Review Fix chats with Kiss Me Deadly bassist Evan Lieberman, who breaks down the band’s new album, “What You Do In The Dark.†as well as their goals for the future. Inspired by bands the likes of the B-52s and Letters From Cleo, they have an approachable, yet eclectic sound that deserves to be on the radio.
Review Fix: What was the inspiration behind this album?
Evan Lieberman: The inspiration behind What You Do In The Dark comes from our desire to musically and lyrically express our feelings about the strange world we find ourselves living in – a world of drones filling the skies with flying cameras, of communication devices that effectively cut us off from our environment and face-to-face human interactions, of a culture that increasingly demands conformity even as it pretends to promote the concept of the individual. In such a world the most interesting, in fact the most human parts of us are so often forced into the dark. Our passions, our flaws, the truth of who we are, all hidden away behind the shiny veneer of social media and the screens that surround us in every aspect of our daily lives. We wanted instead to celebrate the secrets and the shadows, to embrace the darkness and create a kind of audio film noir in which each song functions as a miniature movie That is the philosophical and aesthetic impetus for the record, but there is another, more visceral inspiration, which is that we wanted to make a record that kicks ass, that appeals as much to the lower bodily strata as to the intellect – with catchy choruses that take hold after only a few times hearing them and nuanced, layered tracks that reward repeated listens. The record is a soundtrack for our times.
Review Fix: How do you want this album to affect people?
Lieberman: With this record we are aiming for a full body experience. For the ears we have tuneful melodies with insistent hooks that have been described by some as almost too catchy because of the way they invade your brain and pop in at the most inopportune times. We believe this quality to be the key to the potato chip phenomenon that makes people keep wanting to press play one more time. For the mind we have intelligent lyrics commenting our social and cultural landscape, as well as the difficulties of finding love, friendship, and personal connection in these challenging times. Whether we are ironically asking to “like my status and share that link†in Shallow Focus or observing that for some “truth is a metaphor†in Crawl, we want this to be a record that people can think as well as feel. But for the heart, in many ways the organ that matters most, there are the tracks of longing and loss. Yard is a love song disguised as a musical fortress, Fire is a cry of unrequited desire that burns hot even in the face of denial, and P$ (pronounced P-Money) is a tribute to a friend who left this mortal coil far too soon. As for other body parts, Jen always refers toStalemate by borrowing a quote from Nathaniel Merriweather of Handsome Boy Modeling School. It is she says, “music to make love to your old lady by.†The same smoldering sexuality underlies tracks like Ladykillers and What You Do In The Dark. Finally for the feet, there are the beats, the grooves, the get down and dance rhythms that range from the pogo of Shallow Focus, to the skank-and-slink of Agent, and from the R&B soul of Stalemate to the full tilt rock ofFire. So we want your lips humming, your mind thinking, your heartstrings vibrating, your hips shaking, and the occurrence of a specifically localized moistness or tumescence as the case may be. Not too much to ask from a record we don’t think.
Review Fix: What makes this band special?
Lieberman: Kiss Me Deadly is a unique band in part because we know what tumescence means but even more because we come from a wide variety of backgrounds and influences that results in a truly distinctive sound. With his 6000+ vinyl LP collection Evan is a veritable encyclopedia of musical tastes and styles. He has played double bass in Orchestras, walked and soloed in Jazz bands, backed up blues legend Blind Joe Hill, and played virtually every variety of rock music from Reggae to Noise Rock. His bass playing (and less frequent guitar playing) embodies this range of styles even as they are channeled into the signature sound of KMD. Jen is a songwriter of unique gifts, with an ear for the big hook and a love of complex rhyme schemes that help her express her anxiety about society and personal relationships in terms that combine poetics with a driving rock beat. Madelyn is Ringo and Aretha Franklin combined into a single individual with a rock steady sense of rhythm and a wailing soulful voice. The fact that Jen adds electric Mandolin (as though it were played by Jimi Hendrix), electric bouzouki (one of only a handful in the world), and glockenspiel (yes, we rock out with our glock out) to the sonic mix works to make the music even more distinctive. Further, Jen and Madelyn’s shared vocals harken back to the Phil Spector girl groups of the early 1960s only now the girls are in charge. Kiss Me Deadly is also unique in that both Evan and Jen are accomplished filmmakers with lengthy credit lists and an ability to produce music videos that are artistically conceived and integral to the music rather than being 4-minute commercials for the band. And in the most simple terms, just look at us, we don’t even vaguely resemble a normal rock band with two glamorous amazon women and a less vertically inclined guy who looks like a college professor. Because he is in fact a college professor.
Review Fix: What song has the best story behind it?
Lieberman: Every song has an interesting story behind it, but one that is particularly poignant for us right now because it happened almost exactly 2 years ago is about P$ which was written for a colleague of Evan’s at Cleveland State University who was also at the time directing Jen’s Masters thesis on film lighting. Dr. Paul Skalski was a specialist in the social effects of video games who had a sudden heart attack at age 39 only to pass away a few months later. That’s the tragic part of the story. When Jen was working on the song we heard a story about Paul at Disney World two years before he died. At breakfast in the hotel there was a coin operated Guitar Hero game and Paul watched as a young kid of about 10 or 11 kept feeding money into the machine only to struggle to make it through a few measures of the song. He got up, took the guitar from the kid, and all present thought that this generally kind, considerate college professor was going to give the kid a few pointers. Instead Paul dropped a quarter in, set the game to “expert†and blazed through a perfect guitar solo. When it was over he turned to the kid who watching with mouth agape, handed him back the guitar controller, and said, “Hey Kid that’s how you do it, that’s how you play the game.†Paul walked back to his table and finished breakfast. When Jen heard this story she knew she had her chorus.
Review Fix: What’s the band’s creative process like?
Lieberman: The band has a rather interesting creative process. though the songs take different paths to fruition, a fairly typical method is that Evan cooks dinner while Jen sits across the counter playing guitar and humming. Once she hits on something good, she starts to develop it further with Evan occasionally chiming in with, “maybe that A should be an A-minor†or offering a suggestion for a lyric. When Jen has the song pretty well structured she brings it into the band setting where Evan and Madelyn each write parts and the band works out an arrangement. Introductions are added, bridges are written, changed, and re-written, Jen and Madelyn build up the vocal parts, singing in unison, trading off lines, experimenting with harmonies, and generally working through options. The song then simmers as it is played at rehearsals over and over, changing a little every time its played, and though the structure eventually becomes pretty solidly fixed the song continues to be a living entity with variations in tempo, dynamics, and musical interplay. When Madelyn writes she has the song in her head and sings it to Jen and Evan who then have to figure out the chord changes, after which it gets workshopped just like the songs written by Jen. Even though there is generally a single composer for each song, the growth into a piece that can be played live or appear on record is very much a collective process with all three group members having a voice.
Review Fix: What was it like to work with Chris Keffer?
Lieberman: Though Kiss Me Deadly has three members, while working with producer/engineer Chris Keffer at Magnetic North Studio it was like having a fourth member of the group. Chris was an endless fount of musical ideas. He suggested ways to rearrange several of the songs, had ideas about instrumentation, and coached both Evan and Jen through guitar solos to ensure that every note made a strong dramatic impact. Further, he was incredible in terms of taking Jen’s sometimes abstract concepts and figuring out how to realize them on the tracks. The Jen/Chris collaboration resulted in some of the best moments on the record most notably the cinematic landscape of Drone complete with trumpets, gunshots, marching armies, and the sound of buzzing bees. Chris’ patience, attention to detail, and incredible musical knowledge garnered from his having produced or engineered over 900 records in his lengthy career were invaluable to us as we were making What You Do In The Dark. In many ways it is as much Chris’ record as it is ours.
Review Fix: How does it feel to be compared to bands like Letters to Cleo and the B-52s?
Lieberman: An ongoing struggle for the band is knowing what to say when people ask us what we sound like. It may sound cliche, but for us there really are not clear antecedents to the KMD sound. The first wave bands like The Pretenders, Blondie, and Talking Heads are sometimes points of reference, as are the British Invasion sounds of The Zombies, The Hollies, and The Kinks, but ultimately we have agreed that it is up to others’ more objective ears to tell us what we sound like. The comparison to the B-52s is particularly important to Evan who spent time in the same Athens, Georgia music scene that spawned the B-52s, and while they predated his stint there, they’re influence is deep. They were one of the first bands to convince Evan that technical ability was second to creative point of view and that the best band is the one that does what only they could or would do. Besides the poppy beats, the clever cool lyrics, and the dual female vocals, this is the aspect of the B-52s that is probably the biggest influence. To in any way be compared to bands like the B-52s and the equally distinctive Letters to Cleo is an honor and just a little humbling.
Review Fix: How do you want this album to be remembered?
Lieberman: We would like What You Do In The Dark to be remembered as the first in a long line of great Kiss Me Deadly albums, one that captured the zeitgeist of its time and introduced the world to a band that will go on to many significant accomplishments.
Review Fix: What are your goals for the rest of the year?
Lieberman: Our major goal for the remainder of the year is to do everything possible to ensure that this record is heard by as many people as possible. The plan is for us to go on tour beginning this summer and continuing into fall and to continue to work to promote the album, to make sure it gets radio play and does well on the streaming services. We also hope to sell a lot of copies when it comes out on vinyl next month.
Review Fix: What’s next?
Lieberman: Future plans include completing production of the film that has long been planned to go along with the album. Since Jen and Evan are filmmakers and the band is deeply influenced by film in general and film noir more specifically, it was always assumed that there would be some kind of film to accompany the record. Production is now underway on the film, a futuristic film noir set in a surveillance state in which Jen plays the detective and Madelyn the femme fatale. Together they battle a repressive government while seeking the answer to the question posed by the original 1955 film Kiss Me Deadly – what is in the glowing briefcase in the trunk? Once the film is done and between touring we hope to begin recording our second album for which the songs have been written. We can’t wait to get back into the studio and build on what we’ve done with What You Do In The Dark.
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