We get tons of great music hauled in through the Ripple doors by our fearless postman, Sal, bt rarely does an album come through that captures our imaginations, hearts and boogie-ready rear ends the way Black Bone Child's debut did. A devastating aggression of two-man blues, rock, and swagger. After listening to the disc a few times, Pope and I didn't just like this band, we wanted to BE this band! Needless to say, it was without a moment's hesitation that we extended a warm invitation and a cold brew to the Black Bone children, Donny and Kenneth, dusted off our red leather interview couch, and had the boys come and set a spell with us.When I was a kid, growing up in a house with Cat Stevens, Neil Diamond, and Simon and Garfunkle, the first time I ever heard Kiss's "Detroit Rock City," it was a moment of musical epiphany. It was just so vicious, aggressive and mean. It changed the way I listened to music. I've had a few minor epiphanies since then, when you come across a band that just brings something new and revolutionary to your ears.
What have been your musical epiphany moments?
Donny: It wasn’t until my years in High School that I paid attention to what artists were really doing. I just either liked a song or I didn’t, I never thought about why. I would say that the first band that changed the way I thought of music was Metallica. They opened up my mind to the technical side of music. I can’t tell you how many times I sat in my room and listened to the Black Album. Since then I have had many epiphanies but none of them effected me the way that Nine Inch Nails did. When I was first introduced to Trent Reznor’s music, I was hooked. He changed the way I look at music, and the music business. Kenneth has actually been my main source of influential music over the past 10 years. He is always finding new bands and we generally like the same kind of music.
Kenneth: The first song I remember that changed the way I listen to music, would have to be ""by Tool. I must have been maybe thirteen at the time and being a drummer it had a huge effect on me. They are just on another level. The rhythms that Danny Carey places on the song are just amazing. To this day anytime I even think of a 7/8 time signature that riff comes into my head. That song still blows my mind to this day, and don't even get me started on the drum solo... Amazing!
Talk to us about the song-writing process for you. What comes first, the idea? A riff? The lyrics? How does it all fall into place? As I wrote in my review, your music to me seems to really be about the groove, the funk in your blues. Is this the way you guys see it?
D: Well rhythm is probably the most universal form of communication. It is the universal language so to speak. I think it is the most important part of a song, if you can’t tap your toe or move your head to it, you have lost a large audience right off the bat. There is no correct “way” to right a song in my mind. That is the beauty of music. The inspiration can come from anything or anywhere. I would say that more often than not the idea is something that pops into my head randomly. I will sing a riff or vocal to myself and then write around that. Lyrics are usually the last thing to come in to play, which is why they fit inside the rhythm so well on the record. When it comes down to it, I don’t really write the music as much as assemble it. You start with an idea that comes from somewhere and then just start adding to it. Pretty soon you have a verse or a chorus and you move on from there. It’s a simple process that can be extremely difficult.
K:Definitely. Our music is ALL about the rhythm section and the groove. The writing process is usually based all around that. It starts with a riff and then the other elements come into play. If the music is happening and working then we try and add a real catchy sing along-able chorus and then try and fit the appropriate verse. Lyrics usually happen last. But we have had songs that happen nothing like that.
Where do you look for continuing inspiration? New ideas, new motivation?D: This kind of relates to the last answer. Inspiration can come from anywhere; another artist, other forms of art, an argument, the weather, whiskey, it just depends on whether or not you are feeling creative. Sometimes you search for it and other times it finds you.
K: The only real motivation to write music for me, is the music itself. If I sit down with a guitar or a bass and start playing something that I like, I get excited and inspired to take that riff into a song.
Genre's are so misleading and such a way to pigeonhole bands. Without resorting to labels, how would you describe your music?
D: I don’t really mind putting our music into the rock genre because that is what it is. It’s rock music, a harder form of blues with modern influences. I guess I just don’t like a lot of the bands in the “rock” genre and that is why I have a hard time telling people that our music fits in that category. Our music is raw, rough and polished at the same time. It is built to make you move and based around having fun. The music is simple so that anyone can understand (we are not trying to trick the listener). Although the writing is simple I have a hard time finding other bands that it sounds like which, I believe, is a great thing. It’s just so funny to me that we can fit into a genre that includes Nickelback and Three Doors Down.
K: We have been described as "Sexy Rock", Rock and Roll with "some serious swamp stank", and now even "Oasis, drunk and homeless, on the shore of Lake Travis..." I love it! (that was my description of the band) Personally when people ask me what we sound like I tell them it's rock and roll. It looks like other people describe our music much better than I do.
5) What is you musical intention? What are you trying to express or get your audience to feel?
D: To make people move, smile, get laid, what ever it is that they like to do. It is a soundtrack to a good time. There are so many things that everyone is bombarded with everyday. The last thing that I want to hear is how somebody has the solution to all of the world’s problems. I think that is why we write what we write. We just want someone to be able to come out to a show, let their hair down and leave all of their problems at the door for that moment. It is a passive form of therapy. There are some songs that are more personal and vulnerable. These offer more of a connection with someone’s emotions and I think they can be very therapeutic as well. I guess when I really think about it the primary goal of the songs I write is to help other people without forcing them to listen to my opinions.
K: This band is just about having a good time. Our goal is just for people to just relax and have fun when they are at our shows. Have a drink and dance your ass off, that’s what I do when we play...
In songwriting, how do you bring the song together? What do you look for in terms of complexity? Simplicity? Time changes?D: Well first off, if you are looking to make a song very complex, you are not writing something that the average person is going to want to listen to. If the time signature changes every bar and it requires studying to understand it, you are going to be playing to musicians for the rest of your life. There is nothing wrong with that but it is just not something that I am interested in. I think simplicity is the key to a great song. A good hook is simple yet catchy. I’m talking about the difference between a song like "Tom Sawyer" compared to "Back In Black" or "Hotel California." Our songs don’t require much as far as bringing the song together goes. You come up with parts and try to make the transitions interesting without losing the ¼ note. It’s really all about the hook and rhythm.
K: The songwriting usually comes together from the two of us collaborating and shaping each other's work. We usually keep it simple, four on the floor and two and four.
The business of music is a brutal place. Changes in technology have made it easier than ever for bands to get their music out, but harder than ever to make a living? What are your plans to move the band forward? How do you stay motivated in this brutal business?
D: God, that is just so true. Anyone with a computer and a guitar can make a song, upload it to myspace, make a video and become a “band.” There is so much more to it than that but it creates a lot of static for artists like us. You have to weed through 2,000,000 bands before you find Black Bone Child. The internet and social networks like myspace have been great for the industry because it has given smaller acts a chance to showcase themselves and make their music accessible. At the same time it makes it harder for the cream to rise to the top. We have had so many conversations about how to approach the industry. As of now we have reached an agreement that live music is still never going to go away. It is the only place where the good bands succeed and the bad ones fail. You can tune a voice in pro tools but you can’t on a stage. You can fix a drummer’s mistakes in the studio but you better know how to play in a venue. Our focus has been on getting the band on the road. We are still maintaining many profiles on the internet and have our music available through many retail stores but the only way to make our fan base grow is organically, one person at a time.
Come on, share with us a couple of your great, Spinal Tap, rock and roll moments?
D: Haha. I’m saving those for my novel.
As essentially a two-piece unit, how do you split up the musical duties? Do you write intentionally with the idea of being different from the other two-piece bands out there?D: I don’t really consider the band a two-piece. The music is written with the intention of having more musicians on stage in a live setting. It would sound a lot different if we took off the layering that we do in the studio. We didn’t want to get stuck with that garage band label. The music will start out that way and then we add to it until it sounds like what we had originally in our minds. I am a big fan of layers in music. I don’t like to listen to a band that doesn’t have a drummer or a bassist. They are the most important elements in rock music and our stuff would not be exciting without them. Kenneth generally plays drums, bass, harmonica, and does vocals on our recordings and I play guitar, and do vocals although there are times where that changes. There are no real set roles to what we do. It is a unit and we just stick with whatever sounds the best.
K: Well even though we write as a two piece, we perform as a four piece. We are lucky enough to Have Steve Hudson (Drums) and Jason King (Guitar) join us for our live performances. Jason and Steve give us the freedom to write for a full band, so our sound on the record is not limited to a two person sound. On the record, Donny does the lead vocals and the guitars which leaves the bass, drums, harmonica, and background vocals to myself. The two of us write and work so well together we decided from the get go that this is how we wanted to run this band.
What makes a great song?
D: A great song. Songs can be great for different reasons and everyone has their preference for what they like. I don’t think it is possible to simplify it. The format for "The Great Gig in the Sky" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" are very different yet both great songs in their own way.
K: A great song is one that makes you feel something.
Tell us about the first song you ever wrote?
D :Haha. No… I honestly don’t remember the first song I ever wrote. It was sometime within the first 10 years of my life on an instrument that I didn’t really know that well. It’s probably a good thing for everyone that I don’t remember. I can tell you that the first song written on the album was “Mine.” It was written about a year before the release date.
K: I would have to say the first song that I ever remember writing was a song that Donny and I wrote when we were about 15 years old. We never actually had lyrics, or a name for it. One day I just sick of not having a name for it and said just call it "JPXK459." We thought it was AMAZING, turns out it was almost exactly a Metallica song, note for note.
What piece of your music are you particularly proud of?
D: The way that Kenneth and I compliment each other. I’ll send him an idea and he’ll send it back to me with a whole new direction, then I’ll do the same to him, and so on and so forth. The result is a mutual, give and take relationship that makes our ideas much stronger. That is why we decided to be the only two people in the studio. We have found a way to work really well together and have experienced a much stuffier situation with someone else in the room.
Who today, writes great songs? Why?The idea of a great song is so subjective that I have a hard time answering that. Something that I think is great could be horrible for someone else. This is the main element that makes the industry so hard. There is no black and white. Music is not a need, it is a want, and people want different things. I think that there are less great songs coming out today than there were even 10 years ago. Everyone has become a hybrid of something else. Led Zeppelin was influenced by Muddy Waters, Metallica was influenced by Led Zeppelin, Avenged Sevenfold was influenced by Metallica and now kids are influenced by Avenged Sevenfold. There is too much incest going on in music. I think the bands that are writing great songs today are the ones that go back and study blues and jazz. It is the basic form of modern music and if you don’t understand the basics then how can you expect to excel?
Vinyl, CD, or digital? What's your format of choice?
D: I love the way vinyl sounds. I love the way the artwork looks. There is something that is so cool about picking up a record. CD’s are what I grew up with which was a good medium. When everything started going digital I really didn’t like it. I like being able to look at the artwork and read about the songs. It took me a while to get used to but I think there are a lot of benefits to digital distribution that can be overlooked by the common music enthusiast. When music first started being recorded, there weren’t a bunch of pictures and liner notes, the thing that was important was what was on the record. Digital media is bringing that back in a sense. It is bringing back word of mouth and the necessity of a quality product. It couldn’t have come at a better time. The record labels had reached a point where they were selling a $0.50 item for $20.00. You just can’t do that. A CD isn’t worth that and digital media has brought on new horizons. I just hope that we don’t go too far in the opposite direction. You should have to pay for music. There is a lot of time, money, heart and sweat put into the creation of music and we should be rewarding the people who offer us such a great thing. The problem is that we have spent too many years paying the companies and not the musicians. I am excited to see where this new media takes us.
K: Digital. I used to spend a lot of time and money obsessively building an EXTENSIVE CD collection. Having racks and racks of CDs used to mean something to me, but not recently. I have all the music backed up on hard drives and the plastic disks lost their appeal to me, so I decided to sell them while people still cared about them. I sold the whole collection to Waterloo Records here in Austin. Now I am 100% digital.
We, at the Ripple Effect, are constantly looking for new music. When we come to your town, what's the best record store to lose ourselves in?
D: Living in Austin, we are lucky enough to have more than one great record store. Even though most of them have gone out of business worldwide, Austin has maintained a steady group of music fans. It is a great place to find new things. I would say that Waterloo Records is the best in town. There are smaller places like End of an Ear and Cheapo Discs to find the more oddball stuff but Waterloo offers the best selection. You can check out their website and order from there.
www.waterloorecords.com
K: Waterloo Records, hands down.
Thanks for joining us, gents, and for your thoughtful conversation. We're more than excited to be buzzing out to Austin to catch you cats playing on October 3rd. All you waveriders, check out the band's schedule and see if they're playing in town near you.
http://www.blackbonechild.com
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