Q&A with Ben Kyle of Romantica on 12/16/09
By: David de Young
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| Romantica - Publicity Photo |
On December 20th, at the Cedar Cultural Center, in anticipation of Romantica’s studio follow-up to America, due out in March 2010, the band will release a new EP for fans, written and recorded in one day in Austin, Texas this spring. The EP is called Control Alt Country Delete. During a very busy week leading up to the Cedar show, Romantica front man Ben Kyle took a few minutes to answer questions from HowWasTheShow.
[In addition to the live show Romantica performs Sunday, December 20th at the Cedar, Kings Wine Bar hosts a listening party for the EP Thursday night December 17th at 9PM. Band members will be on hand at Kings, and that event is free of charge.]
HWTS: First off, I love the new album. It feels like a live show for an intimate crowd at which you had a lot of fun. Tell me about the recording process. Who'd you work with? Where did you put the album together?
Ben Kyle: We cut this whole record in one day in Austin, Texas in March of this year. We had just done a week of shows at SXSW and we were staying at our friend Michael Crow's (Grand Champeen) studio. We had joked about trying to write and record a country record in one day the year before and Michael had this title for us, so we thought, why the heck not? It was a very intense week, playing twice a day in the Austin heat, and I had been writing a lot of things down in my notebook that I thought could turn into songs. The time limitation was actually quite freeing because we just had about an hour to go with each song idea and then we had to move on. Typically, we spend a lot of time sculpting and things are more calculated, but this gave us the freedom to let go of perfecting and allowed the output to be more immediate and we liked that about it. Some of the songs are literally being written as they're recorded, for example in the first track, it sounds like I'm forgetting a lyric but I'm actually waiting for the lyric to come to me. Michael Crow engineered. And in keeping with the concept, we gave Alex Oana a day to mix it.
HWTS: This is undoubtedly the twangiest Romantica album ever. What brought on the country? Texas?
BK: Well the original idea was to make a "country" album. Which was sort of a joke. But when it came to doing it, nobody wanted to waste a day making a joke record, so we took the project seriously in that we tried to write some solid songs, but the country element kinda stuck around. It did help that we were in Texas, and we'd just been two-stepping to the Texas Tornadoes at Antones a couple nights before. (Not to mention that Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash had recorded within those same walls.)
HWTS: Speaking of the twang, who is that on pedal steel? Is this a new direction for Romantica?
BK: That's Lucky Luke [Luke Jacobs], originally the bass player in Romantica, come multi-instrumentalist and Pedal Steel player. We always had steel on our records, but it's always been Eric Heywood. We wanted the instrument to be fundamental to our sound, so one of us had to learn it and Lucky's come a long way in just 2 years. The direction we hope to take the steel is less twangy and more moody than you hear on this EP but it is indicative of what's to come I think.
HWTS: What else is going on with Romantica these days? I understand we can expect another full length studio album in the relatively near future.
BK: Yes, we're in the thick of it and hope to put it out in the spring. I don't like that's it's been such a long time, but when you're not full time musicians (most of us have families and jobs) and you spend a lot of the available time you do have bringing the live show around the country, there's not a whole lot of time left to work on recording. If I could make a bit of a living at this I'd love to put an album out every year.
HWTS: You have the official CD Release Party for Control Alt Country Delete at the Cedar on Sunday. What can we expect to see?
BK: Romantica in full form : ) and perhaps a few guests. We'll probably play most of the songs from the EP and also a lot of material from the upcoming studio record. Caroline Smith opens as a duo.
Artist Info: Romantica
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