Welcome to a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. Hi, welcome to the show. Today’s special guest is one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary blues, Kip Moe.
Born Kevin Moore in California, Kip was already playing professionally through the late 60s and 70s, working as a musician and songwriter long before wider recognition came his way. It wasn’t until the 1990s and the release of his self-titled Kip Moe album that he really broke through. Since then, he’s become a five-time Grammy winner, blending delta blues with soul, folk, Americana and collaborating with some of music’s biggest names.
Now, he’s back with a deeply personal new album called The Breakdown, a stripped-down collection shaped by major changes in his life and filled with reflection, resilience and gratitude. Today, Kip Moe joins me to talk about that long road to success, the music that shaped him and the story behind The Breakdown. Sandy Kiley, nice to see you.
Thank you for having me on your show. Oh, an absolute pleasure. Was it frustrating for you in those early days? No, because I loved to play.
I loved having a gig to go to. When I was in my 20s, I was really looking for trying to make it. I was like, but then when my 20s left and I got in my 30s, I was just happy to play.
I didn’t care about making it. I didn’t care about that. And play, you most certainly did.
Can you share a little bit about your history with the delta blues? Because that’s always been the basis for all the playing that you’ve done. Why the intense love? Well, it was really the delta blues came later. It didn’t come early.
I did a deep dive into country blues. It’s so much like the acoustic blues and pre-war blues, sometimes they call it, because it seems as though there was a purity in that blues. When I look back at all my songs, I wanted that same kind of purity to be in everything that I did.
So I didn’t become a country blues player. I just added it to my toolbox that I already had. And it kind of, my cup ran over that spirit of truth and authenticity.
Right. So we’re talking about Robert Johnson, for example. Yes, Robert Johnson, Big Bill Broomsey, Muddy Waters, Sunhouse, Lonnie Johnson.
You say you studied them. How did you study them? I would listen to the records and I picked a few of them. I didn’t go in a deep study where I picked like Robert Johnson, Big Bill Broomsey, and Sunhouse.
I took those guys because you have to keep in mind I’m in my 30s now. If I was in my 20s, I probably would have spent my whole 20s diving into that. But I didn’t have any time.
So what I wanted to do was I wanted to imagine myself if I was one of those guys and I had a style. I didn’t want to be an academic scholar of all those guys. I wanted to become one of those guys and have a style of my own and play like that.
I didn’t go broad. I went very focused and narrow. Where did the love stem from? How did you get that? I went over to my friend Nate Larson’s house one day and he played me some Big Bill Broomsey.
And I lost my mind. I’m like, how did I miss that? Shortly after that, I started getting calls for theater work, playing acoustic stuff. And that’s where I really honed my skill.
That’s where my study is. If I did any studying, I did it in the theater and plays. Because there’s a theater and usually in a theatrical production, there’s a person called a dramaturg that goes and does all the research.
There’s a period piece up in there that gets music and gets all the actors and participants in the realm of that era. So I had these tapes that a dramaturg gave me of different people that they wanted me to study. And that’s what I did.
And then I got to perform it in a play for a whole month several times and study. So in a sense, I had knocked around all this time. And then when it came time for me to really hone my craft and really get serious and find myself, I got paid to do it.
Amazing. You said you were really busy during your 20s. Of course, you were playing a whole lot of stuff.
You started off, I believe, playing drums in a calypso band. Steel drums. Steel drums, right.
And then in the early 70s, you started recording with Jefferson Airplane violinist Papa John Creech. How did you get that part? It’s all coincidence. Everything I ever got was coincidence.
I’ll tell you about the coincidence with Papa John Creech. In L.A., in Memphis, there was a little strip mall between Crenshaw and La Freya on Adams Boulevard. And a friend named Nick, he worked at a recording studio equipment store.
He was kind of like that guy. And so he had made us up a studio in this storefront. And we used to rehearse in there.
The band, my band, Zulu. Two doors down, there was a soul food restaurant. And Papa John Creech, his producer and arranger, were walking down the street.
And they heard us rehearsing. And they came in. Right place at the right time, huh? I have this feeling about life.
Life creates on itself. It builds upon itself. It’s like your thoughts and what you’re aiming for.
Because that’s what we were aiming for. To get somewhere. To get a gig.
And the gig literally came to us. We didn’t have any gigs in clubs. We just rehearsed and tried to get a gig.
Playing with Papa John Creech then resulted in your first gold record called Gibb Fiddler. That was the track that you wrote with him. It was along with some members of the band.
John Parker. Who I still write with these days. We wrote a lot of songs.
He was the keyboard player in the band. I was the guitar. And we were writing stuff back then.
We were just writing all the time. Kev, you’re 21 years old or thereabouts. And he says to you, hey, let’s write together.
Yeah. He was helping us. You know, Papa John.
He was nurturing the young ones. We got skills because of that. We got to learn a lot.
And we were not ready to do that. I’m going to tell you. I mean, we sounded OK, but we were not ready for that.
But we got ready real quick, real fast. It was fun. You got a gold record for that.
What did that feel like at the time? It was jaw dropping. Not bad. When we were on that record.
But it was like, it wasn’t really, it was a jam. It wasn’t like we had lyrics and we had a story. It was a jam, you know, that we just structured together.
So what that told me was that, man, you can get a song on a hit record, even if it’s like not that great, you can go along with the grind and get a check. After that came mostly disappointment, you know, after that. But I got so many breaks, you know, I got so many opportunities to make it for myself.
I think a lot of us get a lot of opportunities in music. And it’s about taking them when they come, I guess, right? It’s about being ready when the opportunity comes. And also understanding that you can create your own opportunity.
You don’t have to wait for the opportunity to come to you. If you’re ready, somebody that knows somebody, that knows somebody, that knows somebody will see you and they’ll tell all those people. It’s like the power of being ready.
Through my 30s, it was about getting ready. It was about being ready. And, you know, when I got signed to Sony, it wasn’t just one record deal.
When I got ready, as far as I knew what ready was, several record deals came. So it’s like, when you’re ready, you’re ready. And I use those words, like, not in some robust, but it’s kind of braggadocious way.
You put in the work and you set your attention. It’s like walking to New York City, you know? But eventually you get there. You get there.
Taking it easy, moving slow. It’s always gone just before the storm, you know. But long she came with a brand new season.
And since we’ve been together, there’s been a change in the weather. Well, she’s a rainy day. She makes the rain fall from my eyes.
She’s a rainy day. She makes an old man want to cry. She’s a rainy day.
I never thought that a tear could fall from the eyes of a man who never even cried at all. Now, I’ve been happy and I’ve been blue. But what could be the reason for the change in the season? She’s a rainy day.
She makes the rain fall from my eyes. Don’t you know she’s a rainy day? She makes an old man want to cry. She’s a rainy day.
She makes an old man want to cry. She’s a rainy day. I never thought that a tear could fall from the eyes of a man who never even cried at all.
Now, I’ve been happy and I’ve been blue. So getting ready for you meant playing as much as you could, honing your skill as much as possible, right? Yeah, figuring out a lot of things. It was figuring out how to present my ideas too, not just the ideas themselves, but how to hone them and how to get them to speak and listen to other records and figure out the common denominators, what makes a record or a song resonate different than another one.
So what did you discover? I discovered that there’s a common denominator to hit records. And what I did was, I used to have a gig in the 80s reproducing hit records. So it was like, you remember those tapes you did, sound on sound, you get the backing track for a hit record, and then you can play it and play it at parties and sing to it by karaoke tracks.
I was making those, and I was making these hit records, and I was listening to them, I was like, they’re so simple. I find that even me being a half-baked guitar player, a half-baked piano player, half-baked bass player, that I could figure out, and I could play everything on those tracks. Yeah, I sat down and figured it out.
And then also I saw the anatomy of it, how it came together, each of them, that the vocal story, nothing competed with the story. Everything pushed the song forward. It didn’t step on it, it didn’t stand in the way.
Everything that was supposed to be there was helping the story, and the melody was carefully constructed, and there was a method to it. And learning that method has stood you in good stead till today. Yeah.
Every morning And every evening Every day I think of you The way you love me Through and through And when I’m with you It feels like heaven And you’re an angel Holding me Your sweet, sweet loving It sets me free And in my wildest Imagination I could never Imagine you Loving me as much as As I do you I got to go to recording sessions too. I mean, my first recording session, I was playing steel drums. I was 14, and a guy came from Hollywood and picked me up and wanted a steel drum on his track.
He found out about this 14-year-old kid, a cop, and he was playing a steel drum. And so he came and took me down there. Wow.
And I walked in the session, and I’m like there, and I got a chance to witness the wrecking crews in a group of sessions. Carole Kaye was on the bass. I remember that.
I don’t know if you know who Carole Kaye is. Of course I do. Absolutely.
Well, she’s probably related to you. Carole Kaye was on bass. She had a pair of cat sunglasses on and a big beehive bun playing bass like James Jameson.
I was like… I was just like, what? It was just… Wow. And then I got to hang out in the studio because being in L.A. where they’re making records, I got to understand the shop, to understand how they were making these records. So you got an all-around education.
Yeah, I got met on the streets.
This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. You spent quite a long time with a band called the Whodunit Band that Bobby Bland’s producer Monk Higgins was in charge of.
What was that like for you? That was the master class. It was like all the local kind of famous blues people would come in, everybody from Bobby McClurda, Big Joe Turner, Albert Collins, would come in the jam. Mary Clayton, who used to be with the Rolling Stones, Billy Preston came in there.
Why can’t we be humble? Like the good Lord said He promised to exalt us But know His will How men be so greedy When there’s so much left All things are God given And they all have been blessed That’s the way God planned it That’s the way God wants it to be That’s the way God planned it That’s the way God wants it to be Let not your heart be troubled Let mourning, sobbing cease Learn to help one another And live in perfect peace And all these people would come in there and play, and hang out and play with us. And the lead guitar player, I wasn’t at the lead guitar player, I was the backup rhythm guitar player. The lead guy was kind of Charles Guinness, was the guitar player for B.B. King up until he died.
He got the B.B. King gig. That’s the guy that taught me. I was really into songwriting, and I was very methodical in the way I played and how I liked to play in between and back people up and voice my chords.
I was really intentional about it. And one time he took me by the side and he said, I see you back there playing all them pretty chords. Blues ain’t pretty.
So did that change the way you played? It added to what I played. It didn’t change. I kept my intentional stuff.
But I added that to my repertoire. I understood that the dirty parts, the ignorant kind of playing, that was not necessarily like straight out the book, but it was a way somebody that was just trying to just play the blues and get their point across could play guitar. What do you think it was about you that everybody kind of took you under their wing and helped you along the way? Was it the keenness or the dedication or just your sparkling personality? I don’t know.
I kept showing up. I just kept showing up. I wasn’t the first call for the Whodunit band guitar.
Spencer couldn’t make it. He had to go to Atlanta to do a gig, and I was only supposed to have it for two weeks and end up doing two years with it because he never came back to L.A. He just stayed in Atlanta. Just tell me about the name.
How did that happen? My name is Kevin Roosevelt Moore, and when I started playing with this band, the Billy Mitchell Quartet, and Billy Mitchell Quartet was a piano, bass, drums, and a percussionist, and there was no guitar in this band. So I would come, probably about the Billy Mitchell Quartet, and they would let me play because they didn’t have to pay me. I think.
They were jazz players. It was jazz, more like a jazz kind of gig. I was terrible at jazz, but I was pretty good at the blues.
But I could figure out jazz chords, and I could figure out what the piano player was doing and kind of do that stuff. But they needed me. The nightclub, somebody, somebody knows, has to play the blues.
You know? And that was my job. So they started calling me Kim Mo. Kind of straight talk.
Yeah, they just kind of just, when I started really understanding how to move a crowd with a guitar solo, then they started to call me something different. What did your parents think about that? I mean, obviously, then I’m stuck. My mother, my father was gone a long time.
He was gone when I was 20. He passed, you know. My mother used to go, when are you going to get a job? You keep playing this music, you’re 40 years old, and you don’t have health insurance, and you don’t have any skill, what are you going to do? You’re going to mess around, and all you’re going to be able to play is the blues.
And that’s what happened. While your other man was out there Cheatin’ at night, Steppin’ all over you Sweet thing, tell me, am I wrong Holdin’ on to you so tight Tell me, tell me, am I wrong Holdin’ on to you so tight If your other man comes to claim you He better be ready, ready for a long, hard fight In the face of that concern from her, it never got you thinking, you know, maybe I need to go and get a 9-to-5 job, or you were really focused and rigid on what you wanted to do? I had already decided I wasn’t going to get a 9-to-5 job in my early, early, like, my 20s. 21, I was like, I can’t do that.
Because I was going to a community college studying architectural drafting. And I was an intern at a corporation, an architectural corporation called Daniel M. Johnson and Mendenhall in L.A. And I had a part-time job there. And what I loved about that job most was when they sent me out to go get a book.
And I got in the company car and drove down to UCLA free out and dry. Yeah, out of the office. I just loved being out while everyone else was working.
But you could understand your mother’s concern. I didn’t care. No, I guess we don’t when we’re that young.
No, I wasn’t that young. I just didn’t care. I figured, like, I had kind of like at some point just said, I’m doing this.
You know, by that time, she really started confessing, no, I’m doing this. Did she live long enough to see you totally successful? Oh, yes, she did. She was so proud.
She was just like, yeah. Yeah, she did. It was great.
Awesome. When did you decide to stop making solo records? Solo records, you mean in terms of like kept more records? Yeah. I decided in 1992, 91, 92.
And I was going to make a band record with the band. But I didn’t have any money to pay them. So they all refused.
They wouldn’t come with me to the studio because I didn’t have any money to pay them. I thought we’d just do it on spec. Let’s just do it.
We’ll share the money. If we make something, we’ll share the money. They’re like, nah.
They were already too old for that. Like, kids do that. But grown men don’t do that.
Like, nah. So I went in solo. Because I had been studying adult records, I went in and just played some songs by myself.
And that became my demo. Mmm Mmm She better come on In my kitchen Cause it’s going to be raining outdoors When a woman’s in trouble Everybody throws her down You mention your good friend None can be found You better come on In my kitchen Cause it’s going to be raining outdoors Stole from my best friend Some joker got lucky Stole her back again She better come on In my kitchen Cause it’s going to be raining outdoors Raining outdoors John Porter was supposed to attach my Taj Mahal session. Which I was brought to by a friend named Chick Streedman.
He brought me the Taj Mahal. And he said, bring your tapes. I brought my tapes.
And I gave one to Taj. And I gave one to the producer. And the producer called me the next day.
Amazing. Yeah, it was like that. But I was selling these.
These cassettes. At the gig. I wasn’t going like, this wasn’t a demo tape.
This was my product. I’m thinking that. I wasn’t thinking, go try to get a record deal.
Because I knew at the record company they were going to say no. They always say no. So I would say yes.
I said yes to myself. Yes. And how many have you got out now? You’ve done a whole lot of K-Power albums.
Yeah, I don’t know how many. You lost count? I should count. I should count.
I mean, I just really lost count. But this is probably, I don’t know. Seven.
I don’t know. That friendship that you developed with Taj Mahal has lasted through the decades too, hasn’t it? Yes, it has. He’s an incredible man.
I just spoke with him a few weeks back. And he’s just awesome. He knows so much about things.
Life. And music. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, so. He was another one who took you under his wing.
Yeah. And then later on we made two albums together. The Taj Mahal album and Room on the Porch.
I just can’t believe. I mean, you know, Sandy, I can’t believe what happened. But at the same time, I know how it happened.
I know when you get clear, when one gets clear about where one’s going, you know how everything is kind of like solid when you play everything like you can? Everything moves. It’s like you can create something where there was nothing. Because even if there’s no room for it, everything will move and move out the way and the whole universe will orchestrate a situation for you to get what you need.
But I think you have to sit and allow it to do that. And once you set your intention and get your mind out of the way, or maybe get your mind in the way, whatever it is, just you have to see it. You know, there’s a great song written by a songwriter, maybe not so popular anymore, R. Kelly.
You know, I believe I can fly. If you can see it, you can be it. I believe I can fly I believe I can touch the sky I think about it every night and day Sweat my wings and fly away I believe I can soar I see me running through that open door First you gotta see it.
And a lot of it’s just being around some people. To see it, once you see it, and you can picture it, you can picture yourself in it, then it becomes possible, I think. You said earlier that that initial recording session, none of your friends wanted to play for nothing with you in the studio.
You’ve gone on to win multiple Grammy Awards for albums that featured lots of guest appearances from very well known artists, people like Jackson Brown, Bonnie Raitt, so many. You’ve obviously developed quite a lot of friends who either still are happy not to be paid or perhaps you can’t afford to pay them today. Is there a favourite track of all the stuff that you’ve done? A favourite track? I think my favourite track, one of my favourite tracks, of course the Taj Mahal stuff, but I did a Jackson Brown cover on a Jackson Brown tribute record.
I think it was Right Beyond the Water. Old people look around you The signs are everywhere You left it for somebody other than you To be the one to care You’re lost inside your house There’s no time to find you now Your walls are burning And your towers are turning I’m going to leave you here Trying to get out to the sea somehow The road is filled with homeless souls Every woman, child and man Who have no idea where they will go But they’ll help you if they can But everyone must have some thought It’s gonna pull them through somehow Well the fires are raging Hotter and hotter But the sisters of the sun Are gonna rock me on the water Rock me, rock me on the water Sister, bring me to my favourite ground Rock me on the water Rock me on the water I’ll get down to the sea somehow Old people look among you It’s there your hope must lie It was such a cool thing to do.
This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. I don’t know if I have a favourite.
I’m so not into harping on anything I’ve done. Yeah, I hear that often. Artists always say, you know, the last thing you’ve done is always looking towards the next one, what’s to come.
And you’ll be like that too. And none of us are never quite impressed with ourselves. Are you hard on yourself? No, it’s not hard.
It’s just every time you do something, like if I hear something that I’ve recorded and I put out, I have to be in a certain frame of mind for myself to enjoy it. Because when I start doing this, I think I’m still working on it. I’ll start working on it.
Oh, that’s not right. Let’s fix that and change that. Because you’re always getting better.
Your ears are getting sharper. And then you hear things you could have done. So it’s like, you know, this whole thing is like, you know, art is never finished, it’s only abandoned.
How’s it been for you winning Grammy Awards? It’s great, the night you win it. That’s all that’s in it for you? Well, it creates bragging rights for other people. You can’t go around going like, well, I won a Grammy.
You can’t go around doing that stuff. You know, it’s like it’s an accomplishment that you hold in your most humblest place in your heart. And other people can brag about it.
Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Schmo, 27 Grammy time. If you could walk on stage and go like, I’m Joe Schmo and I’ve won 30 Academy Awards. You know, you can’t do that.
You know, so it’s more for other people. I remember the night, bodies would break out. When Nick and Ty won four Grammys and I was watching the Grammys.
You know, I hadn’t got anything done yet. But I was really into that record, really into her. When I watched her all of a sudden become her moment.
It wasn’t for her, that was for me. That inspired me. A friend of mine, she cries at night.
These babies everywhere she goes, she says. Soon she’ll have to choose and it tears her up inside. Scared to run out of time.
Every time the Grammys would come on, I’d have my guitar and I’d be watching the Grammys playing my guitar and trying to write a song. So I knew that if I ever won a Grammy, it was not for me. It’s for the people watching.
Yeah. And they know that’s possible. You know, so then they know, oh, he won a Grammy.
I could do that. And that’s what you want. That’s what I want.
Honestly, like, I want to do that too. That’s what I want to do. Do you also take young, aspiring kids under your wing to help them today? If they let me, yeah.
You know, yeah. They’d die for the opportunity. I’ve worked with working artists, up-and-coming artists.
Yeah, you know, John Tavius Willis, I produced his first record. I worked with Anna Popovich, G-Love, I produced a record on him. About to give this old boy the blues.
Talking heads don’t make no sense. Nothing to do with the shape I’m in. Need to sing, need to dance, need to cut loose in a way I can.
Gon’ fly away, wild and free. We on home, you and me. I’m gonna lose my mind.
I’m gonna lose my mind. Don’t go crazy. Yeah, I’m gonna lose my mind.
If I don’t go, if I don’t go crazy. I’m working now with an artist named Ronnie Baker Brooks. So, yeah, I do things, but oftentimes I’m a little frightening in the studio.
Aren’t you? Yeah, I mean, not frightening in a way because I’m mean. But, I don’t know, I just kind of, I feel like I know how it’s supposed to go. You know? For me, so in a sense, that sometimes doesn’t make me a very good producer.
I can make music and make it sound good, but as far as like an artist, a true artist, has to have a vision. They have to have their dream. And your job as a producer is to help them create that dream.
But if I see them stepping on their own foot, stepping on their face, you know, while they’re doing it, I say something. Oftentimes they don’t want to hear it. That would make you an even better producer, wouldn’t it? Yeah, if I overcome their objections.
Yeah. Kev, you’ve got a new album out and it’s, well, everything you do is amazing, but this one is particularly amazing. It’s called The Breakdown, and the title of that’s not an accident, is it? Because you’ve had a series of unfortunate events that led to this album and to you calling it The Breakdown.
Can you tell us about that? Well, The Breakdown centers around two years ago having open heart surgery. It centers around that and other things that, you know, that public, some of them aren’t so public. Some of the things are very personal that I don’t really talk about.
A long time ago When we first met We were like children I’ll never forget I was your main squeeze We couldn’t get enough We were easy to please We had everything But something’s changed And I can’t do nothing right We spend every hour Every day and every night Bustin’ and fightin’ It’s drivin’ me crazy Where is the love we used to know From a long time ago This bustin’ and fightin’ It ain’t gonna faze me Baby I love you More than you know This bustin’ and fightin’ Is it ever gonna stop I’m givin’ you everything Everything that I got I’m waitin’ for the day You and I can get along Just like we used to When we were goin’ strong A star was shinin’ So brightly on us But lately It’s been a little rough But it’s time That we had a transformation Time to step away From our bad situation This bustin’ and fightin’ Is drivin’ me crazy Where is the love we used to know From a long time ago This bustin’ and fightin’ Things were happenin’ Like the heart surgery was That’s huge Yeah, yeah I found myself in a hospital Where they sawed me in half Weak, can’t get up and go It was somethin’ I mean, I’m over it now But I remember just How weak I was in the hospital And my friends comin’ to see me It must have come as such a shock to you too Because you were fit and healthy and strong And it just came out of nowhere, yeah? Yeah, it was a A hereditary heart condition I didn’t know about But at the same time I was warned That I have high blood pressure And that I should take some medicine for it And I wouldn’t do it Because I’m like a Mr. Natural I said I was high blood pressure, that’s okay It’s really hard to get over emotionally Did you find that too? No, I’m not emotional I’m not an emotional person You’re not? How do you write all of those amazing tunes If you’re not an emotional person? Those are stories Those are observations About other people? About myself and other people and other things They’re my observations They’re not anger I don’t wanna be angry I want to shed a light on things And talk about things that happened And allow people to Have their own experience with it Think about it I mean, yeah, I have feelings But I’m not emotional, I’m not emoting all the time I don’t get excited Cool, calm and collected Yeah, it drives some people crazy I bet it does Although it’s a pretty healthy way to be for you Have you still got in your mind’s eye Where you wanna get to next? Well, the hard thing about now Is that I’ve gone past Anything I ever thought I could do I think I just wanna continue to grow And I want to Be a more communicative person And clearer in my communications Have you got favourite tracks On this new album? Yeah Tell me about them My favourite ones are I love all of them But my Probably my favourite one is The number two Every Step of the Way Why? Cause it just sums it all up for me I felt the sunshine And I faced the rain I had some heartache Tasted the bitterness of pain But after every stumble I’m still standing tall While the day keeps on dawning I’m not gonna be afraid To risk it all It don’t matter How high the cost Of dreams won Or love lost It’s made me the man I am today So I’m thankful For Every Step of the Way Every Step of the Way If I was gonna have a title track In the name of it I would just call it Every Step of the Way But that didn’t To me that didn’t quite Cover everything on that one I think There’s no song called The Breakdown But that to me Described the group of songs You know Let me break it down to you Let’s, you know Let’s talk about it You know And so And The Breakdown Is just like, you know Heart failure And you know Challenges Relationship challenges And things like that And the songs Like We Make Love I love that one We make love About like Everyone We got this big factory In the world And there’s everybody But the factory There’s no factory It’s right in your house You know We make love We make compassion We make time In a timely fashion You know We make love And then that love Spreads out From your house And everybody does that The collective Love consciousness Starts to move And people feel it So it’s like Your house is a factory for love Your place You are a manufacturer of love Put that out there People feel it And if enough people do it It’s good It’ll catch on We got a job for you With a really good future It’s alright If you don’t know How to use a computer We got a job For every man, woman, boy and girl We got factories All over the world We make peace Compassion We make time In a timely fashion You don’t need an education You don’t need a phone You don’t need a car You can work from home Open up your heart Each and every day And whatever you need Is gonna come your way We make peace Compassion We make time In a timely fashion I want to make something that connects and that people can listen to and enjoy, and I judge my own album how I judge my own album, is when I get done with it, I put it on and I listen to it. And if I want to listen to it again, then I listen to another guy and I still want to listen to it after I’ve heard it three or four times, it’s done. When I start enjoying it, but that’s a short live because a year from now I won’t enjoy it.
No, you’ll be on to the next one. I’ll start working on it again. Right.
And just finally, Kev, what’s the writing process look like for you? Do you find time in the day and be very disciplined about sitting down and writing or do you just pick up the guitar and start scribbling whenever you feel like it? It used to look like that when I would sit at my coffee table with my guitar and a pad and write songs and a little cassette player, but now I’ve become a little bit lethargic in the sense that I like to write with people. Because you get songs and you get that back and forth co-writing. Oh, listen.
Kev, I’ll let you go. You’ve been really generous with your time and your stories. We’ve so enjoyed learning about your life and so glad that that surgery is way in the past and you’re over that breakdown.
Thank you so much. I’m glad to be on your show. It’s been a hoot to talk with you.
It’s so much fun and you’re so aware and so, you know, you know what to ask to get me to talk, you know. Thank you. Sometimes, like, you know.
Thank you. And I love the advice that you give people, having that intention and following it through. Man, that was the best lesson of my life.
I like to share it. I like to share it because everybody can do it. Kev, thanks so, so much.
Thank you.