Hugh Murphy: Why don’t you first start off by telling me a little bit about your life, where you grew up.
KM: Sure, I grew up in NY. Outside of NYC. About 20miles north of NY. The Western banks of the Hudson River. It was kind of semi-rural then, but not now.
HM: What brought you to Providence.
I lived in Boston for 14 years and played music there, and I moved to Providence in 2001 because I couldn’t afford to live in Boston anymore.
HM: When did you first get into music?
Let’s see, I was into music for a long time. My father was a musician, he played trumpet. So when I was six I got to take music lessons, formal music lessons. Before that I had learned some trumpet when I was younger than six. I got to take accordion lessons when I was six until I was about 15, so I had some formal music training.
HM: What do you play now?
I play guitar and I still play some accordion and I try to play things like harmonica and mandolin but I don’t consider myself a real player, but I can dabble some stuff. I think playing accordion I don’t do as much anymore because I got a pinched nerve in my shoulder because I played in a Cajun Zydeco band for a couple years and did a lot of playing and blew out my shoulder. So I don’t play it very much. At the time when I took lessons on it, it was not a real cool instrument. So I wanted to learn guitar when I was a teenager. My friends played guitar and I wanted a guitar but I got this accordion thing. It wasn’t cool. Now it’s hip.
[00:02:20]
HM: You’re playing in a band right now, how did you get together.
I played in various kinds of bands for the last 20 years. This band started out as a sort of challenge between friends. I was going to be the drummer and learn how to play drums, and my electric bass player friend was going to learn how to play upright and our current lap-steel player was going to learn how to play lap-steel. She had been just a guitar player. We started out with some simple country songs. As it progressed I found that I couldn’t drum and sing at the same time and I couldn’t play harmonica and drum very well. We got a real drummer about 5 years ago. We’ve been doing that since then but we’d all been in rock bands before then. I had actually been in a country rock band before then in the late 70’s when I was a teenager so I’m kind of going back to what I started out doing.
[00:03:35]
HM: Did any of the people in the band have any experience with country music?
KM: Everyone in the band is a big lover of country music. I know that. The drummer is really big on, well he lived in Nashville for a while and he lived down there to see if he could get studio work…and not necessarily into the commercial country on the radio today. He’d been into all different kinds of music. The lap-steel player used to play a guitar that was strung high like a slide guitar setup in an art rock band, and played on top of an amp. So when we asked if she’d like playing some country stuff, she was into trying it and she got a lap steel. I don’t know how much she was into country, but she was into playing that instrument. So, I’m trying to think of…. Our guitar player is a Johnny Cash fan and so everybody’s got some love of country or they wouldn’t be playing in the band. I mean, some people absolutely despise country music, and like we’re looking for a base player right now because ours is moving back to Portland, Oregon, and I’ve looked at some bass players advertising and they’re like, we’ll play anything except country.
[00:05:08]
HM: I think that’s something you hear a lot of in New England. How do you think that came to be?
KM: I don’t really know because country is not just a thing of the south or the Midwest or the West. I mean New England is known for bluegrass and country and you know, has got some of the greatest bluegrass players that live in the northeast. I don’t really know where it came from but I think people associate country with Shania Twain and stuff like that. That kind of country just sounds like you know bootsy pop stuff, and I think that sometimes people get this sense that country is hillbilly music, but the way I think about it is that it’s our American Music. It’s like blues is our American music and country is our American music. It’s come from the British Isles but it’s this true American thing, you know. And I think of it as a tradition of thinking, but I’m also a non-traditionalist so I like to mix it up with my rock n’ roll.
[00:06:28]
HM: I know I’ve heard arguments that country music maybe isn’t as popular in more affluent areas, maybe as an issue of class.
Umm, I think it could be a class issue, too. I think about it, it kinda could be, because you think about oh the people in the trailer park are going to be listening to country, but then I think, why is there such a huge country scene in New York City? And, NYC is pretty affluent lately, and so there’s obviously class boundaries there, but I definitely can see where the class comes into it. Where you might have someone here like the faculty member that next door to me that plays classical music, he probably thinks country is not legit as an art form.
[00:07:30]
HM:What about in providence, what’s the country scene like here?
KM: Pretty bad, we’ve been having problems getting people to come out to shows. It was difficult enough in Boston, but there is a small roots rock, alt-country contingent, Americana contingent, and you know that there’s always some fans that come out to see that. In providence it’s been a lot more difficult for a couple of reasons I think, num. 1 is the strange thing about Rhode Island is that people think everything is really far away, so if they don’t live in Providence, If they live 15 min. south of Providence, it’s too far to drive. So they don’t come out. There’s that thing, but also, having an art school here, art and noise music is really popular. Which in Boston, at Mass art or the museum school there are students that are doing that kind of music and there are bands that are playing that kind of music at shows there, but because Boston’s a larger city there’s just more room for diff. music scenes to coexist. Here I find it’s either the art noise music scene that’s the most popular or sort of along the country lines, roots lines, but it really coming out of the punk rock thing is like a large rockabilly scene in providence and that comes with it’s own rules and regulation. It’s pretty rigid. The rockabilly contingent doesn’t really…I don’t want to generalize too much, but the hardcore rockabilly people only listen to rockabilly, they don’t listen to other kinds of Americana or country or bluegrass or whatever. They go out and they go out to hear kind of like, fast, hard, rockabilly It’s been tough in Providence, it’s been really tough. We go up to Boston to play some shows, we go to NY to play some shows. People keep saying you guys need to go down to like north Carolina or Georgia, but it’s like..
[00:09:51]
HM Long ways away.
KM: Yeah, long ways away. But even Chicago has a decent scene. Providence still has some catching up to do.
HM: regardless of that, do you still get to play a lot of shows?
KM: um, we do try to book shows here every month or couple of months but it’s difficult when a lot of people aren’t coming out. Some shows we’ve had 100 people out there depending on who’s on the bill. Other shows there might be 10 people who show up. The club needs to make money so it’s been difficult to do shows where you don’t draw people, the club doesn’t want to book another one. So you either have to do a house party or there are some spaces like warehouse spaces, loft spaces where people do kind of homegrown type shows, other than a club that’s a business. So we’ve been trying different things, trying to get out there in different ways.
[00:11:00]
HM: You mentioned country being kind of American music, do you think the fact that there are a lot of immigrants and a lot of people who aren’t… Americans in origin in Providence...do you think that effects that.
KM: It’s hard to knows since I haven’t lived in providence in more than...this is my sixth year here. I’m living in a neighborhood that’s over 50% Latino, so I hear umm, Latino music constantly coming out of apartments and cars and I think, gee, a lot of this music sounds like country music. Because I played accordion and I played some Cajun zydeco and I there’s also Nortenian music which has some accordion in it which is from the northern part of Mexico and that’s kind of snuck into the Texas music, and even that Nortenian music has some German and French Acadian roots, so it’s all mixed up. But, I think more so is that it’s harder in urban areas to get people interested in country music. Now I know I said NY has a scene, but NY is huge and there’s room from everyone in NY. But, in providence or even in Boston, Boston is fairly provincial, cities are kind of known for the kind music that comes out of them and Boston is kind of perpetually in this garage rock thing, and providence has always been the art rock city, you know the talking heads came out of here, and you know, now it’s lightning bolt which is this duo that plays bass and drums. For other genres to get popular it’s more difficult. Personally I don’t think it has to do with the immigrant population here as much as it has to do with the population of people who go out and pay a cover to hear live music in clubs, and the shortage of all ages venues and things like that.
[00:13:20]
HM: You mentioned country as a genre, what would you describe your music as.
I definitely would describe it as pop-rock with some country influence. Like I said I’m not a traditionalist. So it’s not like all acoustic instruments doing a traditional bluegrass kind of thing. It’s not even as traditional as like a Gillian Welch, David Rawlings kind of thing. Although I love those records and I’ve been influenced by those guys. Again if you talk about a Johnny Cash or something like that I mean all those things kind of go into it because mainly of the rock and pop music, and I don’t mean pop as in the Britney Spears pop, I mean like Indy pop. So kind of combining all that stuff and I’m a fan of Lucinda Williams so that’s kind of like, she took the music and combined it with the rock stuff and that last few albums she’s put out are along those lines, but back in the early days when she started she was really doing more of a folky thing. But, you know I like playing with a band, I like playing with a drum and a bass player and I like to rock out. I’m not doing a solo, acoustic coffee house thing, I’m doing something else, but it’s got country influence as far as instrumentation and guitar sounds and melodies and so on.
[00:15:20]
HM: Are there any artists in particular that you heard them and really like their country sound.
Yeah, I like Lucinda, I like Emmylou a lot although I sound nothing like her. She’s got an amazing voice. I liked when I was younger, Bobby Gentry who did Ode to BillyJo. I heard that song on the radio on the am and it totally blew me away. I liked Wichita Lineman as a kid even though it was glenn Campbell, it was one of the all time greatest country songs. I liked George Jones, Loretta Lynn. I like a lot of newer people too, Gillian Welch, I used to be a Jason and the Scorchers fan when that was around, Rank and File. Back in the 80’s it was Lone Justice, they were sort of doing a modern rock, country thing. Traditional country stuff I listen sparingly to bluegrass because it’s a little too busy for me. And I tend to like more of the crooner type country stuff.
[00:17:00]
HM: You mentioned you have a rock background, what is it about country or the area that made you keep that country influence.
I think Country and Rock have a lot of similarities. You can make a great song with 3 chords. You don’t need to be a virtuoso country player. Not that there aren’t virtuoso country players because there are, but classic country and punk rock share a similar ethic. I read something saying ‘old punks don’t die, they turn country’. I guess that’s what happens after you hit a certain age and you’re not considered a punk rocker anymore, a lot of people do the country thing. For me there’s an emphasis on melody and lyrics. I think a lot of modern folk music tends to be too wordy for me, and country music expresses sentiments in a very simple way that’s universal, and I think punk rock tried to do that too. Hank Williams is a perfect example of simple lyrics expressing profound emotion stuff. The Ramones did that too, so it’s an easy pairing to do country with rock.
[00:18:50]
HM: Do you think a lot of country musicians are getting away from that? It seems more and more musicians are becoming country influenced and not country bands.
Yeah, but I think that’s just going to happen. Everyone has their own style and take on things. If we’re talking about commercial country, that stuff is obviously just marketing for people with non-discriminating musical tastes. There’s nothing wrong with it, but rock is the same way. If I look at MTV or VHI or whatever, the rock bands right now, a lot of it is just commercial stuff and there’s not a lot of substance to it. As far as bands that are playing alt-country, getting far away from country – I don’t have a problem with it unless you’re going out there saying I’m a traditional country player and that’s what I do, country is what I do and then do something else, I think it’s just an artists prerogative to develop good music however they want. And people label it even if you don’t want to label it. I don’t label us country but I’d say we’re country influenced rock. And people always say, “what kind of music do you play?” They want a label, they need a label. I find that that’s kind of what my songwriter gravitates towards. It just happens that way.
[00:20:50]
HM: Are there any other bands that you follow in Providence? Do you feel a strong community..
Over the past couple years we’ve tried to do a thing where we host a series called, “your roots are showing,” and we’re trying to start that up again in April. So I got to meet a lot of Providence musicians that I didn’t know before. We still feel fairly new in town even though we’ve lived here for a while. We didn’t play until after about a year and a half after moving here. Our band was still based in Boston, we rehearsed in Boston and we commuted to Boston for gigs. We weren’t really seeking out Providence gigs and we really didn’t have time. We were busy with a move and working full-time and working on a house that was kind of a fixer-upper. The second year after moving here we decided to start the series, so I meet some bands that way. But it’s good, now I see them around town and it’s like, “hey, how’s it going?” We don’t always show up at each other’s gigs but I think musicians are busy. They’re either gigging or busy so it’s hard to go out and support your friends’ bands all the time.
[00:22:30]
HM: Can you talk a little bit more about “your roots are showing.”
We went down to Nashville for the Americana music association conference and played a showcase in 2003. We were on a compilation which is one of the CDs that gets stuffed into the conference goers’ bags. I was hanging out in East Nashville which is sort of like the Bohemian side of Nashville which is away from Music Row and away from Broadway where all the tourist country places are, which is awesome when you go to Nashville and you get to see people who really know how to play country. They can play everything from Travis Tripp to Johnny Cash and play for basically a tip jar and make their living that way-some amazing singers and guitar players and pedal steel players, not dissing that at all. But the East side tends to be where there’s more alternative music happening. There was a roots rock show at a place called the Five Spot, and there were just a lot of cool people that were doing things that weren’t just commercial country and they were doing gigs together. And I just thought, this is really awesome if we could start something like this in Providence, because there’s nobody doing it and maybe there’d be a scene for it, an audience for it. So I asked a club if we could get a regular night and started asking bands I knew, first in Boston and then in NY. Trying to book a night in Providence and then in Boston so we had shows back to back. Then I started meeting some bands in Providence people and having them on the bill. It’s turned in to everything from bluegrass people, soul people, punk, cowpunk stuff, rockabilly, all kinds of variety things. Some people that I listen to their stuff and it sounds a little country influenced then they show up and it sounds nothing like country. Like Okay, I can’t really find your roots here but maybe it sounds like the Beatles. So we’ve been just trying to… Providence is between NY and Boston and a lot of people travel through here so we wanted kind of a stop-over place where people can do shows here. So, that was the idea.
[00:25:08]
HM: Is it in one location?
It was in the Century Lounge every month, and now they’re having on the 28th of April it will be at the Century Lounge and then on the 13th of May we’ll be at AS220, so it will probably be roaming between those two places.
HM: Have you played at AS220 before?
Yeah, I played at AS220 before the renovations happened and I’ve heard the sound system is much improved. So I’m hoping it will be better. The first time I played there, there were no monitors. There was something wrong there, it was hard to hear.
HM: When you go out to hear music, do you do it in Providence?
I have been known to hear music in Providence. It’s funny, because you know playing or resting because I was out til three playing a gig the night before, so when I go out to hear music it’s usually to go hear somebody that I know or have heard of unless it’s a hugely famous person. I’ve been to seen Lucinda 3 or 2 times at Lupo’s. I went to the Newport Folk Festival because I wanted to hear EmmyLou Harris but she had to cancel and it ended up being Gillian Welch and David Rawlings which was great. Elvis Costello was on that bill and it was an awesome day…but locally I tend to go hear bands that we might want to do a bill with or that have invited us to do a show with them. In Boston I tend to go hear friends’ bands. But I haven’t been in Boston since we moved down here I don’t specifically go out to hear bands in Boston. I hear bands that are on the same bill that we are, that’s basically the extent of it at this point.
[00:27:14]
HM: How often are you playing right now?
About twice a month, once or twice a month is about all we can handle. Everybody works full time and a couple of the guys have kids now. So it’s about what we can muster. But also, if you play too many times in the same month you don’t have as big a crowd of people that comes out. You have to be careful not to burn your audience out.
HM: What are your goals of the band or where do you see the band going.
We just finished a cd at home. I shouldn’t say just, we finished it last year but it’s taken a while to get the finances together to master it and press it. We shopped it around to maybe 20 indy labels as we did the first cd and we couldn’t find anyone who could help us out. It’s hard. I’ve been doing it for a while so I know it’s hard. I don’t have any false impressions of making it big. Right now I want to get the second cd out, I want to get it reviewed and I want to get it airplay on Arcana and triple A radio stations and get reviews in places like ‘No Depression,’ and see if I can get Mojo to do a review. And some bigger National and International publications. It would be great to book a little mini tour outside of the North East because we’d like to play in the Midwest and the South. Of course it would be great to go to the West Coast but that just seems impossible given how much it would cost at this point. But, we do have a van so we’re mobile enough we can go a little far. Another goal of mine personally is to try and get a music publisher to see if I can sell some material.
HM: And you have two albums out?
Yeah, the first is called “Lover of Melancholy.” That came out in 2001. This new one is called 7 mile river but it hasn’t been pressed yet. I’m hoping it will be out at the end of April or the beginning of May.
HM: Do you feel like your music has changed since that first album?
Definitely, and the players have changed which influences it. My songwriting, I was always a side person who helped arrange songs and not the main songwriter and helped write music. But with the first record, it was my first real stab at songwriting on my own, for real. I had dabbled in songwriting but never would play anything out. Then something happened and I was like, “I’m just gonna do it and see what happens.” Now I feel like I have a second batch of songs on the second album and I have a third batch of songs waiting in the wings. Hopefully I’m just personally developing as a songwriter and maybe the next album will be completely different.