A Conversation with Billy Goodman

Puremusic: With all the interviews I've done for this webzine of ours, I run into all these strange situations, but I didn't anticipate that one of them would be interviewing my brother. But here we are.

Billy Goodman: Indeed.

PM: On the splendid occasion of you reuniting with our old friend and hippie guitar god Steve Kimock, a very interesting occasion. So I'll ask you some of the same questions I asked him, beginning with this one: what had you been doing previous to this encounter with Steve, and how did this recent musical chapter with Steve come about?

BG: Well, I was walkin' hard, baby.

PM: [laughs]

BG: I saw this movie Walk Hard last night [laughs]--you gotta see this thing, man. Oh, it's food for musicians. You can't take anything seriously after you watch this movie.

PM: That John C. Reilley is a very funny dude.

BG: I tell you, the guy's amazing in this movie, and he's just a great actor.

What was I doing? I was doing my normal thing over in Europe, trying to get gigs at culture centers, and I was working on a batch of songs. I had wanted to do a record, and when I had the chance to go to Florida for Christmas--

PM: Right, the dysfunctional family Christmas.

BG: --I called Steve in the hopes that he would be able to maybe demo up some songs with me, because I think the way that he sounds on the guitar--anything he plays is gonna make your song sound better. He had a little time, so I went up and saw him. That's what I was doing, and how this chapter started to come about.

PM: Right. And so when you got there--I forget--was the original intention to start doing some playing and recording with his son Johnny and then bring Steve into the mix, or was it Steve from the top? I forget how it went.

BG: Well, I had heard Johnny [Kimock's drummer son, John Morgan] and [bassist] Peter Fritz play when I was in California in October. I wanted to try playing in a band with those guys because they were so young and they sounded so good. But the real reason I went to Steve's was very casual--just to visit him and play a few songs. You know, John was in the back of my mind, but really I needed to see what these songs sounded like with Steve Kimock playing on them.

PM: Right. So it's different, obviously, to play continuously with someone for a long time, and quite a different one to play with them intermittently, or in this case, even very occasionally with someone you've known in a musical way for such a long time. What was it like, then? How did it turn out playing with Steve again? Was it like it used to be, or a different kind of thing?

BG: No, it was as if we had just left off the day before, like playing with a family member.

PM: Like no time had passed.

BG: Like no time at all.

PM: It's really strange, isn't it? Now, interestingly enough, it's his son, John Morgan, whom we first knew as an infant, that's playing drums. What's that like, and what's his musical personality and contribution like?

BG: Well, Johnny's a really thoughtful young man and very serious about what he does. When you're playing with Johnny, he takes it really seriously. It's hard for me to judge any drummer as the session is going down. I have to listen back to the tapes or watch the videos in order to get a really good perspective of what's happening with the drums. I was always really surprised at how excellently John always played when you listen back to him.

PM: Yeah, because it's confusing, in real time.

BG: It was as if you were playing with a guy that had been playing the drums throughout the 60s or 70s--an old-school drummer. Really just a great musician overall. He really listens to the songs, Johnny does.

PM: Yeah, and with a dad like that, you kind of inevitably take it seriously, I think. We recall what Steve was like. [laughs] He took things very seriously as well.

BG: Yeah, well those are hard shoes to fill. I think Johnny tries his best, right.

PM: Well, let's talk specifically about the record that kind of sprung up organically during the early proceedings that turned into this disc called The Red Barn Sessions, which is a very good disc. How did that come about, the record specifically? How'd it get laid down and seen through to the end?

BG: The day that I showed up at Steve's house, he had a friend come over with a laptop and some microphones because he knew that I wanted to record the songs if at all possible, because he just knows that's my style.

PM: Right.

BG: I went up--recorded fifteen songs with Steve in duo, and he said he really liked them, but he wanted to go back and take a pass at them with the band. So we ended up using basically half and half, you know--duo, trio, and full band.

PM: Right.

BG: Well, that's not half, is it... [laughs]

PM: But it was just a guy showing up with what--a laptop with Protools on it and a couple of mikes?

BG: Yeah. He showed up with a laptop, some German music software that I've never heard of--yeah, no real equipment to speak of, just a couple of microphones.

PM: Yeah. Was it Steinberg or Nuendo or Cubase or one of those things, or something else?

BG: Soundscape or something.

PM: So then when you got the recordings done with the duo, the trio or whatever, and a band, then what did it take to get product out? Who was in charge of getting the rest of it done?

BG: Dave Morrison brought the equipment over, Brian Abramson ran it when the band was there, and then Brian and I mixed it up at his house without any outboard gear.

PM: No real effects or anything.

BG: No effects.

PM: Right.

BG: We had some effects in the software, but I didn't know the software, so I didn't dare go in and start messing around with it. We used a very minimal amount of effects that were in the software. It was just the bare tracks. No effects, no compression, no mastering, no nothing.

PM: That's a nice change of pace.     continue

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