Back in the “good ole days” of rock-n-roll’s golden era (the 1960s and 1970s) bands constantly went into houses, worked on their projects and recorded them in those very same houses, creating some unique sounding records that would sound different from everything else in those band's catalogs. As time wore on, bands stopped doing this that much to the point where it’s now quite rare, even moreso for country bands. To be honest, Kyle Park hadn’t even thought of the past when he and his band decided to try their hand at something different for his fifth studio album since breaking out a decade ago.
“I didn’t even know that when I brought the idea up to the engineer of the project,” said Kyle. “It was experimental and we cut 19 songs when I didn’t know if we’d cut more than one. It was fun so we figured ‘why not?’”
Working with his core band the songs featured on The Blue Roof Sessions were mainly conceived of and created by Kyle Park and his band the very way they’d be played live the records live, recorded in the house with his five-piece band as he often doesn’t have fiddle and steel guitars on his records.
“It’s definitely different for me and It’s not like I’m trying to reinvent myself or anything like that,” said Kyle Park. “I just wanted to try to make a record that sounded like the songs I was writing and a record that could be played live every night.”
The Texas-born artist is simply at a place where experimentation and playful recording of his music was what was required for this album cycle, a step that was meant to keep things fresh with him saying that he “thought it was fun to branch out a bit,” writing songs that were based around his touring band, a traditional five-piece touring band (acoustic and electric guitars, bass, drums, keys) We can play every song on this record in a live setting.
“We sound a lot like this record,” Kyle Park says of The Blue Roof Sessions. “here’s no hidden tracks or no need to have extra musicians…this is us. This is what we do live.”
But with a release like this, after for records which featured the cowboy hat wearing’ Texan evolving his sound with each release, Kyle is quick to point out that he’s still very much a country singer, even if his record sounds rockin’ (not unlike the catalog of two artist he grew up admiring, Chris LeDoux and Clint Black).
“I’m not changing my style or sound,” Kyle tells RoughStock. “I made this record for fun (like I make all records). (Everyone) changes all the time but this record isn’t ‘the new me’ or a ‘rebranding.’ This is what I’m doing now. The next record I make might be a traditional country music record.”
Knowing how passionate Kyle Park is for traditional country music as a fan first and as an artist with the catalog he has, I wouldn’t put it past him to do just that. But for now, in this moment, we have The Blue Roof Sessions. The record is fun, it’s experimental and most of all, the record is exactly the kind of project Kyle Park needed to make and is a great example of what you can expect if you were to see Kyle Park and his band in concert.
You can buy The Blue Roof Sessions at Apple Music (iTunes) or at Amazon.
0 Comments