, and I noticed listening to the CD that it definitely has a sparse feel. Low-fi even. Tell me what you were trying to achieve. K: Well, using demos was sort of the idea, and it's probably more Geoff's idea than mine or a mutual idea. Geoff said, “Let's listen to these songs and only put what it needs. If it doesn't need it, then it doesn't go.” His studio is in his attic and he's kind of an insomniac, so he'd wake up in the middle of the night and go add like 15 guitars and then start breaking those away. L: One thing I found interesting is the use of drum machines. It definitely represents a change in direction from being an alt-country band. K: For sure! That's funny, because Geoff is really a drum machine wizard. I would consider myself a child of the '80s, except that when all that shit was going on I really hated it, or at least if it was cool, I pretended like I hated it. I was aware of all those sounds and stuff, and I can identify them when I hear them on a drum machine, but he was totally into that shit, and he's like four or five years older than me. So he has an even greater knowledge of all that stuff. L: You use the drum machine on the song “Into the Wind.” Which is pretty much the saddest song in the world. K: Ha ha, yeah. It's a sad one. L: The lyric choice is interesting for somebody who's a fairly recent dad. You talk about raising a child, and the first thing he learns to do when he learns to walk is walk out the door. K: Right. That's been a weird, weird thing for me. I remember living at home and then my dad saying, “You know, I think it's time for you to go.” You know, like getting kicked out sort of, 'cause I was just willing to live there forever. I got married when I was 22. So I was probably 20. L: How does having a family affect you as somebody that plays in bars late at night? K: Well you know, first of all, I'm a little more concerned about the money that I make. You know what I mean? I don't have to make a lot of money, but let's make at least half of what I make when I wait tables! L: You and your wife just had another child. K: Yeah we went and saw it today. It's a girl. L: So you have both of them now, a girl and a boy? K: We got the set. L: The set! K: Yeah, I'm done now. L: Do you think it's pretty cool how many people around here who are in rock bands have kids? K: Yeah. I was with Karalyn [his wife] today; we went to Boulevard [Bread Company]. Some musician dude walked in, somebody that I've seen around forever, and he's carrying a kid. It's like, yeah, the kid is like the new little dog—an accessory! L: What's interesting is that these people, including you, don't go, “Well, now that I have a kid I have to do something serious.” You're still playing music. K: I fight with that. Having a kid and these new responsibilities can make doing what you do seem less important at the onset. But then it's like “Hey, you know what? Actually, it's more important now! I hope. I think.” L: Why? K: I mean, you want to leave a legacy of some sort, and I've spent years learning how to do this [music stuff], so you know, later in life, hopefully if he's [son Gus] a musician, if he's in a band, or whatever, he won't look back and say “Hey my dad was in a band; when I came around he gave it up,” or “He didn't take it seriously enough,” or “He didn't think enough about it.” L: What about touring? K: It just seems like if you don't tour, if you don't break your ass, which I've done, then you're not a serious musician. But I would put my record up against any touring band, I really would. L: And in this day in age, you've got the internet. K: That is true. People used to e-mail the Mulehead website and ask, “Why doesn't Mulehead go on tour?” And it was because we were four people. You're one person. Why don't you go on tour? I'll tell you next time we're playing. L: If leaving some sort of legacy is one's goal, touring isn't always necessary. K: [In Little Rock] there seems to be no motive [to tour]. We're not writing songs to take them to LA and try to get signed to a big record label, we're writing these songs because we want to write. I talked to [Little Rock musician] Sulac about this the other night. I want to write these songs, and then I want to put them on a record, and then I want to put a cover on it, and there! There's an album of what we did. L: It's a document. K: And then I want to move on. I want to write better songs. You know, you get better and you want to want to be the best at what you do for absolutely no reason and that seems to be the attitude here. L: We have a pretty interesting music scene in that sense, though “scene” is a word I like to stay away from as much as possible. K: Yeah. L: I see it as a community. K: I agree. You know what's funny about it, too, is everyone remains really unimpressed because everybody's really good at what they do. Everyone's supportive, but it's not like, “Oh my god that was amazing!” It's just kind of like “Hey, good show man,” and it's hilarious. Jason Weinheimer said the reason that nobody comes to see Little Rock bands is because there's nobody left to come see Little Rock bands once you figure in all the talented musicians that are in bands, in good bands. So they're off playing. And then you figure of the artists left, they're at their art shows. Little Rock has way too many artists, and not enough people who appreciate it. L: Speaking of the music community, there are a lot of interesting young people who are popping up. What do you think about that? K: Yeah, that's kind of weird. Maybe at some point we were the ones who were making the old guys say, “Good Lord, where'd these guys come from?” But yeah, I think these kids have been laying in wait. They've heard records we don't even know about. I think it's really good, and I think it's cyclical. L: In the song “Your Disease” you talk about the scene being destroyed and rebuilt. There are these older people and the kids coming around. That's kind of the way it's rebuilt. K: Absolutely, man. You've got to know when it's time to let go. L: Let them be the ones to stay out all night and party. K: That's it, and let them do it the way they want to do it. Andrew Morgan, the first time I played that song, at the end he goes, “Everyday.” Whoa man, it's true. [Destroy and rebuild] everyday. If you get known for something, that's kind of boring. L: The album title itself, Secret Lives of All Night Radios is definitely another theme in your music. K: When my younger brother came along, I moved in with my older brother who's five years older than me, and he had a sweet record collection and he would leave his radio on all night. So I think a lot of the musical ideas I have came from that, and they're just in me, and I didn't even know they were going in. L: So do you think kids are going to be writing songs about the secret lives of all night internet radios? K: All night iPods? [Laughs] Yeah, probably. L: These kinds of things are probably cyclical as well. For instance, in the '50s and '60s, there were all these songs about taking your dad's car. But then kids got their own cars. They didn't have to sing about having fun, fun, fun in their daddy's car. K: They're probably having a lot more sex. L: Yeah! K: I mean it seems like if I had my own car, yeah! L: That's pretty much your ticket right there. K: I don't know. [Younger songwriters] will find a way to be nostalgic about it and they'll find a way to make it romantic, I'm sure. Look [at the] computer age. Remember your TRS-80? It's like, yeah, that thing was sweet. L: The way they're experiencing the internet and stuff at school, those computers are going to seem so cheap and outdated by the time they're just a little older. They're going to look back on that stuff as antique. K: Right. Also, I remember, a few years ago, this kid going, “Yeah, I like the old shit like Pearl Jam.” And it's like, I guess that was ten years ago and you're 20. Wow. That's old shit to you. It really is. L: There's another theme in you're songs: your “disease.” You kind of describe it as something you don't necessarily want a cure for. K: Your disease is like your “situation” or your “malfunction” or your “tick” or your “obsession.” So, yeah, you don't necessarily want to cure it. In “Papermills” I talk about how “I broke all my habits except the ones that kill.” It's kind of like, yeah, we don't need the cure, we just need some relief. “Your Disease” switches from situation to situation. So the first verse is about a guy who just can't keep his mouth shut. Has to speak the truth, has to speak exactly what's on his mind. Goes from his head straight out of his mouth. And me looking at that and it's like, “that is so rude, what is wrong with that guy?” And then thinking, “I really wish I could do that, though. I wish that was wrong with me, too. L: Do you think you achieved what you set out to do with this release? K: I think I came as close as I have yet to doing what I want to do. But I say this about every record. L: That's cool. K: And as long as I keep saying that then everything's good. L: Do you have any thoughts about your future projects at all? K: Maybe on the next one—I don't know, so I'm not going to commit myself, but—I think that it's going to be a full band recorded real fast, a little looser, but still not as many solos. L: Will we ever see the day on a Kevin Kerby record where you bring in horn sections, your Spanish horns? K: Oh yeah, I'm sure there will be. L: Big production? K: Yeah of course, I'm not afraid of any of that stuff. But I've always liked the way my songs sounded when I wrote them. Not necessarily better, but I really like the idea of “wow, there it is. All right, let's go record it. Shit let's do it.” I've always been more interested in honesty, or that feeling of someone making a record [who thought], “It would be really cool if we had a bagpipe here. Well, we don't have a bagpipe, but we have the Thomas organ. So let's go ahead and find a sound that almost sounds like that.” And then stumble onto something else that doesn't sound at all like a bagpipe but that's way cooler. Just limiting yourself and just being like, “I want to make the biggest production record I can make with what I've got.” L: Being resourceful. K: Right. And even as far as my visual art goes, too, I've always been like, “Okay, here's what I've got: This pencil, this, this, this [picking stuff up]. Here. Let's make something with this! L: That's when you get kind of the best results. K: I agree. When you're limited, it's just kind of like, “whoa.” I don't know how I would react if I was in a studio where I could just do whatever the fuck I wanted. Kevin's Local Picks: |
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