An Interview with Kevin Clark of Black Skies
Nick: This is your first time on the West coast, right? How’s the tour thus far?
Kevin: We’re in uncharted waters right now, so we don’t have any expectations any particular way. It’s been cool. We started the tour with old places we were familiar with and then came this way. We’ve been everywhere else in the U.S. so this is it.
Nick: How does it compare?
Kevin: Well, we played Seattle last night. We met friends from back home and there were people who’d heard about the band who came to the show and gave it a whirl, so it was really good for our first time. It’ll definitely be even better next time.
Nick: Let’s talk about the band’s history. You three got together in ’05, correct?
Kevin: Well, we’ve had a few drummers. We actually stayed with one of the previous ones last night in Seattle. Michelle [Temple, bass] and I were in a band together before Black Skies. I just sang at the time. We kept having lineup changes - guitarists and drummers, then Tom helped form the first incarnation of this band and we moved in a different musical direction. I started playing guitar. At first it was more ‘Stooges and MC5, not quite as heavy and more garage-y.
Nick: What was the motivation behind Black Skies?
Kevin: We all listened to heavier stuff and what we were doing had run its course, so we just wanted to do something different. At the time there wasn’t a lot of heavy music [in Chapel Hill, North Carolina]; we wanted to be able to do something that was unique here.
Nick: Tell me about Chapel Hill.
Kevin: It’s a great place as far as location goes. It’s centrally located which makes touring easy for the East Coast - we’re between Atlanta and D.C. Nashville is near us too and there are beeches and mountains within two hours driving. It makes things easy to get around. As far as music goes, it’s been known as an indie place because of Superchunk and The Archers of Loaf - it still carries that stigma. Rolly and Chapel Hill really make up one area; people from both areas play music with each other so it’s less about individual towns. There have been more heavier bands lately. Caltrop, they’re one of our favorite ever. They have very slight classic rock overtones on the guitar solos, but really just play intricate, good solid heaviness over everything. There’s a band Curtains of Night that’s two girls who just do a great job. Colossus work a classic, almost Judas Priest and Iron Maiden-ish feel. Death Came Down the Mountain too.
Nick: Your first record was in 2007, correct?
Kevin: The self-titled one. That was just something we released for while we were touring. I manage Cat’s Cradle, a 600 capacity venue and they were taking a break in February so we got one of the sound guys to record as many of our songs as we could get through. We took five we felt okay with and put out a CD just to have something to sell to people. Maybe it was six songs. It’s unfortunately out of print - we just did it ourselves. Once we had Hexagon, it became the priority with the current lineup. If there’s any demand, it’ll probably get a few more burns.
Nick: So Hexagon was originally released in 2008. How did that come about?
Kevin: When Cam [Cameron Weeks, drums] joined the band we had a bunch of new songs written and asked him if we wanted to learn the old stuff or this newer stuff we’re planning on working towards. So we started fresh and went with it. Shortly after that we were contacted by Karim [Khan, I’m Better than Everyone Records]. He said we wanted to put something out on vinyl, we thought that’d be cool but said we had this new drummer and wanted to do something new, so he gave us a kick in the ass to get into the studio and get something done. We went to Nick Peterson in Chapel Hill and did the six we felt the strongest about in two days. There were some hang-ups with artwork and the pressing plant and we were coming up on a big tour in June, so we went ahead and did a CD version ourselves and waited for Karim to work out the official release.
Nick: So Black Skies primarily plays the material from that record live I take it.
Kevin: It changes show to show. These being newer places, there’s not as much need to play certain things. Certain places we’ve been a lot, they want to hear certain things. We try to put a few in every show and we’re trying to write a bunch of new stuff for the next record, so some of that gets worked in. We’re focusing on that after the tour. The live set is pretty interspersed with new stuff and a few older, reworked songs, so there’s stuff that people haven’t heard, stuff from the record, and some new stuff.
Nick: The artwork is different on the CD and vinyl releases [of Hexagon]; why is that?
Kevin: Tom [Denney] had other obligations and the record was taking longer to do, so we just waited to make the vinyl more special. It’s spectacular and was worth the wait. It seems like people that are into vinyl look for something different, a little special anyways. It wasn’t our original intention, but it worked out well.
Nick: So how’d you get in touch with Tom Denney and what kind of direction did you give him?
Kevin: It was Karim that got a hold of him after he asked us if that would be okay. I liked what he did for Kylesa and other things he’d done, so we were stoked. We basically gave him a rundown of what the songs meant to us and he did his own interpretation from what he got from it.
Nick: You have the gatefold art on a t-shirt, right?
Kevin: Yeah. He had that piece done beforehand and since we had the tour last year we printed it on a t-shirt for the tour. A little prelude to the album.
Nick: And what about John Santos Jr.? I see he did a new logo for the band.
Kevin: Yeah, we hung out with him last night. It was really cool to meet that guy. It was kind of the same deal - Karim got a hold of him. We’d seen shirts he did for CT from Rwake for the Slow Southern Steel documentary. He’d also done some stuff for Karim’s label for Power Pellet. So Santos picked one of the songs of which he identified with the lyrics and it turned out phenomenally well.
Nick: He’s also done stuff for Kylesa!
Kevin: [laughs] I kind of felt like a fan boy wearing his Kylesa t-shirt when I met him. It was cool to get the story about how he does stuff. The art is just so detailed and he puts so much of himself into it. Same with Tom too.
Nick: So what’s the story behind your design?
Kevin: Well we didn’t know which song he’d picked, but as soon as I saw the initial sketch I knew it was “2105” off of Hexagon. I didn’t realize how small he works on things. It’s incredibly intricate. We did some stuff to color match and had to blow it up really big to make sure we weren’t covering up anything. I thought the original must’ve been the size of the wall. Apparently he just uses really, really fine tools on a 9”x11” piece of paper.
Nick: Let’s talk about the lyrics on Hexagon.
Kevin: With Hexagon I didn’t get into it too much - it was a straightforward thing - whatever came out, came out. It certainly isn’t happy; [it’s]very bleak and apocalyptic. Other people have described it as Orwellian. I can’t really think back to what was going on mentally with me at that time. There were vocal melodies for songs, but I honestly didn’t have solid lyrics down until I had to in the studio. It was ‘oh shit, now I have to say something and try to make it sound like something I don’t mind being there forever.’ That’s the trickiest point - the deadline is there and you have to have something solid you’ll feel okay about in ten years.
Nick: So where’d you get the year 2105?
Kevin: There was something…I’m not really into mathematics, I really don’t like them, but there was this formula on the History Channel, some kind of Nostradamus thing, that had to do with the end of the world. I decided to roll with it. It seems like the way things are headed, what we’re doing, that’s not too far away. Human beings not lasting another hundred years, that doesn’t seem too farfetched to me.
Nick: How does the band view its relationship to that society?
Kevin: I think we’re just three people trying to make music, but as far as that goes. I’m not really a fan of preaching about things. There’s a fine line with lyrics in music. I try to remain serious, to induce thinking, but at the same time don’t want to go completely over people’s heads or make it difficult to comprehend or listen to. I’m a huge Ramones and ACDC fan, but I wouldn’t want to play stuff like that myself. It doesn’t have a lot of substance to me personally and I wouldn’t feel comfortable with it. The band we were in before was in that direction and that was part of the reason it didn’t last very long. I don’t want to make everything sort of complicated and weird or be too preachy. I like for people to come to their own conclusions.
Nick: The songs, how are they written?
Kevin: For the previous albums we had to put things together fast. For Hexagon it was stuff I already had the meat of it, brought it to practice, and we banged it out and made stuff happen. Lately, I’ll have a basic idea and just go with it and we work it out and everyone will toss out ideas. It’s become a more diplomatic writing process.
Nick: How’s that going to sound on the next record
Kevin: The thing is Hexagon was done really quickly; we didn’t put a lot of bells and whistles on it. On the newer stuff, there’s newer equipment and the writing is more complex. I don’t want to get away from where we are, but want to change.
Nick: In your press clippings there’re a lot of references to Black Sabbath. That seems a little generic to me.
Kevin: As far as that goes, it’s one of those questions you hate to answer: ‘who do you sound like?’ But it’s inevitable and ‘Sabbath is an easy reference point. It’s been interesting to me to be compared to early Melvins, High on Fire here and there, and what was that one…[chatter of other band members]…a looser Clutch [laughs]. I was brought up listening to Black Flag and elements of that are in there, I think. I’m not a very technically proficient guitar player - I’m not very kind to the guitar. I try to do as much weird stuff as I possibly can to make up for the fact I won’t be playing Van Halen hot licks any time soon. The punk rock roots show, especially with Hexagon I think. I’ve been listening to a lot of ‘60s and ‘70s heavy psych and am using more pedals than I ever had before. I have a pedal board now. As far as the early Melvins comparison goes, I like that not only because of how amazing they are and how much respect I have for them, but because of how they’ve changed it up and kept it interesting over time but not strayed too far away. It’s what we’d like to become in time.
Nick: So what’s with the band name?
Kevin: We went through a list of horrible band names - I can’t remember half of them - and nothing was sticking. One of the songs in the last band was called “Black Skies” and I suggested it. When you have ‘black’ in the name it’s easy to get yourself overlooked - there are so many bands in the record store with that word in it - but we agreed it fit, dark and heavy. We cursed ourselves in a way. It rains every time we’ve played in North Carolina in the last two and half years. It happens on the road too. We’re in Arizona in a week in a half, and it’ll probably rain there. We’re thinking of doing benefit shows touring drought ridden areas in the Midwest [laughs]. It sucks for driving but it’s great for farming.
Nick: I read a story about you guys touring the Midwest and staying with someone who ran a reptile rescue. And there was something about a ghost or something of the like too.
Kevin: It was actually the same house in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. It’s a tiny little town. They have a college there I think, but it was summer so there weren’t many people there. So we played and hung out and got drunk with a guy who said he’d put us up for the night. He neglected to tell us he ran the county’s reptile rescue. When we got to the house there was Tupperware everywhere. And Cam happens to be deathly afraid of snakes. So he opens up this container thinking it’s some kind of food and the guy tells him to stop, that there’s some kind of rattlesnake in there. The place is full of these things, shit that could kill you. So that freaked out Cam a bit. And there was the ghost shit. It was supposed to be a five year old kid or something that moved stuff. Cam had these cookies that the guy warned him usually get moved to the kitchen counter. So he’s nestled up with them, clutching them tight and sure enough the damn things were on the counter in the morning. Someone’s keys had been moved too. I’m not a firm believer in anything like that - I’m still skeptical myself. I can sleep through an earthquake, so I didn’t see or hear anything. The whole thing was weird, but not as crazy as it sound. Well, maybe to them [laughs].
Nick: Black Skies spends a lot of time on the road. Was that the original intention of the band, to be primarily a live act?
Kevin: Michelle had never really played in a band that did that before. I had played in a band where we’d toured a bit. None of those things were taking off or doing anything more than regional shows or up the coast for a few dates. We hadn’t been playing as much as I wanted to be doing. I quite everything musically and focused just on this band. It’s really easy for people to do things locally and regionally and not put more effort into it than that. We spend 40 to 50 hours a week on day jobs and another 40 to 50 in a band it’s a ton of work but it pays off. We try to expand every time, to go to places we’ve never been before. This does it for the U.S. I guess next it’s Canada, then Europe.
Nick: You played South by Southwest this year. How was that?
Kevin: It was our first time and we went with our friends in Colossus. We went down representing a label in Chapel Hill that we’re not really involved with, but liked us enough to ask us to go which was a cool thing. We did a week of shows on the way down there and one on the way back. I’ve done CMJ and Cam has down South by Southwest and CMJ before and…he’s sitting right here so he’ll correct me if he doesn’t agree, but I think he will…the first few years of those festivals were tremendous, there was something special about them. Now when you have a festival that’s supposed to be getting exposure for bands and you have Metallica playing to prop up a video game, to me that’s just asshole-ish. Nothing against them - I think it’d be cool to see them playing in a different format. We’re thankful for the exposure, but I’m not sure we’ll do it again next year. I’d rather spend time doing our own stuff. It was cool to see the Flower Travelin’ Band though. I work in a venue and we tour a lot, so I get to see a lot of music, but they were amazing. I have a dream now to open a bar in Austin called “No Fucking Bands.” Just a bar you can go into and drink. There’s so much music there it’s tiring. No Fucking Bands - it’d be cool to hang out and not have your ears bleed.
Nick: I wanted to pick up on something from earlier. How did you get in touch with Karim?
Kevin: It was the beauty of MySpace actually. He just randomly sent us a message and we didn’t know if he was full of shit - he just said hey I have I put out vinyl releases in Pittsburgh. It’s one of our favorite places to play so we thought okay. He wanted to put out a split with Power Pellet and us, which was the initial plan. We were skeptical - it seemed too good to be true. He’s been great, very supportive and helpful. He’s in Chicago now, but flew out to Pittsburgh and rode with us for shows back home.
Nick: You performed for a Slow Southern Steel show, correct? How did that come about?
Kevin: I think it was a thing that he and CT had talked about and figured out some bands they wanted to use in each town. They asked if we’d be interested, and obviously we’d be happy to get any kind of exposure at this point. We played in a place in Wilmington, North Carolina with Colossus, Black Tusk, and ASG. They were all awesome. The Southern things, I have mixed feelings about that personally. It’s what they going for though, so we were on board. Once the overall concept is fleshed out it’s going to be awesome.
Nick: Why the mixed feelings?
Kevin: I wasn’t born in the South. I was raised in a military family and moved around a lot, but I’ve lived here for a long time now. I think for some people there’s a weird glorification of the South I don’t find very attractive - the rebel flag and Southern pride thing I find a little short-sighted. There’s a lot of negativity associated with a lot of that stuff and even the imagery. I just don’t think it’s wise, like going to Israel and sporting a swastika, in my opinion it’s not in good taste. Some things just need to go away and a lot of that is still very alive in parts of the south, but that’s just a personal view point. Being defined musically by where you’re located is kind of a strange concept. I honestly feel like we’d sound the same wherever we were.
Nick: Who would you say are your musical allies?
Kevin: Caltrop. They’re people we really get along and love to play with. They have a similar approach and mentality to what we do. There are other bands that are slightly more successful than us that I feel inspired by bands like Big Business. Just cool, very down to earth music.
Nick: So what are Black Skies goals?
Kevin: The overall goals is just touring and doing what want to do musically, constantly making new music and challenging ourselves. We’d obviously love to not have 40 hour a week jobs on top of touring. We put all this energy into caring for the band and would like it to eventually take care of us.
Nick: So you’ve conquered the U.S. What’s next?
Kevin: Canada! That’s how we approach things, geographically and musically. The live show has grown and I’m adding more pedals and running two amplifiers to make it sound like two guitars. We liked how Hexagon turned out and think we can do more next time. One thing we need to do is spend more time and not rush things.
