{"id":453,"date":"2011-02-23T05:27:27","date_gmt":"2011-02-23T10:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=453"},"modified":"2011-02-23T05:27:27","modified_gmt":"2011-02-23T10:27:27","slug":"a-conversation-with-the-churchs-steve-kilbey-part-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/02\/23\/a-conversation-with-the-churchs-steve-kilbey-part-one\/","title":{"rendered":"A Conversation with The Church\u2019s Steve Kilbey (part one)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian foursome The Church are something of an institution in their native country, and throughout their thirty-plus years together they have enjoyed worldwide success as well. Their commercial apex was undoubtedly the hit single \u201cUnder the Milky Way\u201d from the 1988 album <\/em>Starfish, but every one of their twenty-three albums has its high points. A perennial critics\u2019 darling, the band has mounted tours both acoustic and electric. Their early 2011 <\/em>US<\/em> tour took them to the southeast, and I spoke with Steve Kilbey (bass, vocals, lyrics) about the current tour, the band\u2019s longevity and much more. Here\u2019s part one of our conversation.<\/em> All photos except the press-kit one are \u00a9 Bill Kopp.<\/em>— bk<\/p>\n

\n

Bill Kopp:<\/span><\/strong> After nearly two dozen studio albums with The Church<\/strong>, how would you say your music has changed?<\/span><\/p>\n

Steve Kilbey:<\/strong> I\u2019d say we had a certain artistic goal when we started, and I think that goal has remained. But I think the way that we sort of achieve that goal \u2013 or attempt to achieve that goal \u2013 has kind of changed a bit, though not completely. So I think there\u2019s a real continuity going right back to the first album. Our goal is to have interesting lyrics and interesting guitar parts that weren\u2019t just one guy playing chords and the other guy playing the lead solo. We like interweaving guitar parts. And we want to have songs that are about unusual things, and that \u2013 within the parameters of rock music \u2013 do<\/em> unusual things and conjure up different kinds of feelings. We\u2019re still pretty much the same band, just with a lot more experience. We\u2019ve got a lot more tricks under our belt.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> The <\/span>Greenville<\/span> <\/span>SC<\/span> date is the only one on the current tour slated as an acoustic show. Does reinterpreting the songs from your albums as live acoustic numbers present any particular challenges? <\/span><\/p>\n

SK:<\/strong> Oh, yeah. We\u2019ve stripped away all that noise. You can make a lot of noise on an electric guitar, and a pounding drum kit can cover up a lot of errors. So this is exposing the songs for what they really are. It\u2019s a bit like taking a film back to being a play. You\u2019re taking all of the electric and electronic effects out of the picture, and presenting the bare bones of what the music and the dialogue is. And I think that there are a lot of electric songs that wouldn\u2019t stand up to this treatment. Though the songs that we reinterpret are the ones that have got a pretty sound musical skeleton, you know what I mean?<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> Yes. Because some of them are built — at least in part — around riffs. Do those riffs translate in the acoustic idiom, or do you give new arrangements to the songs, emphasizing other elements?<\/span><\/p>\n

SK:<\/strong> Well, that\u2019s something I\u2019m always interested in: How do riffs sound played on the acoustic guitar? And the answer is, half the time it sounds bloody awful. And the other half of the time \u2013 if you can get a kind of new thing into it \u2013 it can sound really good. So with these songs that we\u2019re reinterpreting, some of them do actually indeed keep the electric riff, which becomes an acoustic riff. Or in some cases it changes onto another instrument. We do the song \u201cReptile,\u201d but the riff is now played on a jazzy piano instead of a frenetic electric guitar with a lot of echo. Sometimes the riff is the very cornerstone of the song, and it reappears. Other times we find that the riff is disposable; we\u2019ll do a song that has a famous riff, but the riff\u2019s no longer there.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> I imagine there are a few “deep album cuts” that you’ve either never done live, or at least haven’t done in years. Does digging out some of these older songs bring back memories for you? Is there any feeling for you of sort of rediscovering some of your earlier work?<\/span><\/p>\n

SK:<\/strong> Absolutely. After thirty years of playing these songs, I\u2019m still rediscovering things I put into the lyrics. I\u2019m standing there singing the song thirty years later, thinking, \u201cGod; I thought this was a random song I wrote. Now it\u2019s coming true!\u201d Which is one of the lines in one of the songs (\u201cMistress\u201d) we\u2019ll be playing: \u201cEverything is going wrong \/ All my songs are coming true.\u201d It must be terrible being Bob Dylan<\/strong> lying down at 2am. He can\u2019t get to sleep, all those fucking songs\u2026all those songs all biting him on the arse. All those words coming into his head. Because that sure happens to me. All my songs — all the words — are sort of re-presenting themselves, and going, \u201cThis is what you really meant.\u201d We\u2019ll be playing onstage somewhere like Greenville, and I\u2019ll go, \u201cJesus Christ! I\u2019ve been playing this song for years, and now finally I know what it means!\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes I marvel, and sometimes I\u2019m disappointed by how simplistic we used to be. And sometimes I marvel at how on one particular day we created a piece of music that I know we couldn\u2019t have done at any other time. We might have used a certain chord progression that I think is quite clever. I really do like going back and looking at our old songs. You know, we\u2019ve never written rubbishy, throwaway songs; every song has at least one redeeming quality about it. Some have more than two. So it\u2019s fun to go back, get some old ones out, have a look at them and kind of reorganize them.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> You mentioned your lyrics. Some critics have observed that your lyrics are — the word they sometimes use is impressionistic<\/em>. Whether one accepts that or not, I am guessing that one of two things is at work here. Either (a) the lyrics have a specific meaning to you, and it’s merely oblique to some listeners, or (b) you craft your lyrics in such a way that leaves it up to listener to sort of take what they will from them. How would you characterize it?<\/span><\/p>\n

SK:<\/strong> Okay, what I would say is that my lyrics are<\/em> impressionistic, and that \u201cb\u201d is definitely the answer. The lyrics are written for me and for the listener to be able to create a world. It\u2019s kind of like I\u2019m writing a book, but I\u2019m only giving you very vague hints of the story in the background. Because of the music — and because of my voice and everything else that comes with the record — when you hear the song, if you close your eyes and think about it, you will find yourself involved in an adventure.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I used to have a terrible job during school holidays, and I\u2019d go home and put my favorite T. Rex<\/strong> album on, close my bedroom door, lie down on the bed. And as soon as that record started up, its world would open up to me. It\u2019s like now when kids come home and get on their computer, and they\u2019re in some world. Running \u2018round shooting people or whatever they\u2019re doing. In my world, Marc Bolan<\/strong> did that. It was like one of those films where you can choose the ending. So I found that this was the absolute best form of entertainment: to have music that sets up the situation for you. The song is vague enough for you to sort of flesh it out in the way you want, but it\u2019s specific enough to keep directing you. So that\u2019s definitely what my lyrics are supposed to do.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> As opposed to leading the listener around by the nose. Or the ear, as it were.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s no leading the listener around by the nose. Most of what\u2019s in there is a springboard for you to jump into a swimming pool of your own design and populate it with your life, your characters. Or you can take mine. Or you can mix them all up. It\u2019s like a dream.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> I bought your solo album Earthed<\/em> some twenty years ago. Your solo albums are — to my ears — complimentary to your work with The Church, yet different. When you compose songs, do you often start with a specific destination in mind, as in, “This one’s for the band, that one’s for a solo release” or does it develop differently?<\/span><\/p>\n

SK:<\/strong> Usually when The Church write a song we\u2019re all together. We\u2019re there, we pick up our instruments, we jam around. Usually I\u2019ll go, \u201cYeah, I like this, I like that.\u201d We work on a piece of music, and then when the piece is finished, I\u2019ll put lyrics on it. It never happens that people come along and say, \u201cHere\u2019s my song, and the Church should play it.\u201d That\u2019s kind of been banished. We overhauled our constitution and we realized that was a point of potential revolution. So that scenario was excluded. So now in our amended constitution, all songs must be written by the band. No individual may contribute individual songs to the band. Otherwise, if we didn\u2019t have that clause, I would come along and say, \u201cThis is this great fucking song I\u2019ve written,\u201d and they\u2019d go, \u201cOh, we don\u2019t like that.\u201d And I\u2019d go, \u201cYou don\u2019t like this song? Fuck you! I\u2019m leaving!\u201d Or someone else would do that. So we\u2019ve nipped that in the bud.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We\u2019d seen it happen. Because the band constitution had been that I was the dictator. I\u2019d say, \u201cHere is my song. You will play it.\u201d And lo, they played it. But halfway through, the early democracy snuck in where I asked, \u201cWhat would it be like if we all wrote songs?\u201d And verily, it was good. We all did like writing songs together. Still the old way remained; \u201cUnder the Milky Way\u201d was one of the last ones ever, strangely enough. This was much to the frustration of Arista; they kept saying, \u201cWrite another \u2018Under the Milky Way,\u2019\u201d and I\u2019d say, \u201cUnder our new constitution, all songs now have to be written by the band.\u201d<\/p>\n

You have to think of these things if you want a band to last thirty years. You have to figure out ways you can do things. For example, me and Marty [Willson-Piper]<\/strong>, if we have a really nasty argument, one of us will drop a nuclear bomb on the other, which will mean there will be no more band. So Marty and I, to a certain extent, have learned not to have really nasty arguments. If we feel one coming on, we both sort of go, \u201cAhem\u2026\u201d and we walk away. Whereas me and Peter [Koppes]<\/strong>, we — like two countries — can have a really nasty argument, and then at the end we go, \u201cOh well,\u201d and walk away. And we\u2019re okay. You\u2019ve got to figure all the ins and outs of how your band works as time goes on, so you don\u2019t push people in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And it also works to protect me. In the constitution, one of the other guys could turn up with a hopeless fucking song that nobody wants to play. And we can say, \u201cSorry. It\u2019s not a band song.\u201d So it\u2019s a very good way to run a band, I think.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a>Click to Continue<\/a>\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

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