After seven plus years of constant touring with her band, Kopecky (formerly Kopecky Family Band), Kelsey Kopecky is ready for a run at a solo career.
While Kopecky (the band) will remain on hiatus, the split will bring us a new EP by Kelsey, The Babysitter Work Tapes. Today, we are excited to bring you its first single, "Love Me," before the EP's release this spring.
But first, the story of how we got here, when Kelsey Kopecky was finally off the road with her band.
"It all started when I moved into a new house and was waiting on my piano to be delivered by the movers a few days later," Kelsey Kopecky tells Speakers in Code. "I wanted to write, so I found my ex-boyfriend's electric guitar and a tiny practice amp, and started playing the few chords I knew. After a few weeks, I had the skeletons of about six songs. I recorded demos of the songs on my iPhone and sent them to my favorite producer, Danny Kalb (Beck, Ben Harper, Rilo Kiley). To my surprise, he loved the songs and agreed to produce my record. He loved the grungy sound of my garage and wanted to capture that in the lo-fi recordings. I love the way it sounds. No auto tune or digital corrections. I played drums, guitar, some bass, and had a field day! What a special time."
Kelsey continues.
"If I were to elaborate about what it feels like to go solo and release my first single, the only thing I can say is it feels like I can be totally myself for the first time. I am using what I love about western music (not the musical styling, but the storytelling) to give live body details about funny situations in my life.
"I feel like I am connecting with some of my favorite voices of the past...Liz Phair, PJ Harvey, Joni Mitchell, etc. and can share deep thoughts about life with easy-to-tell stories. Like the idea of not wanting to own a bunch of homes only to work all day and never spend any time there. What's the point of a life like that!?
"The song "Love Me" is about my new musical future. What it feels like to make music I care about again. To not be stressed to write the next radio single and appease labels and promoters. But to realize I'm having more fun in my garage with my drummer, Matt Scibilia and bass player, Aaron Simon, playing these songs that capture my mantra on life! When I remove the pressure of "I hope everyone will love my art" and focus on how fulfilled I feel while playing, I stop grasping and feel fully present! The songs embody the attitude of living your life with the perspective that every day can be Saturday. My favorite lyrics from "love me" are:
I think you and I could start a band / we could travel the world we could find some fans / let's go and finally really say something / we'll never talk singles or the bottom line / we'll never make the music that the money buys / my soul needs a new kind of sound / what we started got lost in the background / have they bought it that thing we used to sing about"
Each year since 2013, we've held a special concert to celebrate another year of Speakers in Code. And in 2015, we were so excited to welcome Kopecky and Geoff Koch to Off Broadway.
Kopecky released Drug For The Modern Age in May, and they played most of the album -- they opened the show with "My Love," my favorite track. But they also took time for a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk," and older songs like "Change" and "Hope." Kopecky are one of my favorite live bands, and the show at Off Broadway only made me more of a believer.
Geoff Koch, who now lives in Nashville, but is a St. Louis native, opened the show with songs like "Say You Will" and "Pro-War." He absolutely nailed Wilco's "She's A Jar." And he closed his engaging set with his best song, "The Storm."
Once again, we would like to thank Kopecky and Geoff Koch for celebrating with us.
Yea if we're gonna grow up we'll do it in our own way But if we're gonna die young we'll try to live with our mistakes
Ah, growing older and living with our mistakes. They say life is full of second chances, but sometimes you only get one shot. One shot with poor timing -- you know, those cards.
So we lie to get the girl to call us. We lie to know her name. These are the trials repeated back to us in "Quarterback," the first single from Kopecky's splendid sophomore album Drug For the Modern Age.
"I can't wait here forever," Kelsey Kopecky sings on "Better Luck Next Time." Guitars scream and more mantras repeated: "I'll have better luck next time." Next time, next time, next time.
Or, really, what this album is about: time, time, time.
Kopecky has crafted an album's worth of songs about the cruel reality of time. The finite amount of breathing life to achieve what moves you, or, you know, that one word people chase: dreams. We don't have forever.
And maybe that's why one of this album's best songs is called "Real Life." Gabe Simon and Kelsey Kopecky trade vocals on the chorus, with Simon cracking in occasionally, "you need to get over it!" The best song might be "My Love," a pop hit in a world without marketing schemes and streaming audio counts. Or maybe it could still be. Maybe.
The album ends with the title track, and the message is simple yet again:
I'm not waiting I'm not waiting I'm not waiting for you no more Well done, Kopecky.
Two years ago, I met Kelsey Kopecky and Gabe Simon at Off Broadway in St. Louis. Their band, then named Kopecky Family Band (now simply "Kopecky"), had just finished their set promoting their latest album, Kids Raising Kids, and since they were in a great mood, I talked to them about maybe playing the Speakers in Code Anniversary Concert down the road -- when it made sense in their touring schedule.
Tonight, it all happens at Off Broadwaywhere Kopecky (from Nashville) and Geoff Koch (originally from St. Louis, now living in Nashville) will help celebrate 5 years of Speakers in Code.
Tickets are only $12 at the door. It all starts at 8PM (more details are here).
I also want to take the time to thank everyone who has already bought tickets to tonight's show. Before I started Speakers in Code with Katie Guymon in 2010, I never thought of doing anything like this, but then again, I could have never predicted many events that have transpired over the last five years. From interviews, to shooting shows, to meeting great music people in St. Louis and beyond, the whole experience has completely changed my life.
As for the future, I see no reason to slow down. I've been battling an ear condition that will be putting me out again for a few weeks, but aside from that, I'm excited about the months and years to come.
And I'm excited for tonight. As Kopecky would say, "...the glow is coming."
As the end draws in there's a calm inner peace
in the next life will you wait for me?
I often wonder what I'd say if I saw you again
because sometimes the one you love dies
before forever ends
Satellites. Geoffrey Louis Koch mentioned them in "Pro-War" -- a song that I immediately loved when I heard it in 2009. And he mentioned them again in our interview that you can read below. This time he's talking about his latest record, Follow the Voices, which includes the "The Storm." Let's have a listen to that now.
First up, you're living in Nashville these days. What do you miss about St. Louis?
I miss being able to get Cardinal baseball whenever I want. I definitely took for granted how valuable it is to turn on a game or listen to Mike Shannon call it whenever you want. Going to a local bar for lousy beer and darts with friends while the Cardinal game is on in the background - damn I miss that. And I miss some things I never really did but would love to do now - like run around Forest Park or go to the new restaurant.
Tell us a little about your most recent record, Follow the Voices. What was the recording process like?
Follow The Voices I sort of short-handedly describe as 'acoustic indie folk meets the symphony orchestra'. Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago and Gregory Alan Isakov's This Empty Northern Hemisphere were two of the main templates for the mood I was trying to set. I recorded it in St. Louis with Ross Christopher. I came home for a long weekend family visit and I had an extra day to play with and a handful of songs so the idea to record with him literally fell out of the sky while I was in town. I called him up and went to his house a couple days later. We cranked out almost everything I did in one 12-hour recording session. Over the next several months Ross would sit with the songs and add instrumentation one piece at a time. It's really kind of how The Postal Service recorded their record, in a way, in the sense that he'd email me mixes and options of what he came up with and we'd take it a step at a time like that. Amazingly, some of those songs have 40+ tracks on them, Ross really put in the time and effort.
I also wanted to provide high-quality album art that told the story. I distinctly remember putting on REM's Automatic For The People and Nirvana's In Utero and pouring over the liner notes, album art and pictures. Memories like that left a huge impression, and certainly added value to the records for me. So while Ross was adding to the songs and mixing them I was busy making visual decisions on how the cd art would read. And it's funny because I've always wanted to avoid 'the singer in a field with his guitar' vibe because EVERYBODY has done that but wouldn't you know it, that's what we ended up with haha. Me in the field isn't so much the story as it is about a character who is on a path to madness because he is hearing messages or 'voices' coming out of these gigantic radio towers in the distance, compelled to hear them more clearly. Culminates with the photo of him finally reaching his destination (the cd art). So in that way then, the music on the cd in the listeners hand is the 'message' or what the strange silent radio towers have been whispering. You follow? I've always thought satellite dishes and radio towers were extremely romantic. They're so incredibly alone, and quiet. Yet they're made of steel, and the signals they use are mysterious and invisible. I've always wondered what they're communicating about, and if they know I'm watching them. I've probably also just given you plenty of Freudian insight as to the many ways I can see myself, sometimes. Har har.
The International Songwriting Competition has been on my radar as a songwriter for a few years. Sometimes I think I should scour the internet for more 'competition'-type contests because the exposure, recognition, and resume-building that comes with that kind of promotion is good. But I think I'm not alone in that I also struggle with the idea that a very specific group of judges deciding whose song is a 'winner' or not can be hard to swallow. Contests for the sake of feedback and maybe getting a little clout is nice. Through these experiences I'm reminded that ultimately I'm the one who has to know what I've made is my best effort, and let that be enough regardless if it ever gets heard. Learning how to accept the fact that my music may never have broad appeal is one of the most difficult challenges I face. It can be a gut-carver if you're not careful with your thoughts.
So 'The Storm' has made it as a Finalist in the Lyrics portion of that contest. I'm incredibly proud, and thrilled about that. It's one of 17 Lyric finalists, and there were over 18,000 total submissions in all categories. Unreal, right?! So now what's next is I wait till the end of April when they announce the winners. All the Finalists are judged by a lot of celebrity judges and higher-ups in the music business. The list of judges is on their website but I think it's pretty cool my song might have landed on Sarah McLachlan's or Jason Isbell's desk. What a treat!
My favorite song of yours is still "Pro-War." Tell me about that one. What was going on in your life while you wrote that?
I was living in an apartment in Valley Park by 141/Big Bend when I wrote 'Pro-War'. I was going through a 'politically pissed off' time in my life and just tortured by the hypocrisy and pageantry of Washington, DC. The song started on the piano and something told me to have the guts to write it from a villain's point of view, much like a Vincent Price character from 50's horror movies. He's the guy who you think is the protagonist, he earns your trust and the story progresses. Then there's a twist at the end and he turns out to be the bad guy and you feel duped as hell. That's what makes up Washington, and a good horror flick. Depending on my mood I can perform that song (as the wolf in sheep's clothing) towards any number of political phonies on my mind. Sometimes I get to either sing is as the person who's gotten revenge on a terrible politician, or, I can sing it as someone saying 'I told you so' to people I know who are suffering because their political god turned out to be a turd on rye and there's nothing else to eat.
Finally, thank you for playing our 5th Anniversary show with Kopecky. What can we expect?
I am so glad to be playing your 5th Anniversary Show, really thrilled! You can expect me to be in a great mood. Who doesn't love Off Broadway? The sound is amazing and it always feels like home when I play there. It's highly likely I'll be joined by Ross Christopher on violin that night and we'll crank out a mix of older songs and all of the new record. You can also expect some surprises, perhaps a cover song or two curated just for this big event.
If anyone ever needed an audio-example of how a band name can influence the way users consume a piece of music, I offer EXHIBIT A. Kopecky Family Band (Kopecky's former name), draws visual images to something much more...rural than their sound suggests. Or maybe rural is a ill-conceived term and we should be using "traditional" as a descriptor of what comes to mind. But it certainly doesn't suggest something boundary-pushing or cutting-edge. A "family band" suggests something safe. Something that grandma feels as comfortable listening to as crazy-cousin-Carl. Ok, that made no sense, but you get my drift.
But, Kopecky...on the other hand leaves the door pretty-wide open stylistically, and the first taste we get of their upcoming album, Drug for the Modern Age, may just be the perfect EXHIBIT B, as to why a name change needed to occur. "Quarterback" is a guitar-forward-all-out-pop-assault, that leaves you equally as deaf, when cranked to 11, as hook-hummingly-addicted. I'm on my 8th repeat, if that gives you an idea of what you're in for...lawd!
Certainly, grandma would ask us to turn this shit down. Kopecky, and crazy-cousin-Carl, should be very pleased.
