The Bay Area Native

Picture by Denny Mui

Kevin Devine is one busy guy. He has released 5 full lengths since 2002, is gearing up for his sixth full length, he’s constantly touring, and recently formed Bad Books with Andy Hull of Manchester Orchestra. I was able to chat with him briefly and he shared some of his thoughts on how he started playing music, the music industry, and some of his favorite tracks off Elliott Smith’s Either/Or album.

Tell me a little bit about your interest in journalism early on and how that eventually transitioned to music.

There was this graduate degree program in journalism and there was this other thing that was kind of more specific to arts journalism, more like writing for journals about popular music theory. The other idea was around the same time. First three years of college was when I kind of started playing my own stuff acoustic a lot more, I was always in kind of louder bands. People started to come and watch it that weren’t my family or my friends. Strangers started to express that they thought it was good. I guess I kind of realized the kind of music I write I’m probably not going to make a ton of money doing it but I really love doing it. The kind of journalism I’m interested in, I’m probably not going to make a ton of money writing it, but I like doing it. I kind of was really lucky in a sense. I got to choose between pursuing something I like over something I love. And I chose something I love. And I’ve worked a lot of jobs along the way to try to pay into that dream.

It must have been very different starting out as a musician back then with the absence of sites like Facebook or Myspace or whatever the case may be.

I think about what’s happening now…I don’t really know what it’d be like to start a band now.

We just did this Bad Books thing but that’s obviously different because Manchester has quite a presence in a different way, not in a commercially successful way but I have a presence too and so if you combine those two things, it’s not like we were starting a band from scratch and no one knew who we were.

I think Myspace, Facebook, iTunes, Youtube, the modernization of content on the internet is really great in some ways. You can record a single in your bedroom, a week later be on Pitchfork, have stuff on iTunes, have footage of you playing on Youtube, and you’re a modern success story for six months. I don’t know if it’s necessarily great for longevity.

The music industry has become a place where there is no room for development. There is no development for the band that has written one song or six songs and then it’s like the most hyped kind of flavor of the month, before they even really know how to play a show or deal with the psychic toll of touring or know if they really want to be a band or not. I don’t know if this cycle produces a lot of career artists, put it that way.

Maybe this is delusional on my part, it’s just been so clear to me that this is what I want to do with my life. I don’t have like a “what happens in ten years” plan and that might overwhelm me and be really bad for me in ten years. I might end up being some cautionary tale about not having a “twenty year plan” or something. To me, I want to have a career in music, a life in music.

When I was starting a band you cut and pasted flyers by hand and went and copied them at your high school or later at your job and put them all over, stores, comic book shops, bars, coffee places. That still happens but I don’t think it’s quite the same way as it was when there wasn’t this great globalizing collective like the internet is where you can simultaneously in five minutes listen to a band from Sao Paolo, Brazil, someone from San Francisco, and someone from Greenwich, CT. (laughs) It was about local scenes.

You’ve cited Elliott Smith as an influence. Is there a song off Either/Or you would have loved to see him create?

I’d like to hear how he recorded Speed Trials. It’s not my favorite song on that record. There really is not a bad song on that record, there’s really not a bad song in his whole catalogue. That song sonically is the most interesting to me on that record. It somehow manages to sound super lofi in this way that’s really interesting. It’s not as clean as the other band recordings on that record are. It’s a little…through a film or something. It definitely sounds like there is more going on than prior recordings. That whole record was kind of like a pivot for him. My favorite song on that record is either Angeles or Between The Bars.

Well, we hope to catch you next time you are in the Bay, thanks for your time!

Yeah, hopefully next year some time! Be well!