An Interview With Kevin Kane
January 17, 1990

The Grapes of Wrath inserted San Antonio into their Now And Again tour in January of 1990 between Houston and Austin. At the time, I was the Program Director at my college station, KSYM, at San Antonio College. Our Music Director, Mickie Tencza, had managed to arrange for the guys to come into the studio for an on-air interview on the day of their show. An hour or so before the interview was to take place, we were told that there was to be a change of plans and that it would have to take place at the venue that night. It was kind of a surprise because I thought that they would want to pump the show beforehand. Regardless, Mickie packed her tape recorder and she and I met Kevin in the Grapes' motorhome outside the venue that night. The two of them sat at the table with what must have been a five watt bulb as the only light over their heads. In front of them on the table were a vinyl copy of "September Bowl of Green", and CD copies of "Treehouse" and "Now and Again". The Capitol rep (whose name I forget, sorry...) and I sat on the other side of the motorhome in the dark. It was a very intimate setting. Once we got settled, Mickie turned on the tape and went to work... MT: The last time you were here was two years ago KK: Yeah MT: And since then, you've added a new person in the band playing keyboards, Vincent Jones. KK: Well, he was with us last time we were here. But, he wasn't a member of the band and, um, he was just being paid to play with us; to augment our sound live 'cause we had, on Treehouse, we had quite a bit of keyboards on that. But he became a member about June of '88 MT: And he takes full credit on the album? KK: Yeah, he's like a full member now. MT: And the new album is entitled "Now and Again" KK: Yeah. MT: Did he help write any of the songs on the new album? KK: Well, it's sort of a colaborative effort. I mean, our songwriting process has changed from album to album, but the group does work collectively on the songs as such. The way we used to write is, the songs used to come out of jam sessions. Every song on this (points to "September Bowl of Green" LP on the table) came purely out of jamming, but we had more time to jam. Now we're on tour all the time, so essentially, Tom or I will bring in a basic song idea with melodies and chord changes and stuff and we'll just start jamming on it. Sometimes it really changes shape, sometimes is goes in a different direction as a result of that or sometimes, you know, it stays the same like some of the acoustic numbers stay pretty much the same. MT: So the albums that came from jamming was the first one, "September Bowl of Green"... KK: About over half of Treehouse was written that same way. It was just basically with the newest record that we had to kinda adopt that writing style. MT: Because the touring schedule got to be so hectic? KK: Yeah, because on Treehouse, we ended up doing about 140 dates in support of that. That didn't leave a whole lot of time to just sort of get together and jam because you don't even want to after 140 dates, you don't really care about jamming. You'd rather get down and get something constructive. So we ended up writing nine songs... We took about a month and a half off and we ended up writing nine of the songs for the album over about a five week period. That includes demo'ing them. MT: The new album, Now and Again... I was listening to it this morning and to me, it just seems a lot more acoustic. It seems like you get more progressively acoustic each album. KK: Yeah, I don't know. I don't think so because on this album (pointing at SBOG), to me, this album is all acoustic because I remember I didn't own an electric guitar that would stay in tune so I borrowed one for one of the tracks. To me, on this (picks up SBOG cover and flips it over) "A Dream" is an electric song, "Didn't You Say Something" is electric, "Realistic Birds" is electric, "Self-Abuse" is electric. The rest of the songs are acoustic. MT: Even songs like "Misunderstanding"; it's played with an acoustic guitar, but it's got a real heavy drum beat in it. Well, not REAL heavy drum beat... KK: Well, the drums are louder. On 'Now And Again', especially when we play the songs live, to me it's a more electric album and that's just sorta the direction that I've been going with guitar. Since this album (points at SBOG) where I didn't have a guitar that would stay in tune, I've gotten several guitars - some of which will stay in tune. I've gotten more into electric guitar. (Points at 'Now and Again' CD) This is a really more layered record, too, in that there is a lot more guitar on this record, period, than on this (points at SBOG). There is a lot more electric guitar happening than acoustic guitar, just from the recording aspect of it. It also has to do with the way this album (NAA) was mixed compared to this one (SBOG). This one, I think, has a harder sound to it because the drums are louder and things like that. This one (NAA) is more textural. MT: Do you still do any off of 'September Bowl of Green'? KK: Yeah, like tonight we'll do "Misunderstanding", "Breaks My Heart", and "And I Know". We've sort of... (laughs) I don't know, some of these songs we stopped doing a long time ago. "Love Comes Around"; we hate that song. I just... I can't stand it. "Self-Abuse"; we stopped doing that song pretty soon after the album was released, "Umbrella"; same thing. "Realistic Birds"; we just stopped doing it because we had too many sorta slower-paced songs and when we were playing bars, it was really hard to do songs like that live. That's one that I always liked playing. That's my favorite song off this album (SBOG). MT: "Realistic Birds"? KK: Yeah. MT: I saw you last October at the CMJ convention. KK: Oh! In New York, yeah. You didn't see us here, did you? Playing for six people? We had six paying last time we played here. (laughs) MT: Yeah, I was there. I was at the Austin show and this show. KK: Scary times. MT: Unfortunately, I wasn't one of the paying people. KK: Yeah, well, we weren't one of the paid people that night, either. The owner sorta skipped out on us. MT: That's right! I was talking to Chris after the show for about an hour and he told us about that. KK: Yeah, well... I guess that guy's not around town anymore, is he? MT: Naw, the club's closed down and that guy's gone. KK: Too bad. MT: (laughs) I do remember that. So your show, it contains mostly songs from 'Treehouse' and 'Now And Again'; mostly from 'Now And Again'. KK: Yeah, we do do a lot of 'Now And Again'. For us, those songs are the most fun to play. They're fresher. We all think they're much better songs, too. We're just more interested and excited by the songs in every aspect. That's got a lot to do with it. MT: The one I like the most from 'Now And Again' is "The Most". Was "What Was Going Through My Head" the single or was it "Do You Want To Tell Me"? KK: The first single was "Do You Want To Tell Me" and now they've released as a radio single "Stay" and "All The Things I Wasn't" is going to be a radio single as well for Adult Contemporary radio because up in Canada, that was the first single and we had sort of an odd video to go with it. It was like a single camera shot through the whole video. The video worked out really well and the song went like top twenty on - you know, like mainstream charts. So, we're kinda saying "Well, c'mon maybe this thing will happen if it gets released here". We'll see. MT: Are you having any success with this album here in the states? KK: Um, I guess, I don't know. A little bit; it's pretty hard to tell. We've always had trouble where, for some reason, we've never gotten on a good backup or we haven't had any reviews in any major magazines. But then, that's the same in Canada; we've never had a really good backup or we've never gotten any reviews in any major magazines or anything. Just through touring, we end up working up to a certain level - and also through radio support. I think radio down here, I think, are less regulated than up in Canada, but in a lot of ways they're more timid about things... MT: Definitely. KK: ...Except for certain stations. Up in Canada, a lot of the more sort of alternative acts have kinda broken through commercially, at least, before they have that kind of success down here. MT: So, you find that your biggest support comes through college radio? KK: I guess so, down here... Umm, yeah. I suppose so. We're kind of in an odd middle ground where what we do isn't underground. I mean, we're not like Raitman or something like that or the Butthole Surfers. But, at the same time, we're definitely not like Paula Abdul or anything like that. I think what we play sounds to me anyway, like on the new album, like the kind of music that would have been played on the radio, oh maybe 1976 or something. 'Cause, we're... I think, soundwise, if it compares to anything, it would be stuff like earlier Tom Petty records and things like that. So, yeah, it's kind of an odd position to be in. MT: I was reading today in Hits Magazine that you were supposed to be touring with the Smithereens? KK: Oh... Well, wouldn't that be nice? (laughs) I'd love to be on that tour. MT: I read that Capitol has the Grapes of Wrath out on tour with the Smithereens and you're not even playing together tonight, so I was wondering... KK: Well, Capitol hasn't gotten us on tour with A bands. They don't really do that. It's more up to our agent and our agent hasn't been able to get us any tours, you know. We applied for a lot... It would have been nice to get on the Nancy Griffith tour. That's one we would have loved to have gotten on. MT: So now you're just basically playing on your own with somebody else opening up? KK: Well, yeah, I don't know if there's going to be a band opening up tonight. MT: It's the Infidels, isn't it? (Capitol rep shakes head no) KK: Yeah, because we're not going to play if they're going to have an opening band. You know, because that club's just too small and we almost blew off the show and thought, "Well, fuck it. We're here, we should do it." But it's like... We would have to move all of our gear to accomodate another band and the crew has basically laid down the ultimatum and said they're not going to move anything. So, if the opening band can't work around our setup, then it's up to the club owner; he can call what he wants to do. We go through a lot of these shows where we get paid - the money we get paid doesn't even cover hotel costs. We're down here to promote a record and we're getting gigs wherever we can, but we're also losing a lot of money to do it and we're not gonna work our asses off just to accomodate situations that shouldn't happen anyway. In terms of the production stuff like that, our sound man said that he didn't get any of the things that we require like we got one monitor mix and we require four. MT: You each have your own monitor on the stage? KK: Yeah, you know, things like that, so that would be the last straw; we're not going to move any gear because there's nowhere to put it. There's no wings. Our stage tech has to sit in our dressing room and tune guitars and he can't see if I break a string. I'll have to yell his name out into the mic and then he'll walk from his room out onto the stage with a new guitar. It's like...not the kind of situation we like to be in. It's kind of an odd sort of thing, but we'll see what happens. MT: I've only been to this club once and it drew a lot of people. KK: Oh, I think it could be a lot of fun and stuff like that... We want to do the show, but then again... MT: It gets so aggrevating, too. KK: Sometimes it gets silly. We were playing the midwest; places like Kansas City and such, and we were getting paid $150 bucks a night and that doesn't even cover the hotel room. It's just like...insane. We do have three records out on a major label, I would think that that would amount to something. And it just gets really frustrating to come down here and be paid what we would pay backup bands up in Canada. That's what we would pay a band that would back us up: $150 bucks, and here we are, you know, wondering what the hell we're doing (laughs). But then, last night went great; last night was wonderful. MT: Are you playing in Austin at all? KK: Tomorrow night, yeah. MT: Where at? KK: The Cactus... (Capitol Rep): Sold out show at the Cactus Cafe. KK: So, you know, things like that make it worthwhile. MT: That's about all I have right now... KK: I could tell you about what we have coming up... MT: Alright... KK: Well, so far in the states, we did a tour of the west coast for a couple of weeks. The highlight of which was backing up the Buzzcocks in San Francisco. That's a, uh... That's a real match. MT: (laughs) KK: No, it was pretty fun, an off-beat kind of show. Um, and... What else did we do? Well, you saw us at CMJ in New York. We did that show in Philadelphia with Billy Bragg; we did a show in Baltimore with Winter Hours. And now we're doing this tour which takes us from basically Minneapolis, Chicago, through the midwest, down through the south and we're heading west and then back up north. Then after that, we're off to Europe in March. This album's coming out in every country in Europe which...is kinda neat. It's also coming out in Japan and I think it's going to be out in Australia, too, so... MT: Were the other ones out in Europe or Japan? KK: Treehouse came out in Scandinavia. They were the only country that was really into it. And Germany was going to release it, but they kinda got... We said we said, "Well, we aren't going to tour" because we came down - we toured the states for 14 weeks straight. That's like when you saw us. You saw us early in the tour. Things got to be really rough because, basically... We had some really good shows, but at least half the shows were show like you saw where we played to like 30 people, 40 people sometimes... MT: Six (laughs) KK: Six in San Antonio. It just got... It just wore us down and by the end of the tour we just packed it in and said, you know, we can't deal with this. If we stay on the road, we're not gonna play good. We're going to get burned out and we're going to break up because we can't keep going like that; playing many small crowds and stuff like that. So we decided to take some time off to kind of recover, which is definitely a smart thing to do. I think Europe could be interesting because the English company is going to treat us like a potential mainstream band, so that's a good thing. Instead of treating us like a cult band and deciding already that the average person won't like us they'll treat us like everyone should like us so that'll be interesting. Maybe if we get our faces on the cover of one of those English magazines, we can be like the Pixies and come back home and be a big band by way of England (laughs). That's the funny thing; if they hadn't gone to England, they wouldn't be nearly where they are. I think they make great records and stuff, but because they got that stamp of 'genius' in England, then when they came back to the U.S., it really makes people notice you a lot more. Wouldn't that be nice? (laughs) MT: Yeah, it would. So when you go to Europe, you'll basically do England, Germany and then... KK: Well, we're going to Spain, I know that. And to Germany. I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to hang around after the tour because after that, we're going to get a couple weeks off at least; probably a month, so I'm going to stay over there and just hang out. MT: That's really cool... KK: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it a lot. Other than that, I don't know if we're going to head back into the U.S. again after this. It depends if something starts happening with the record because it got some promotional things - indie promoters kicking in on the record in February. We're going to start going into Adult Contemporary radio. We'll see what happens with that because it's not such an evil thing, really. Hey, whoever plays us... MT: Radio play is radio play... KK: Yeah, exactly. MT: It gets you to the audience (Of course, I had to jump in): It'd be a little more remarkable in America, too, because... I work for an AC station here in San Antonio and I see stuff that gets put in and it's like, you know, if someone's brave enough to try a new band that nobody's possibly ever heard, it's just that much better. If you impress the person that's in charge of that enough, maybe he'll take a chance. KK: I've heard different things, though. I've heard people say, 'Oh, AC in the U.S. is so reserved.' Up in Canada, it's more on the cutting edge than FM is. AC was playing Crowded House, us, Edie Brickell, Tracy Chapman, people like that before any other format picked up on it. I don't know if it's the same down here, but up in Canada, that's sort of where things, in our sort of kinda of music, the more folkier things would hit first and then it catches on in the mainstream. And then the last one to come around is always AM radio. That's why our first single had a lifespan of four and a half months in Canada, because every format picked up on it differently. It got a lot of play and if they'd all picked up on it at the same time, we might have had a top ten hit. It's like, they picked up on it at different times so there was all this lurching around. It got as high as number twenty, twenty-one, something like that, like the lower twenties. It kinda stalled there and jerked around for four months and then went back into the fifties and then back into the thirties again. When all... Unless you're that kinda big star, where everybody jumps on you at the same time, someone like Madonna, I guess, where everybody picks up on it at the same time, that's how you have the impact. If you don't have that kind of impact, you can... Still, a lot of people will hear you. That was the same way with "Peace of Mind", off of Treehouse... In Canada, people thought it was a bigger song than it actually was. It never charted high than, I think, number 40 or number 38. But, because it kinda lingered around the radio for about almost six months, a lot of people ended up hearing it without it being a hit. MT: Which songs have you done videos for? I know you've done one for "Misunder- standing". That was a long time ago. KK: Yeah, $640 dollars... MT: I remember seeing that like in '86.... KK: That is a terrible, terrible video. But then, you know, for $640 bucks, it definitely opened a lot of doors for us in that respect. MT: I remember that's the first time I heard it and I really get into the song... KK: Oh... (off-handedly) Yeah, well... MT: And I saw one for "Do You Want To Tell Me"... KK: Yeah, we've done that. We did one for "A Dream", we did one for "Peace of Mind", "Lucky Man", "Backward Town"... That was the first one we directed ourselves and up til that point, that was the best one... And we did a video for "All The Things I Wasn't" which turned out really good. We're really happy with that one. And we've just done a new video that just got released in Canada for "What Was Going Through My Head". MT: So do you get heavy play on 120 Minutes? KK: I guess so, yeah. That's what I hear; that we've gotten play on that and uh... The video promotions fellow at Capitol in L.A. said that, even though we didn't get VH1 or MTV, we got most of the big syndicated shows. Things like Request Video in southern California and stuff. MT: Night Rock or... Friday Night Videos? KK: Naw, that's really mainstream. MT: ...or Night Tracks... KK: Night Tracks, yeah, we got that. But, Friday Night Videos is like a network show, so... (Me again): Paula Abdul... KK: Yeah, very Paula Abdul. (Laughs) KK: But we got these regional shows and we ended up getting into, in terms of households we were reaching, it was over one hundred million. So, we were reaching as many people as we would if we were on MTV but, there again, you lack the impact. Unless you get on the big one... MT: Why, because it's so scattered? KK: Yeah, well, so a lot of people see it, but unless you get 'the big one', it doesn't have the same impact. So, it's a weird thing. MT: Sounds like you're getting closer, though. KK: Oh, yeah, we're getting closer. We've had tastes... We've had nibbles at the carrot, but... Still a ways to go, for sure. It remains to be seen what's going to happen with this record because that's why we tour. The record's been out for six months, but it isn't that it's selling better now than it was, like, four months ago when the video was getting play. To a large extent, because we're touring, that helps raise consciousness about us, but... One of the schemes that Capitol did was - they a big mail-out to stores again with our record because they found that through in-store play, we have a really high rate of people coming up and saying "What is that?" and buying it because the of in-store play. So they've gone for a real in-store campaign. MT: I know how that works; I used to work in a record store. (Capitol Rep): That's how Crowded House broke. KK: Yeah. I think they're taking the same sort of approach because I think it's the kind of thing where... I've done that; I've bought records I heard in the store. I go, "Wow, what is this?" and just kinda bought it. So, I think that's the game plan. MT: I hope everything works out for you guys. KK: Yeah, me too. MT: Hope you get a bigger bite of that carrot. (laughs) KK: Yeah, well, we'll keep trying... I'd like to make it out east, but I don't know if we'll do that. Like I say, we can only afford to lose so much money. So, I hope people come out and see us tonight. (laughs) MT: So do I... in fact, (points at me) he was out at the record store today and the people in the record store were talking about the show. KK: Oh, cool! (me): Yeah, they go, "Are you going to that show tonight?" "Yeah, as a matter of fact, we're trying to get them on the radio today." "Cool!" KK: Cool! Cool... The midwest was sorta hard, too, because college wasn't in session when we were there. MT: Where did you play when you were in Kansas City? KK: A place called The Shadow. MT: Don't know that one... KK: It used to be called London's and it's like that real sorta disco crowd, like um, "Pump Up the Volume" and stuff like that. The people - we were playing and there were some Grapes of Wrath fans there getting into it, flopping around in their tie-dye and all that. (laughs) KK: There were these people, though, that were just like, standing there... They had a loud PA in there so we were pretty loud in spite of them and these people were like out of an Archie comic with the V-neck sweaters and stuff, all standing around with perfectly groomed hair. They were all like Michael J. Fox on "Family Ties". It was... Man... I don't know why anyone would want to be like that when they're 21 years old. You've got the rest of your life to wear a suit... You're gonna HAVE to dress like that at one stage... I guess it's a state of mind. MT: The last time you guys played in Austin, you played in the Backroom which is, like a metal club. (me): It's like a biker bar... KK: Yeah, we got booked into some questionable venues last time. It was the same in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; we played this heavy metal bar and everybody was saying, "What the hell are you doing there?", "It's not going to work, blah blah blah...". So we got about, again, three of our fans and there were about, oh, about 150 heavy metal people. But it was interesting because they would react in an interesting way. We played first; they were supposed to back us up, the heavy metal host band. We just said, "Look, we'll just play first, pack up our gear, and we'll be outta here." MT: ..and get on out. KK: Yeah... (me): Take the money and run... KK: So, we did that... Yeah, that's the thing, they paid good, though... They pay a lot better than places like this do. But, you know, it's hard because if you want to play the hip place, you're basically paying to play there. You're not coming close to breaking even. It was still pretty funny because of the rock crowd that was there, about a third of them visibly hated us. A third of them were kind of indifferent and about a third of them actually got into it. You would have these metal maidens out there with the little socks with the lace around the cuff and stuff like that out there dancing to us and actually going, "This is pretty good..." and some of them would come up and talk to us after, so it was fun for that... (Laughs) KK: Well, you know, it showed that just because people are into rock, it doesn't mean that they're close-minded. I find that a lot of those people are more open-minded than some of the sort of alternative types because... Man, you get some bad attitude from some people; it's just stupid. MT: Yeah, because I work in a heavy metal club and people are like, "Well, if you listen to THAT, you can't possibly be alternative..." KK: Yeah... People get taken pretty aback by what we listen to. You have these little girls who are totally into the Cure and stuff like that and they find out whenever they see us in a record store buying a Lynyrd Skynyrd album or something... (Laughs) KK: I missed out on all that seventies rock totally because we're from a small town, so I basically went from sixties stuff that I heard through my dad; stuff like Simon and Garfunkel, the Beatles and all that... I went straight from that into punk with no sort of in-between. Now I'm starting to discover stuff like, you know... Blue Oyster Cult. I had never heard them before. Then I remember the first time I heard "Don't Fear The Reaper", it was like, two years ago and I went, "Wow, what a cool song!" (Laughs) KK: So it was kinda fresh for me, all that stuff. I still don't like Meatloaf or Supertramp. I've got a more open mind about some stuff. (me): As long as you try it, it's easy to close that door. It's like, why don't you try it first and see... KK: Well, you know, you have to educate yourself in general. I think that applies to just life, right? You have to be open-minded, you can't just go along and write things off. It's like, whatever... It's the whole Spin Magazine attitude; trying to figure out if you're allowed to like something... Well, Spin - not so much Spin, but there are certain college papers, like the one in Vancouver, this magazine called Discorder, it's the radio station thing and it's gotten really confused because they actually - the people who write columns, "I don't know if I'm supposed to like this?", you know? "I don't know if this is a hip joke or if it's just really shitty, I can't tell." They have to figure out their position on a song before they can listen to it. So, it just gets really stupid. (me): Over-analyzation KK: Exactly. I like playing for um... Like some of the heavy metal clubs are fun. We played these two bars; the second one I was telling you about wasn't as much fun as the first one. We played with this Christian metal band that had - They're called L.O.U.D. - Love Over Universal Distruction - We played with them in Baton Rouge and they were from Oklahoma. They had, instead of guitar cabinets, they had this collapseable wall built with speakers installed in it so it looked like a wall of speakers, right? Well, that's what it was... And they were so incredibly loud and they were so slick. The drummer had the Tommy Lee style hair; just huge, and he had hidden in his hair, one of those little wireless mics and a headset but you couldn't see it because he had so much hair... You couldn't see the line and he did his hair up around it and you couldn't see the headset! I thought it was brilliant. They all four sang, like, amazingly. They did this one part of a song where it was acapella and sounded like Stryper sounds on record. It was just like incredible! And they were all really nice. Then we went up and played after them and the crowd liked us as well - the rock crowd - so it was a lot of fun. When you go into something expecting it, it can be a little difficult and it is and People are actually coming up to you saying, "Hey, that was pretty good! What are you called again?" MT: It's a good feeling. KK: Yeah, it's pleasant. It's a lot better than going to a place where people are kinda stroking their chins and like, "Hmmm... I still don't know if I'm supposed to like them..." People aren't reacting to the music, they're reacting to... MT: ..the hype. KK: Well, they're reacting also to everything extraneous. It's like if you have to wonder that, then you're reacting to everything BUT the music. Then again, I think it's better for us to be playing the hipper rooms, for sure. Because... You go to those places and a lot of times, they just don't... y'know, people judge and then they don't go to the room because they hate the room... That's - a lot of the time - what happens because people are afraid of going there and getting beaten up by a bunch of bikers, so... MT: Yeah, I know. I know how that goes around here. (me): Like when we were playing pool before the show in Austin that one time. There was just like... KK: Oh, yeah! I went next door, actually, to play pool and I just went, "No." and came back. We just sat on... The dressing was like this shed out back... MT: Yeah, I've been in that dressing room back there... KK: (sighing) Ho... That was weird. Well, this place is supposed to be a lot nicer, that's what I hear. MT: The Cactus Club? KK: Yeah. MT: I've never been there. KK: That's what I heard from the Reivers. They said it was a pretty cool place. I don't think they play there; I think they play the Liberty Lunch, don't they? (Capitol rep): Yeah. (me): Everybody plays the Lunch at one time or another. KK: Yeah, I'm kinda surprised we didn't get booked in there. MT: Yeah, because that's where I thought you guys would be playing. KK: I'm sure this will be fine. MT: Well, thank you very much for talking to us. KK: Oh, no problem. Hope I don't sound too bitter (laughs). (me): Well, less bitter than the last time. (laughs) KK: (smiling) Yeah, yeah, well, we went through a difficult week in the midwest and we're just starting to get our heads back together. Last night went really well. The club treated us well and the crowd was really good. It was the best... Our first show in Minneapolis, we were really - sorta blown away because we played 7th Street Entry, which is this little room. It's like a side room to First Avenue, which is where Prince did Purple Rain and stuff. We go in to play and the room was completely jammed, like, you couldn't life your arms up. We were just like, "Wow!" (laughs) "Oh, boy!" That shows what radio play will do. That's one of the few cities where we got, like, major radio play. So, it definitely makes a big difference. We also did - we went to the (undecipherable) and did acoustic sets and stuff like that. MT: Where did - On this promo tape we have, you did an acoustic version of "Backward Town". KK: Yeah, that was done for CBC radio. In Canada, they have this show called "Brave New Waves". It runs from about eleven o'clock at night until about four in the morning. It's a really good show. They have interviews with people and they play all sorts of obscure music and independant bands and they do spotlights and really good bands and they support Canadian acts that they think are good. They don't just support acts because they're Canadian; they have to really like the act. And they've always been real supportive of us, so we did a radio concert for them about - It was almost two years ago. It was right after we did the U.S. tour, we flew into Montreal and did that. Then this summer, they flew someone out to Vancouver to record a bunch of Vancouver bands. They're doing this double-CD set of, basically, every band in Canada that they like. So we got to do a couple of songs for that. The other song we did was "Let Me Roll It" by Paul McCartney and Wings. MT: Was that acoustic also? KK: (laughs) No... MT: I didn't think so. KK: Nah, it's pretty snarly. We do that as an encore sometimes. I was just listening to that today... I think that "Backward Town" would have been really good if my acoustic guitar sounded better, but other than that, it's fine. (laughs) MT: And you did that intro on it. KK: Yeah, that was... Capitol asked me to do that, I don't know why... It's kinda weird. You know, you put on this tape: "Hi! Bluh, bluh, bluh..." (laughs) (Laughs) KK: The last time they asked us to do that; to do a bunch of radio IDs - you can hear a bit of reverb on my voice - Last time we just went overboard on the reverb and I don't think they used any of them. After that, Mickie asked him to do an ID for our station and the conversation pretty much ended there. I'd like to add that I transcribed this interview to help give some fellow GOW fans some insight into what was going on with the band at the time. Greg