So, what's the coolest thing a Keneally freak like me could have the chance to do? I got to do an interview with Mike Keneally! Whee! I'm not even a real journalist or anything! Whee-hoo! And I got to talk to most of the rest of his band too! Whee-a-rino!
This idea popped into my head just days before Mike Keneally & Beer For Dolphins arrived in Cincinnati on their Dancing '01 tour this past May. The idea was granted permission to fly, and here we are. This interview happened in the backyard of Mike Folz's brother's house. Mike Folz being the extremely cool Guest Host for the Cincy Dancing '01 stop. Mr. Folz graciously allowed me and the magnificent Da9ve to hang out at an afternoon gathering with the band and a few others. Mike took questions for a while, then I spoke with other members of BFD, before they took off to the Barrelhouse to prepare for the evening's show.
I first saw Mike live in 1998, after having been into his albums for a few years. In '99, I attempted a move to California to play bass for a friend who knew Mike through a connection with Steve Vai. Mike was just releasing his album Nonkertompf and about to head out on tour with Vai. I was only in SoCal for 10 days before circumstances forced me to return to Indiana, though I did get to see part of an acoustic BFD performance in LA. I listened to Nonkertompf for the first time on the airplane trip home.
Arriving back in Indiana, it was only a matter of days before I met a wonderful lady named Sheryl Warren, who had just happened to have been in LA the same time I was, and was now on the alt.music.mike-keneally newsgroup. Within a few months, we travelled back to LA to see BFD again (Sheryl's first Mikey show), and I moved in with Sheryl in March of 2000. We were married in April of this year, and our daughter Katie was born two days after this interview took place.
What a week. Seeing Mike and Bryan do a Taylor clinic on Monday, doing this interview and seeing the full BFD on Tuesday, and Wednesday afternoon going to the doctor who told us to pack out bags and go to the hospital that night for delivery to be induced. Katie born Thursday evening. I owe my marriage and my daughter to Mike Keneally. The events in my life of the past three years would never have happened without what I experienced in '98 seeing Mike. So you'll understand why I love this guy so much.
This is the first half of the interview, the half that was just Mike. I'll be putting up the rest later, that part being my conversation with other BFD members and a few additional comments from Mike. I've never done this, and it's been a fun process to listen to the recording and transcribe this thing. Speaking of recording, mondo-big-huge thanks to Da9ve for coming along with his DAT machine, burning the results to CDR, and doing his part to make this possible. Let me tell you something else about Mike - the vast majority of his fans are some wonderful people.
So, now it's October, the May tour is long over and Mike's got still more soon on the way. His next album, Wooden Smoke, is being released very soon, he's doing a few shows in Europe, and another short US tour in November. Make sure you get out there and see him. And check www.keneally.com for all the info you need.
So here it is. Ladies and gentlemen, Mike Kennedy & Beer For Dolphines.
D: Last night, somebody asked who you have been listening to these days.
M: I went up to Andy's (Andy West) in Arizona, about two months ago, to help him finish some music that he'd been working on for about five years. He just called and said "Please help me finish this stuff." So we did a big load of music, and it was cool. While I was up there, he got out all these Wendy Carlos CDs. And it reminded me of when I was really young, I think I was about 10 years old, and heard Switched On Bach for the first time. It really turned me around, and I got that excitement again. It's amazing stuff, so I borrowed all of his Wendy Carlos CDs and I still have them. (Laughs)
So I've been listening to those a lot, and you know, there's always artists that I've been listening to for years that I maybe don't listen to for a while, then I get back to. I've been re-listening to a lot of Todd Rundgren lately. Mainly the '70 to '74 era, which is the stuff that messed me up way back when. I mentioned Miles and Coltrane last night. They're always around, I'm always listening to them. But those are the big ones, the ones I've been sort of obssessing over lately.
D: I was going to ask you about Todd. In a lot pf ways it's very obvious why you like Todd, what you got out of Todd. But what particular aspects do you like best, what do you think you've taken the most, either...the thing I notice the most is in the keyboard department.
M: Yeah, when I write on piano, a lot of those chords come out.
D: Does any of that transfer over to your guitar stuff?
M: I'd say some of his lead stuff made its way into some of my guitar things. I think of the solo in Kedgeree as being kind of Rundgren-influenced, the stuff that he was playing on the Clapton SG around the first Utopia album, or around the album Todd. Where he would just really...his playing was really strong, because right around '76 or so, he stopped caring about playing so much and his playing got kinda shoddy. But there was a period there where I think he was doing a lot of acid, and just focused in a different way on what he was doing. And his playing was just incredibly strong and undeniable. And just immenesly soulful. Like the solo in the song Utopia, (sings part of solo) he just shakes the heck out of that one note, that stuff had a big impression on me.
Still, to this day, when I think of Todd Rundgren, I remember the first time I ever saw him on TV in 1973, with the rainbow hair, and the weird skin-tight jumpsuit that everybody in Utopia was wearing and these big leg things. And playing that guitar, and just playing this music. He presented this sort of other-worldly image of somebody that was very in control and exceedingly musical. He tapped into a very specific kind of joy that still has an effect on me now.
D: I just wanted to run some names by you, and just say whatever comes to mind.
M: OK.
Scott: John Wilkes Booth! (Laughter)
M: Scott Chatfield! (Laughter)
D:Stevie Wonder
M: Wow.
(Dougie note: You really should have seen the way Mike's face brightened up at this point. THAT was a very specific kind of joy.)
M: I think of a really good analog recording studio in 1972 and him just going, like, from instrument to instrument to instrument just having the best time of his life, you know. And getting it all down on great-sounding, huge analog tape and making these beautiful, beautiful recordings.
D: Have you been learning any of his stuff for yourself, or have you just been soaking it all in?
M: I haven't been learning any of his stuff to play, but I was singing a lot of it, probably about a year and a half ago. I would play his stuff in the car, and try to decode the melisma (laughs) You know, the (sings a string of flowing Stevie-esque notes) the way he twirls around? And I would listen to that over and over and over again to try to learn exactly the contours that his voice was tracing. Then try to sing it myself. Eventually, I would be able to sing in unison with all these ridiculous twists and turns that his voice would take. And that actually I think was a solid bit of vocal education for me.
D: I can tell you've put a lot into your vocals lately, and I think Dancing is far and away your best vocal performance so far.
M: Thanks. Yeah, that was the album, more than any other that I wanted not to hide the vocal tracks, so I listened to a lot of Stevie Wonder, a lot of Thom Yorke, a lot of Jeff Buckley. Just vocalists that I really loved. And practiced in the car so I wouldn't have to try so hard in the studio, you know. By the time I got to the studio, I wanted it to just be natural and not too studied. So yeah, I'm glad that it comes off that way.
D: You've just given me my next name - Jeff Buckley. I'm just getting into him myself.
M: Bryan actually kinda turned me onto him. I borrowed Grace off of Bryan in early '98, late '97, and that ended up resulting in that song The Endings Of Things, it was a direct Jeff Buckley-influenced piece. Obviously, his instrument was far superior to mine, in terms of what he actually had to work with vocally. But it's still something to aspire to, the idea of just being able to sing that purely, and that beautifully. And passionately.You know, there's a lot of abandon in what he does. And that had a big effect on me back in '98 when I was putting on makeup and doing all those weird shows. (Laughs)
Da9ve: Could I throw in a name? Gary Lucas from Beefheart's band.
M: Oh man. I wish I was familiar with more of his solo work. Yeah, actually that's a good example of somebody who I know is doing excellent work and on the occasions that I do hear what he's doing I go "Wow, that's so cool."
D9: He has, to my ear, one of the most distinct styles. I can pick it up a mile away, and I like everything he does.
M: He's extremely cool, I like him a lot. He's somebody that would be fun to do some shows with.
D; David Gilmour
M: Oh. When I think of David Gilmour, I think of that Pompeii movie, and him kneeling on the ground in the dirt, scraping the slide across the guitar. That's my favorite era of him.
D; They're all so frightfully ugly in that movie, Waters is like this Neandrethal beast playing his bass.
M: (Laughs) That movie had a pretty big effect in terms of just seeing people in the studio making stuff happen. There's footage of him recording guitar solos for Dark Side Of The Moon in that. That stuff is great. I don't think of him conciously very often. But my brother had all the Pink Floyd records and I would listen to them. Obviously, you have to dig the melodicism and the simplicity and the directness and the passion of his stuff. I haven't had any use for any post-Waters music that I've heard, really. I like the texture of it, sometimes. But it's also kinda soporific in a way. It's impossible for me to stay awake all the way through A Momentary Lapse Of Reason or Pulse, and that doesn't mean it's bad, it just means there's not much there that I feel like chewing on.
D: Have you followed any of Waters' solo work?
M: I've heard it all. I haven't heard the live album (Dougie note: In The Flesh, released earlier this year) but I've heard Hitchiking, Radio KAOS, and Amused To Death and I think that he's...it seems like, from what I've seen of him when he was on this tour, that he's reaching some degree of peace. He looks like he's happier these days. I'm really glad about that because it's kind of hard for me to listen to his solo albums, because it's almost like he wants to punish you for having the nerve to listen to his record. But obviously there's stunning constructions and all that. But not exactly something that I feel excited about returning to and listening to again and again.
D: When I saw him, even though it was a fairly predictable set list, what I got out of it seeing him in Columbus and Cincinnati was that, like at your shows, it was like being so happy to have all these people here to see you. Like the exact opposite of when he was writing The Wall.
M: That's fantastic. That's a beautiful change, I'd be interested in seeing or hearing that.
D: Jeff Beck.
M: Yeah. We listened to Blow By Blow in the van while we were on the Taylor tour and it's like...it's about a perfect album, really. Still one of the few guitar instrumental rock albums that I would ever want to take the time to listen to. It's so happy, you know. It sounds like somebody discovering a lot about music. His solos then were so...non-stop memorable. Incredible melodies just one right after another. When I see him now, he spits out these tiny little phrases that don't really get developed as much. It's like "BDDDR! BDDR! BDDDR!" I haven't heard the new record, but what was the name of the last record, Who's That, Who Else? (laughs) Apart from the live track on that, the blues song, just a blues but he played it incredibly beautifully, (Brush With The Blues) it didn't do much for me because he seems to be letting other people construct tracks for him that don't allow him to do what he does best, which is just PLAY, you know? And he shouldn't just be spitting out a few notes and letting the technoid rhythm track go "gggrrrgrrrgrrgrr" for three bars and then spit out a few more notes. He should just have people playing simply and beautifully behind him and allowing him to be eloquent. It's really hard to be eloquent over these bumpy techno rhythm tracks.
D: The new one is more in that direction. For me, I enjoy it a lot, I like the sounds he's getting, but it's definitely more of that.
M: And I say that kind of thing hesitantly because obviously, anybody should do whatever the heck they want to do, but I think he chooses collaborators that don't really encourage him the right way. If these were all *his* choices that were being made...my sense of it is that he gets in the studio with people who are really good at what they do, and he goes "Yeah, that sounds great!" But the idea of just playing solos into Pro Tools and then choosing a few notes from your solo and making that a melodic hook of a song, it's something that's maybe cool to do a little bit, but that shouldn't be your primary approach. I think it's a shame, because when he's really allowed to unleash himself, it's incredible what he does.
D: Here's one for me: Neil Young.
M: (Smiling) Just...the nerve, you know. It's like...you can't not love him. There's somebody who *isn't* going to be getting in the studio with a collaborator and letting them tell him ANYTHING. He will always go his own way and do exactly what he wants to do. There's probably four or five songs on Silver And Gold that are just absolutely beautiful songs. He doesn't stop turning out beautiful songs. They're not all gems necessarily, but he's a guy who loves what he does, knows what he does well, and *does* it well. Then he gets on stage and has the time of his life. If you can hook into the joy that he's feeling when he's onstage, then of course you're gonna have a great time.
D: One of the coolest things that you've been up to lately is in the keyboard department. You're playing the Fender Rhodes, Marc is playing it, he's playing his Mini-Moog. It's really cool that you're getting some of those sounds. Is this something that just kinda came to you?
M: Well, I never had access to the gear before. But now I've got a keyboard player who has his own Mini-Moog, who will travel, so that's cool. And you know, if you've got a Mini-Moog, you have to have a Rhodes, so yeah, I love those sounds. There's nothing that's come along in the keyboard realm since then that has the same visceral impact on me. I love going over there and playing that Rhodes. I had a Rhodes when I was a teenager and it's sort of a little time-travel thing for me to play that thing.
D: Another keyboard question. You grew up with a lot of prog-rock like ELP and stuff like that. Does that stuff have much relevance to you anymore? I still hear traces of that, but you've really filled out your influences, you've got a lot more things in there. I think a lot of prog fans like me, when I grew up, all I wanted to do was listen to these same six pretentious English guys and wear their cape and be just like them. And kinda cut myself off from all these other things. But it seems that now the kind of things we liked about prog-rock, we can now find those things in other music, maybe even more so in other kinds of music.
M: Well, I find the stuff that I liked back then that I still like, it all has relevance because it all soaked into me whether I like it or not. Even the worst of the prog-rock I listened to back then, if I loved it it had some kind of impact. It's in there somewhere even if I don't want to admit it. But if I hear any of it now, I always listen to it in terms of the writing. Back when Keith Emerson was really peaking, and was taking a lot of care with his compositions, it's wonderful writing. Obviously it's wonderful playing too, but in almost all cases the thing that gets me is the writing.
Or say in the case of Gentle Giant, the arranging and the *joyfulness* of the arranging, you know. Like, we've got this five-piece band, we're gonna try to arrange this stuff as if it's a small orchestra and we're gonna have a really good time doing it. That's the stuff that still resonates with me now. So it still has relevance whether or not what we're doing now could really be called prog-rock or not. I don't really worry about what people call it, they can call it anything they want to, I don't call it anything. But all that stuff that I've loved is in there.
D: I think it's interesting, guys like me came at your music from prog or from Zappa, a lot of your fans came from that, but a lot of your fans don't really get into that music. Some come from the Vai connection and the shred-guitar thing, and now you've even got people who seem to be more into the jam-band kind of thing. And with the kind of improv that you're getting into, I almost think of it the way I think of a band like Phish, their early stuff with very composed things next to the looser things, and that stuff in your music seems to appeal to at least some of the jam-band kind of audience.
M: The reason some of the jam-band audience would be less likely to get into what we're doing now is that we have a saxophone player who really *knows* how to play jazz, we have a keyboard player who has a lot of jazz and prog type elements in his soloing, and it gets into areas that, like...unfortunately, a lot of fans of a certain style of music, whether they want to admit it or not, they want the music to sound a certain way.
D: Sounds like prog fans...
M: Prog fans are that way, and I think in a way that jam-band fans are that way. There's this kind of narrowly circumscribed, Grateful Dead-derived harmonic area that they really like their jam-bands to hang out in. And if it gets too far out of there, it smacks too much of jazz, or too much of prog, or too much of something. And I don't give a shit about any of that. I'm only concerned with allowing the musicians in my band, all of whom are wonderful, to do whatever they want to do and have a good time doing it, you know, play the way that feels right to them. I just want the entireity of it to feel honest. I want it to feel that it's come out of these musicians, in this way, and there's no other way it could have come out and that there aren't any other musicians who could have done it quite this way. I'm not interested in, obviously, any kind of style, other than *our* style. Everybody's got their own style and we happen to have seven people, all of whom have their style. I just like seeing what happens when you stick all seven of those styles together.
D: I told Sheryl the other day that one thing I've liked about all of your music, since you've started, is that you draw on all these different things, because like you say, you don't give a shit about being a certain "style", you kind of transcend that and everything sounds like you anyway. It still sounds like your music. The thing that strikes me the most, and I think it's what makes for the best music from anybody, is that you've got your influences and you soak them in, but then you go out and you LIVE, and you let yourself be influenced by LIFE, instead of like most of us, what I've been guilty of for years, and I'm still trying to work it out, is being influenced by life itself instead of just sitting there and saying "I like this chord a lot" or "I want to do this Keith Emerson thing" or, you know, it's a very constrictive kind of thing. There's not a lot of freedom in that.
M: Yeah, but I think there's a lot you have to go through before you can reach that point. Some people get there naturally. I think Evan is there already, and he's only 20 years old. It's like everybody is on this moving sidewalk, and some people's sidewalks are moving faster than others'. And it doesn't mean anything in terms of a value judgement or anything, it's just that everybody's got an opportunity to become one with like, everything, and some people spend their whole lives and don't begin to even consider that, and some people figure it out at a very early age and devote their lives to it. It took me a long time to realize, wow, I like the feeling of connectedness with everything and I want to pursue *that*. That doesn't mean that your head explodes open and the world is you and you are the world, it just means that you acknowledge that you've got a lot of work ahead of you. (Laughs) Because there a lot of distractions, and a lot of other things, and a lot of just long-ingrained bad human behavior that you have to rip out of yourself. And it's real easy to fall into old habits. There's a lot of work you have to do before you get to be the Dhali Lama or something. (Laughs)
D: That's another thing you've talked about before, you're getting into this almost Zen-like philosophy, but it's a very down-to-earth thing for you. You're not like, out in space, but you're enjoying all the benefits of this kind of world-view right here, right now, and being very immediate and very...it's a very down-to-earth thing, a very human thing.
M: It's got a lot to do with the fact that I haven't taken the time to study specific philosophies other than to just occasionally pick up a book about a certain mode of thought or a certain spiritual discipline, and I'll read about it and see what resonates with me and what doesn't. I'm starting to see that I have certain emerging beliefs and feelings that do resonate with one or another discipline. That doesn't mean I'm looking necessarily to affiliate, I just find it an interesting kind of thing and I'm curious about it. But I also don't have time, and I'm not burning with the desire to find out what this is that I am or becoming or whatever. I'm just becoming, you know. And will continue to become. It's a natural process.
D: That's what I got out of you back in '98.
Part Two of this interview is HERE