A Conversation with Kim Richey (continued)

KR: And so I got there, and they were already there. They thought we were starting a day early or something. And then that's kind of how we worked, too. They're already there getting started and I'm not even there yet. I came down to the studio the next night, and they said, "Well, we have this track we've been working on." And they played me this track, and I was like, "Well, that's great, but what does this have to do with me?" You know, "This has nothing to do with me. This is some track that you guys... [laughs] I know it sounds really good, but..."

So they said, "Well, okay, so that's not going to work. How about we just all sit around in a clump and play?" You know, and then I'm la-la-la-ing, singing some nonsense words while we're recording. And then that's how we would write most of our songs.

PM: And that first song that they had a track on, did that turn out be one of the tunes on the record?

KR: No, we never used that track. Later we went back and listened to it. We thought, "Hey, maybe we could use that first track for something." We listened to it but we couldn't really make anything happen with it, I think because we weren't all there at the same time. It was like me trying to fit words to something that I didn't really have anything to do with.

PM: Right. So it just served as a jumping off point for the process?

KR: Yeah. And then other songs, like "No Judges"--we usually would start about noon, people would walk in between 11:00 and noon. And I came in one day, and Bill and Brian were sitting in the studio, and Bill was playing this bouzouki. Well, another thing was, Brian's like a shopping maniac. And he'd come in almost every day with some weird new thing. And then we'd say, "Well, let's use that." So he bought a bouzouki, one of the little weird egg-shaped ones. And Bill was playing this bouzouki, and Brian was playing this big African drum that was in the studio, that we ended up using a lot. Those two were playing and I walked by them, and I listened to them for a minute. And then I left humming some melody that went along with what they were doing. I went out to get coffee. And then Bill came out for coffee, and he said, "I like that melody you were humming while we were playing that other thing." I said, "Yeah, that's cool." He said, "Well, let's work on that." So we worked on that. And we wrote the lyrics, sat out in back on the deck--not a deck, but on the loading dock. And it was a gorgeous day. We sat outside and worked on the arrangement and lyrics and everything, and then recorded that one the same day.

PM: Wow.

KR: So a lot of the songs have a demo feel--a real live kind of thing, which, you know, if you happen to get unlucky enough to make a really great demo, then you're basically screwed if you try to record that song over.

PM: Exactly, because then you never beat the demo.

KR: Yeah. So a lot of this stuff, it's really new. And it's funny now--I have a wonderful band here in Austin that I'm working with now, to travel with. And a lot of the things on the record really happened by accident. Like maybe on some song I was playing guitar, and I kind of paused, and there was this big pause, and then we all come back in together. It wasn't like anybody planned that. I just, in the middle of the song, kind of spaced out, because I thought it sounded really cool, and I just kind of stopped for that second. And then we all came right back in together. Or on "Reel Me In," where I'm counting after the solo, that's only there because we were making it up as we went along. I was making the melody up and then I just stopped and thought, "Well, here would be a good place for just a little breather." And they played for a little bit, and then I said, "Okay, we're going back in now." And the counting stayed in the track.

PM: [laughs]

KR: So it's funny, later, when you try to recreate all these accidents on purpose.

PM: Who are the people in Austin that you're going to go do some gigs with?

KR: Well, I just got back this morning from doing a radio show with Luis Guerra and Michael Mengoria. They're the rhythm section. Luis plays bass, and he plays standup just beautifully. He was playing with Alejandro [Escovedo] a while ago. And Michael plays drums. And then we have a fellow on keyboards, Stewart Cochran, and Patrick McGarris playing guitar. Sorry, I don't know how to spell anybody's name.

We've been rehearsing all last week. And we did this radio show today, just the three of us, me and the rhythm section. It was just gorgeous. The songs really worked well that way, too, especially with the standup bass. And then Luis would do some bowing. It was really pretty.

PM: Are you also going to do some touring with the California posse?

KR: No. Bill is going to join up with us on the West Coast. But we tried to get things together and it just kept falling apart. We'd be on again, and off again, and on again, so...

PM: Yeah, that's the thing about the California thing, is that it tends to fall apart.

KR: [laughs]

PM: [laughs] But if you can grab it while it's together...

KR: Yeah, it's kind of like, really enjoy it in the moment, because, you know, one never knows what's going to happen the next couple of seconds. continue

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