The rhythm section of
Kingsbury is ready to drink.
But no: Bassist Mark Freeman and drummer T.J. Burke are disappointingly friendly when I meet them at Redlight Redlight for some unpronounceable beers. Maybe it’s the fact that their singer got married in December. Maybe it’s the fact that their newest guitarist (Samantha Christine) is settled in with the band, or just that Springsteen is playing on the speakers. Whatever the case, Kingsbury aren’t wasting time counting their blessings. They’re too busy keeping an eye on the tab.
Mark Freeman:
Nope, that was all of us. The old lineup. That was at Stardust.
T.J. Burke:
And then we played
Mark: We
drove all the way down and played Churchills in Little Haiti. Which is weird,
because it’s an Irish bar. That was interesting.
TJ: There
was a skinhead-hardcore band playing.
Mark: They
had two stages, and we played a hardcore show. The promoter guy was like, “You
can play in there with the band, but we’ve got an outside stage.” We said, “We’ll
play out here, that’s fine.” It was nicer, and I just didn’t want beer bottles
thrown at me.
TJ: It’s not
really a strange thing to us, because of the Vero days. They’d have so many
shows all the time that were just, you know – they’d have a punk band, a ska
band, a hardcore band. The lineup never made any sense, but it was such a small
town. It was like, Friday night, that’s what you’re doing. There’s a show, it
doesn’t matter who’s playing. I kind of like seeing a bunch of different bands
on a bill. It breaks it up. It’s better for the bands, I think, too, because it
makes you stand out. I never understood sound guys who play the same type of
music before the band.
Coming from a little beach town like Vero, would you
say there’s less of an obligation to fit into a niche, given that there’s less
of a scene?
TJ: It’s
hard to talk about it now, because that’s not how it is anymore. It’s all frat
boys and oxycontin. They stopped doing shows there a long time ago. Too good to
last.
Not to throw Bruce under the bus since he’s not here,
but I found a quote from him that surprised me about your music. He basically
said you typically start off with too much arrangement and then start peeling
the layers away. But it seems like there’s still so much going on in the
background …
TJ: I wouldn’t
say so much putting on and then tearing it away, it’s just trying a bunch of
different ideas.
Mark: The
cool thing with this group is that it is a democracy. Bruce has come in with
riffs he’s written that we’ll be like … hmm. And if we compare it to something else
or we can play it like we hear it? We’ve done it, and he’s like, “I don’t ever
want to play that again, because I can’t get that … what you just compared it
to, I can’t get it out of my head.”
So your job is to ruin his songs.
Mark: Pretty
much. And then see what’s left.
Seriously, do you end up being the bad guys, being the
rhythm section? Do you find it’s your job to rein him in a little?
TJ: No.
You’re not going to hurt his feelings, pretty much. We can tell him just about
anything.
Mark: Sometimes,
if he’s really sold on a song, he’ll be like, “Dude, just give it a shot.” There’s
been songs where I’ve said, “I hate that.” And by the time we were done and
recorded it, everybody else hated it but
me. That happens a lot; if we end up trashing one of our songs, we turn it into
some kind of joke song that’ll never be released.
I would love to hear a joke song from you guys.
TJ: You have
no idea.
Mark:
They’re nothing like what we sound like.
TJ: Lots of
808.
Mark: Lotta
Miami, dirty south rap.
