A friendly chat with Kevin Aldridge
KS: "Loving You is Giving Up" is my favorite song right now.
KA: Do you want to know what it's about?
KS: Yeah.
KA: I wrote it when I put down my suitcase in the place where I would spend the next seven months. Picked up my axe and wrote the whole thing. I even have a rough draft on a tiny tape recorder. Most of the songs are on that tape. Another key song is "Compliance and Liability."
KS: It seems like you've been a lot more prolific lately. What's changed?
KA: I finally combined work ethic with creative drive. Maybe it sounds heavy-handed and arrogant, but that's what I feel.
KS: I'm still curious about the session you guys did with Matt Barnhart a couple of days after you did one with Jordan [Richardson]. You guys went from elated to deflated in just three days.
KA: Bottom line: Barhart didn't care. He heard "demo" and shut down. The biggest difference: He's not Jordan!
KS: Right. I've never known anyone in music as capable and enthusiastic as Jordan. One or the other, but not both.
KA: I want to play with him so bad! Him, [Matt] Hembree and Steffin [Ratliff]. How spoiled am I?
KS: That's a hell of a lineup, for sure.
KA: I already play with the best guys, in my opinion, but that's another one I want to try. But anyway, the whole change in writing just happened.
KS: Maturity?
KA: That too. Brasco quitting liberated me. I got better, freer. I wanted to leave so many times in the last year or two, but I felt I owed myself and Jared [Blair] one last record. And we did it. It was good and then we ended it.
KS: Jared's an odd duck.
KA: Yeah. He's very unrealistic at times. And he needs his stamp on everything. He plays solos because he's the lead guy, that kind of stuff. He never wanted us to add keys and that's the replacement I wanted for Chris [Edmiston]. He couldn't deal. Don't know why. He also said after hearing the Chatterton demos, "I would never put up with this shit." And he didn't mean that in a bad way. Which is weird.
KS: What shit was he referring to?
KA: The slow stuff. All the ethereal things. If it wasn't noisy, he didn't generally get it.
KS: Typical guitarist.
KA: Typical. Not Scott [Davis] or Chris. The difference now is I play in a band of musicians, not a guitarist, bassist, and drummer.
KA: Do you want to know what it's about?
KS: Yeah.
KA: I wrote it when I put down my suitcase in the place where I would spend the next seven months. Picked up my axe and wrote the whole thing. I even have a rough draft on a tiny tape recorder. Most of the songs are on that tape. Another key song is "Compliance and Liability."
KS: It seems like you've been a lot more prolific lately. What's changed?
KA: I finally combined work ethic with creative drive. Maybe it sounds heavy-handed and arrogant, but that's what I feel.
KS: I'm still curious about the session you guys did with Matt Barnhart a couple of days after you did one with Jordan [Richardson]. You guys went from elated to deflated in just three days.
KA: Bottom line: Barhart didn't care. He heard "demo" and shut down. The biggest difference: He's not Jordan!
KS: Right. I've never known anyone in music as capable and enthusiastic as Jordan. One or the other, but not both.
KA: I want to play with him so bad! Him, [Matt] Hembree and Steffin [Ratliff]. How spoiled am I?
KS: That's a hell of a lineup, for sure.
KA: I already play with the best guys, in my opinion, but that's another one I want to try. But anyway, the whole change in writing just happened.
KS: Maturity?
KA: That too. Brasco quitting liberated me. I got better, freer. I wanted to leave so many times in the last year or two, but I felt I owed myself and Jared [Blair] one last record. And we did it. It was good and then we ended it.
KS: Jared's an odd duck.
KA: Yeah. He's very unrealistic at times. And he needs his stamp on everything. He plays solos because he's the lead guy, that kind of stuff. He never wanted us to add keys and that's the replacement I wanted for Chris [Edmiston]. He couldn't deal. Don't know why. He also said after hearing the Chatterton demos, "I would never put up with this shit." And he didn't mean that in a bad way. Which is weird.
KS: What shit was he referring to?
KA: The slow stuff. All the ethereal things. If it wasn't noisy, he didn't generally get it.
KS: Typical guitarist.
KA: Typical. Not Scott [Davis] or Chris. The difference now is I play in a band of musicians, not a guitarist, bassist, and drummer.
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