It’s the sound of a bar fight breaking out at a revival tent. No, wait – it’s the sound of a revival breaking out during a bar fight. Whatever it is, Brooklyn based rocknrollers THE BROTHER K MELEE (est. 2011) want to make damn sure you hear it.
In this interview, we chat with The Brother K Melee about influences, music, and, of course, the new project.
Full Q&A, links, and streams below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmap9mfkfu8
Let’s dive a little deeper into You, the artist and your music. What attracted you to this genre(s) or style(s)?
First, for us, the “genre(s) or style(s)” in question is rocknroll, all of it. The band is about seeing how many different ways a two-piece can rock: rockabilly, punk, blues, electronic, psychedelia, fuzz, funk. Sometimes we get motion sickness…but it’s worth it.
So: what attracted me to rocknroll? I first heard The Beatles’ Revolver when I was ten years old and my life was never the same. There was a whole universe on the record, a cosmos that shouldn’t have cohered (tape loops! classical strings! Indian music!), but somehow did.
At the heart of Revolver, though, is still rocknroll music. It’s there in Paul’s guitar solo on “Taxman” and it’s there in the backbeat to “Tomorrow Never Knows.” This is the biggest lesson that Revolver taught me: that with rocknroll, you could anchor yourself in noise and feedback and rhythm, and still make space for other sounds, other experiences. And truthfully, that’s what rocknroll was for me growing up, an anchor. It anchored me through high school jazz band, and concert band, and classical piano, and acappella. And it anchored me through a lot of turmoil and pain and searching.
So that’s sort of my musical origin story. There was a radioactive spider somewhere in there as well, but that’s just between us…
What led you into this journey with music? And further, what drives you to push it out to the public?
I’ll answer this in reverse order. I think “the public” is just composed of people like me – people bewildered and occasionally infuriated by life, who are fighting to remain open to joy and wonder and all the things that make life worth living. So THE BROTHER K MELEE’s goal is to use rocknroll to force that joy-window to stay open. Seeing that happen, especially in uber-cynical NYC, is a real trip.
As to how I got here, I played folk for the first half of my 20s. I liked the simplicity and directness of it. But then I realized I was playing really, really loud folk music. I decided to see if I could find that same simplicity and directness with an electric guitar and a drummer. The drummer, David, moved to NYC in 2012 and, lo and behold, we met via Craigslist (how every successful partnership begins…). We had a third guy for a while, a friend of mine who’s moved on to do other things. But to me, the “musical journey” is precisely about rolling with the punches, and learning how to have a good time doing it. So we’re playing a show tonight and hopefully people will have hearing problems afterward.
Who or what influences your creativity? Have your tastes in music changed over time?
Within music, obviously, the Beatles are up there. (I know it’s not necessarily the “cool” answer anymore, but life is too short to be cool. Or overheated.) But really any artist who’s chasing that raw rocknroll sound, while avoiding pretension or trying too hard to be “edgy.” Ty Segall, BRMC, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Thee Oh Sees, I love them all.
I also love bootleg gospel recordings, especially on the WYBC show Sinner’s Crossroads. There’s this fantastic blues-gospel artist, Leo “Bud” Welch, who put out his first record a couple years ago, when he was 82! That inspires me. That’s something that I’d appreciate more now than in an earlier stage of life.
Outside of music, literature has my number. I love a well-crafted narrative, whether it’s Homer or Stephen King. I go to the Bible a lot – I think, whether one is religious or not, there are so many beautiful, insane, horrific, mysterious passages throughout those 66 books. You’re bound to be inspired at some point.
Were you trying to accomplish anything specific on this new project? Creatively or otherwise?
You mean the Seek Assembly EP, out via Filter Label, available in digital stores and streaming services everywhere!? For one thing, it’s the first project I put out under our new name, THE BROTHER K MELEE. (Long story short: I was BROTHER K. for a while, until I discovered all the other identically named BROTHER Ks online. I was bummed, but then I had a vision: a mob of BROTHER Ks brawling for the title…) It’s also intended to be a kind of journey through all the different kinds of rocknroll we love: “Sistine” is intended to get people chanting, but eventually you get to songs like “Vengeance,” which I think of as spaghetti western gospel, and “The Brink,” which could be retitled “Paranoid Supervillain Blues.” So if Seek Assembly feels a bit like a great mix tape, mission accomplished.
Also, for “The Brink” and “Vengeance” videos, I’ve remixed footage from The Prelinger Archives, this online library of obscure mid-20th century film. All that footage is free to use and repurpose, and the artistic freedom it promises blows my mind. The concept kind of visually matches the idea of a rocknroll mixtape. If we can inspire others to raid the libraries for their own creative fancies, I’ll be happy too.
What was the last song you listened to?
The first half of George Harrison’s “Not Guilty,” Anthology 3 version…surprise, surprise!
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
Ha! to paraphrase George Costanza, I’d ensconce myself in vinyl if I could. But I can’t, so when I’m not listening to one of the 5 records I own, I’m either streaming or listening to mp3s. Yes, vinyl has that gorgeous depth we all love, but digital has democratized access to music like nothing else.
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
I listen to music mostly on Spotify, but I like supporting other artists and getting my own work out via Bandcamp. Spotify won’t give artists control over their own pages until you hit a certain number of listeners, which restricts how much I can really do on there.
Other than the digital era overwhelming us with access to an abundance of music, what is the biggest challenge you face when trying to connect with or find new fans?
It sucks that the Internet Music Revolution has not necessarily created a more openminded world. A lot of indie musicians, I think, have become record label execs unto themselves. Instead of enjoying artistic freedom, I think a lot of us have internalized the corporate ethos re: what constitutes a “hit,” what constitutes a “top 40 sound.” This, I think, influences audiences to absorb those same artificial expectations. So that’s a challenge: can I get you to dig what I’m doing, even though your iTunes library says otherwise? To me, rocknroll isn’t just for aficionados or superfans, it’s for everyone.
Where is the best place to connect with you online? Discover more music?
Connect with us at www.brotherkmusic.com. Shows, new music, contact info – it’s all there.
Anything else you’d like to add before signing off?
My wife is awesome.
