 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
A Conversation with Kris Delmhorst (continued)
PM: Are there routines or practices that you use when you're touring hard, to keep sane or stay centered?
KD: When I'm touring... Yeah, probably the main thing is, I do yoga every morning. When I'm home, too. And that's really a good thing. Partly, I began doing it because I was starting to have some back trouble--one of the weird tolls on your body that comes from touring all the time.
PM: Yeah.
KD: I've done yoga since I was a teenager, but I had never done it regularly like that. And it just really situates me wherever I am in the morning. It places me. So that really helps for the wandering lifestyle.
PM: Does it include meditation, or is it just more of a posture thing?
KD: Well, the whole thing is sort of like meditation, but I don't actually sit per se.
PM: Right.
KD: But yoga, I guess that's the main thing. I've always liked to travel. I love home, but I also have the personality where it's easy for me to feel at home quickly anywhere, which is very useful when you have this job.
PM: And some songwriters tell me, "Well, yeah, it's on the road that I really run into a lot of my friends."
KD: Oh, yeah, definitely, that too.
PM: Are you mostly touring with a band now, or--
KD: Not with a band, but I'm touring as a duo as much as possible, and I have a few different side people.
PM: Who do you use?
KD: I've been traveling with Mark Erelli a lot of the time. He's a great songwriter, so his first priority is his own thing. And the same thing goes for Jabe Beyer, who is also one of my favorite songwriters out there. He's more locally based in Boston right now. But he comes along a lot. And then there's a guy name Steve Mayone who comes out. Most of them are multi-instrumentalists who mostly play electric guitar with me and sing, but all of them can play other things, either acoustic or mandolin or various other things, and mix it up a little bit.
PM: Are you what you call a spiritual person?
KD: I guess I would say so, but not in any way that anyone else knows about. I'm not a member of any group. But yeah, I would say so, yeah, although I would have a hard time talking about how.
PM: How would you describe your temperament, or your personality?
KD: My personality?
PM: Yeah.
KD: God. I've never had to do that before!
[laughter]
PM: Oh, good.
KD: I don't know. Wow. That's a hard one. I guess there are a few different facets of it. I don't know if I would say that that serves me well, but it makes this line of work and life really suit me, because I have a real gregarious side. I guess I'm a pretty optimistic person most of the time, but I definitely have a social, very external, adventuresome side, which is the side that really loves touring.
PM: Yeah.
KD: And I also have a much more reflective, introverted side, a private aspect that can really be strained by the touring, but that's the part that comes home and unplugs the phone and writes. It's nice to have a job where I get to really exercise both, and both sides get to be happy.
PM: Are you a person with a lot of friends or a few close ones?
KD: Well, I certainly have a few real mainstay, close friends. But I do have a pretty wide circle of friends, and I really tend to enjoy that.
PM: Yeah, you sound like a person with a lot of friends.
KD: [laughs]
PM: And a lot of good ones.
KD: Yeah. continue
