Sittin' In With Kieran McGee and Jeremiah Lockwood

A South x SouthWest Interview By P. Kellach Waddle

Despite Kieran McGee and Jeremiah Lockwood's level of notoriety and success at their young ages, they share something universal with all musicians, composers, and writers -- they like really cheap places where you pay seven bucks to get three plates full of food.

Hence, my sit-down with them the day after their fantastic set at the Crown Plaza lounge during the South x Southwest Music Festival and Conference in Austin, Texas, took place at the IHOP, five scant blocks from the hustle and bustle of 6th Street.

P. Kellach Waddle for FolkWax: Even though I am sure you are sick of explaining this, for those people who haven't read your bio and press material could you tell us where you came from, how early you started, and how and why you started to get immersed in this kind of music.

Kieran McGee: I started on drums when I was about seven. I started playing guitar when I was about twelve, and making recordings in my bedroom on a little tape deck. My mom played piano; so I started playing piano, too.

FW: So you did have music in the house; all of this talent with you didn't come out of nowhere spouting like from the head of Zeus or something.

KM: Yeah, a very musical household. So then I got a four-track and started making little recordings where I was playing all four tracks myself. And then I actually started sending out tapes; and that was when there were still a lot of cassette labels doing a lot of four-track recordings of their own. Wanted to try to see if anyone was interested and there was this label called Cleancuts. They were actually going to put out an EP of my stuff when I was about 14.

FW: Sorry to stop you for a second, but that age declaration is really amazing! I am interested, when you did start sending out your stuff...before you had bio or press or anything to accompany it...did you tell them how old you were?

KM: No, I sure didn't. Actually, on some of the tapes I sent out to labels I would do something to the speed on the four-track to lower my voice so it sounded like I was older. But of course once this label got back to me they knew; I knew they were eventually going to find out I wasn't thirty.

FW: Yeah, you couldn't exactly meet them at a neighborhood bar to hammer out terms of the deal or anything.

KM: So the EP, after I kept sending them more tapes of songs, ended up turning into a whole album called Left for Dead that they put out when I was fifteen and it was really just me playing the instruments; a few guest musicians, but it was mostly just me in the studio for a couple of weeks doing the same thing that I was doing in my bedroom.

FW: I noticed this in the bio; go on with that because I am not sure if this is at the same time in your life, but I noticed all the places you visited, when you went to Mississippi and such. And also what did your family or whoever took you think about a fourteen-year-old from Manhattan wanting to go to Roots land?

KM: Well, I had been taking these summer road trips with my dad who is also a music writer. So even when I wasn't showing an active interest yet he was taking us to musical landmark spots all over the country. But eventually I did take an interest and got heavily into Blues and we saw some musicians near Bentonia, Mississippi, Jack Owens and such. And going to places like the Helena Blues Festival when I was about fifteen; just sort of a half-ass tour for the record that I had done.

FW: But you grew up in Manhattan and that's still where you live. Did that ever stick out? Especially at that age when you are with some hardcore Roots people in a place like Arkansas, and here is this veritable child of fifteen...much less one that's a Yankee! Were they ever like, who the hell is this? But then of course you start playing and open your mouth and I am sure you blew everyone away just like you do now.

KM: I certainly would get some laughs when I walked into their open mics! But you know it didn't really faze me at the time because I guess it just didn't really bother me. So I just kept playing out as much as I could and it eventually became something I had to be doing on my own, because most of the musician friends I had sure were not playing this type of music.

FW: Yes, let's do a timeline. You are 23 now; this was eight or nine years ago. This is about the end of the Grunge phenomenon; so your buddies are all playing Soundgarden covers and such looking at you like you are from Mars, I reckon?

KM: [Laughter] Yeah, pretty much.

FW: (To Jeremiah Lockwood) Now how did you all hook up, were you on this same sort of wavelength with Kieran, too? Jeremiah Lockwood: Well, I am also from Manhattan and Kieran's older brother and I were classmates, so we had school playdates when we were in elementary school and such. Then we met up later again when we got older and I had become a musician as well. And we played in the subway and I played with some old Blues fellows in town when I was also fourteen. I am also from a musical family in a lot of ways, very similar background to Kieran. And then Kieran's father saw me playing in the street and called me. And then I went with Kieran down to Memphis about eight years ago; we have been working together since then, a long time!

FW: Well you can definitely hear it, because I was thinking that last night's show was just going to be Kieran and guitar, but then I was like wow! He has his Dobro player with him too, who contributes those amazing harmonies. (To Both) Since you all have this incredible synthesis of styles, do you ever think at that time, "This is a Pop song, this is a Folk song"? Does that occur consciously at the time you are writing it, or does that just kind of come out?

KM: Well, like with the "Lonesome" song on the CD, there was a decision this has to be a Bluegrass song because there's really no other kind of way that kind of song can be arranged. It was indeed hard to force certain songs in one direction to perhaps try to make all the songs closer to the same style; but instead of doing that we just decided to let the songs be whatever they wanted to be. This is why there's a Bluegrass song and then a loud Rock song.

FW: One of the reasons your album is so phenomenal and you are obviously so talented is because usually when I get an album that is such an attempted amalgam (I discuss all of these things in a pejorative sense) "Geez, this person is all over the map and is just throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks," but you have all these styles synthesized and it all works! And it seems so organic and not contrived. Do you think all of this comes from all the things you went and listened to, or is it more with just all the inherent diversity in singer-songwriter kind of stuff?

KM: There's definitely times I was thinking I should just go on in X direction; that I should just definitely do Country stuff or just definitely do Rock stuff, but if the song works I don't think it should be forced into a style. So I decided to have this record...have it be a collection of good songs regardless of what they are.

FW: I am sure Steve Rosenthal [CD Producer] obviously had all kinds of incredible ideas, but you are obviously such a well-thought-out musician I want to know what you yourself, idea-wise, took into the studio in terms of production.

KM: When I first hooked up with Steve, we just kind of talked about the music and I gave him about four CDs of everything I had done since the second album. And it was definitely a mixed bag of every style you can think of; there was noise stuff on there, little Classical piano pieces, some songs from the record, some songs that didn't quite get on the record...

FW: So Steve definitely let you do what you do; say this song is this style and this song is this style, and extrapolated on that and wasn't this marketing -- record label bullshit of saying: "This is too all over the map; this needs to be like this and only this."

KM: Yeah, and this is the first time I have really worked with a producer. I had indeed had producers before but they were really hands-off and wanted me to make the record the way I would have done it as if I was doing it in my bedroom. So this time, on this record, it was actually really good to actually work with someone to bounce ideas off of and such, which I had really never done before.

FW: Well you certainly got an incredible result for sure. This is especially of interest to those of us who tour and drive everywhere. Do you still listen to all of these genres of stuff while you are going all over the place? [To both JL and KM]

KM: Yeah, definitely. I guess when I was first influenced by all of this stuff I wanted to play these styles of music, but I just tried to do my own thing. And all of this Blues, Country, etc., is definitely included, but I don't exactly try to emulate it at all. The thing that sticks out the most of the things like The Carter Family I think is the honesty of the song. I try to get that across in my own songwriting.

JL: Yeah, like in the road trip just now. Listening to two Country Blues compilations, one from the Carolinas and Georgia, and one from Memphis with stuff of the twenties and thirties stuff on it like Gus Cannon and Noah Lewis. I really like the Yazoo and Document label Blues compilations; because you know a lot of these people only made like five cuts.

KM: Oh, and also I have got in the car some Townes Van Zandt, this band called Beechwood Sparks, some Elliot Smith, and Hank Williams.

FW: Now, as for the other musicians on the album, you have Levon Helm of The Band on the album! Dude, y'all weren't even born when The Last Waltz came out! (Much laughter all around) Tell me how that came about...

KM: Ollabelle is the backing band on the record and they were playing at The Living Room, which is the main club I play at in the City. The label for the record is actually in the basement of The Living Room; so I was playing there a lot before this record came about. So I made friends with them and they were also making their first record with Steve Rosenthal as well and Amy Helm is one of the singers in Ollabelle. So we basically just asked her if we could get her dad to come play and we sent him some stuff and he liked it enough that he drove down to the city and came and played drums on two songs and sang and played mandolin on one song. We also had Steve Shelley from Sonic Youth who played on three songs.

FW: Since you have gotten so much press and so much success so incredibly young, is it ever overwhelming? Do you ever get freaked out about, "Well eight years ago I was doing four-tracks in my bedroom and now I am in Entertainment Weekly!"

KM: You know, not really. It is really weird though to open a magazine and see an ad for your record and see a really weird photo of yourself -- that's the only thing that ever really freaks me out. But it certainly is thrilling to have response to what you are doing instead of putting stuff out there and having no response come back.

FW: So I know this is your first time ever playing SxSW, but have you ever played or been in Austin before at all?

KM: Yes, I have friends here and visited, but I have never played here before. Matter of fact this whole thing is sort of our first real tour so to speak. We did a little tour for the first record when we were kids, but this is like starting over.

FW: Anything else you wanted to tell our readers to close?

KM: Well hopefully we will back around Austin soon, and in other places, too! We just want to play in as many places we can because it's very good for us to get out of the City because there is so much music in the City that it's kind of overwhelming.

FW: Just like Austin!

P. Kellach Waddle is a senior contributing editor at FolkWax. P. Kellach may be contacted at folkwax@visnat.com.