Kevin Kinney

Dec. 20, 2002

Drivin' N' Cryin' Frontman Starts New Project
By: Larry Queenn


Touring 52 weeks per year, Kinney especially relishes the time he can spend with the kids. On the road he is either doing his solo acoustic shows in the singer/songwriter format, or with the Kevn Kinney Band, which is folksy, yet fleshed out by a band. Or, there's his project The Sun Tangled Angel Revival with Gibb Droll, and, as he is most familiar, as the frontman for Drivn' N' Cryin'.

"I'm on the road Thursday's, Friday's, and Saturday's," he admits. "I never work on Monday's, or Tuesday's. I refuse to play Monday's, or Tuesday's. I'll play on Sunday's, rarely. I'll play on Wednesday's, but I won't play on Monday's, or Tuesday's any more. It's my time to have off. I need a weekend. I spent years filling up... For the Fly Me Courageous era... between Whisper (Tames the Lion), and the end of Smoke, which was from '89 to the end of '95, I lived in a tour bus. I lived in my bunk, my little coffin. We were on the road for eight to ten months a year travelling everyday. I was doing everything I could possibly do - in-stores, interviews, and photo shoots, and video shoots, and everything. Seven years of that was, like, enough. I'm still on the road constantly, but now I'm a little more (selective). Like, I'll do Seattle, but I won't drive to Seattle. I'll fly to Seattle, and then book all these little shows to get up there. Like last year, I did Seattle, Portland, and LA, and then I went home."

Life on the road is punctuated by bursts of frenetic energy only to arrive somewhere and sit and wait for hours for something to happen. It sounds glamorous on the surface, but much of it is a game of averting colossal boredom. And, although Kinney admits he still likes the road, he stays away from the tour bus at all costs these days.

"It was fun when I was younger, but it gets old - living on a submarine with a crew, my band, and everybody's personalities," he explains. "I admire bands. It's a lot of work. I love to see bands pull into town. It's great to look at a tour bus now, and go, 'Ohhh, yeah.' I used to look at it like, 'Ohh, I want to go on that tour bus,' but these days people ask me, 'Hey, you want to come on the bus?' and I'm, like, 'Nope, that's O.K. I'll just meet you out somewhere.' (Laughs) "It's just an RV. A Magical RV, but still just an RV."

At the moment he and his newest project, the Sun Tangled Angel Revival is wrapping up phase two of the recording for their debut album.

"We we're recording it with David Barbie at Chase Park Transduction Studio," says Kinney. The studio is in his hometown of Athens, GA. "I'm approaching this one differently. The last couple of records I've recorded in one week. I go in and I do it. I don't want to keep making them that way. The Flower and The Knife, and Broken Hearts and Auto Parts they sound a little bit like how an old jazz record would sound. Based on the fact that it's a live studio recording, it's "Takes" where everyone has to get the right "Take," and then it's done. I want to try and make this one a little bit more polished. It'll probably come out next summer."

This is his fifth release outside the band he founded in the mid-'80's, Drivin' N' Cryin'. The first was his landmark solo debut, McDougal Blues, which was produced by R.E.M.'s Peter Buck. And there's some talk of the pair working together out in Seattle where Buck now lives some time in the near future.

"He invited me out there to record," says Kinney. "Once I finish this project, maybe I'll go out there and do a record with him. I'll have to go out there though, because he's not around the corner anymore (in Athens)."

Projects lineup in Kinney's mind like planes on the runway at LAX. He's already working on the material for the next Drivin' N' Cryin' record.

"I think we're going to make a rock record, and get somebody like Metal Blade to put it out," he says. "We want to do a full on rock record. So that's what we're writing right now. Wouldn't that be cool? Because that's like... I mean I can do country songs... I have that outlet do that. So, with Drivn' N' Cryin' I think we should do a full on rock record like Thin Lizzy. It's what the fans want to hear, so why deny them that? Why deny that it exists? I'm not struggling to bring my identity through it anymore. I'm already established." That he is.

Expect the material be driving, pedal to the metal rock like Scarred But Smarter era Drivin' N' Cryin', but as Kinney points out, "But, even Scarred But Smarter has some ballads and stuff on it, and I don't want to even go there at all. I want to rock."
He says the last stint on the road with D'N'C opened him up a great deal.

"The last tour we did was great because usually we try to do all the Drivin' N' Cryin' thing, now I can do that with the Kevn Kinney band. So, I can do 'Scarlet Butterfly,' with the Kevn Kinney Band if I want. I can do other things with them. I can do it with Drivin' N' Cryin' too if I feel like it. The main reason people are coming out is to relive some huge rock show that they saw, so as a piece of pop art, to me, I'm like, 'Yeah, what the hell. Why not give it to them?' And, you know what? I had a lot of fun. We did the same twenty songs every night. That's something I never do. I tried to stick to a set list, and it was awesome. People were going nuts. It had that rock structure to it. It had the hits early in the show. I think 'Fly Me Courageous' was the third song instead of waiting the whole show to hear your hit. It was, like, 'Scarred But Smarter,' 'Can't Promise You The World,' 'Around the Block Again,' 'The Innocent,' and in the middle show we would do 'Straight To Hell.' The encore consisted of anything that we wanted to do. The encore was the place for me to indulge myself instead of the whole show. And, why have the encore as this structured thing where we play 'Straight To Hell,' blah, blah, blah like it usually is?"

Change is good. But after having released material on six labels (D'N'C released seven albums on Island), it could be expected that his view of the label machinery would have changed. That he could have lost faith.

"I would re-sign with a label tomorrow, but there aren't any labels knockin'. Our story's been told, and labels want to do stories. I'd much rather do one-offs. They're so much easier these days. If CBS comes knockin' then, of course, I'd jump on that bandwagon in a minute. They don't sign you after your story has been told. I don't think my story's been told, but that's what I have to sell to them. We'll see if I can get some people out to these shows, and there's already a pretty big Kevn Kinney Band following, so it'll happen. That's a new story right there."

Yes, it would appear so.