Kevin Welch and Austin
have always been a good mix. Despite Welch’s continued residency in
the Evil Empire (that being Nashville),
Austinites have always sensed that he was the exception to the rule – no matter
where he may live, he’s a country music maverick, a square peg in the round
commercial world. We like those kind of people here. Town’s crawling with ’em.
So Welch’s sizable fanclub here will be pleased to know that he’s gone one
step further and finally made a solid break from the establishment. No, he
isn’t moving to Austin (sorry to get your hopes up, although he has strongly
contemplated relocating here), but he’s done something even more rebellious –
he’s formed his own
record label. Welch has joined fellow “alternative
country” types Harry Stinson, Kieran Kane (formerly of the O’Kanes), Tammy
Rogers, and Mike Henderson (the latter two formerly of Welch’s Overtones) to
form the cooperatively run Dead Reckoning label which, according to Welch, has
had everything go right since its inception earlier this year.
“January 1 was the downbeat for the label,” says Welch, “and as soon as we all
said, `yes,’ collectively, it was just like magic stuff started happening. One
of us would say `Boy, I wish we had a such-and-such,’ and right then the phone
would ring, and there’d be somebody on there going `Hey man, I’ve got one of
these such-and-suches that I don’t really need, do you guys have any use for
it?’ It just got to the point where these things were happening so often that
it got to be almost a running joke. We’d wish for something and the doorbell
would ring.
“It’s pretty much been like that ever since,” Welch continues. “We’ve been
hard at it and it’s been going a lot faster than we dreamed it would. Kieran
right now has the number-one country record in the U.K., and my record’s number
three on [the Gavin Report‘s] Americana charts. The Americana chart
[aimed at those hard-to-classify rootsy types] is a small and relatively new
format, but one I love.”
“My record” is Welch’s new Life Down Here on Earth, his third album,
and the first since leaving the corporate giant Warner Bros. label Reprise.
Despite his newfound label independence, this new disc doesn’t really offer any
changes from previous works – meaning it’s his usual great collection of
well-written songs, surrounded by extremely skilled sidemen. As always, Welch
takes country onto an intellectual plane, exhibiting a Joe Ely-ish zest for
life and a Gram Parsons-like high and lonesome. It’s an impressive first
American release for the fledgling label, and it will probably satisfy Welch’s
goal, which is to just make a decent living writing and singing songs.
“The initial idea [for Dead Reckoning] came from a trip that Kieran Kane and I
made to Norway,” says Welch. “I had already played in Norway a couple of times
and had a pretty good idea of what was going on over there for people like us.
Kieran hadn’t been to Norway for a long time, and it was a real eye-opener for
him. When you operate in a Top 40 world, in Nashville or anywhere else, if your
records don’t meet commercial needs right at that moment, you’re sort of
encouraged to feel like it’s not a good record and people don’t like it, when
in fact there could be any number of industrial aspects that actually slowed
the record down.
“He had just been dropped by Atlantic after a short time, and he had a really
cool record that they couldn’t get happening on country radio. I think he got
over there and saw he had fans all over Europe and realized he could just come
home and make a simple little record, and, if nothing else, just sell it in
Norway. You know, not with the idea of making a lot of dough, but just to kind
of keep on making music.”
So far, Dead Reckoning is living up to its press-release billing as a
“cooperative” label. All five partners played on Life Down Here on
Earth, and Welch co-produced it with Stinson; and on September 7, the
Continental Club will host “A Night of Reckoning,” a label showcase featuring
all the labelmates as a complete band – Henderson plays guitar, Rogers fiddle,
Kane, mandolin and Stinson drums, augmented by bassist Glenn Worf. Not many
labels can put their entire roster on stage and have them play as a unit.
“People never understand what this is we do until we get down there and set
up,” Welch says. “It rocks. It’s not like a sit-down, singer-songwriter,
pass-the-guitar-around night at all. It’s a show; we feature each other
throughout the night.”
Welch has been exercising his Austin connections a lot lately; not
long ago, he appeared at one of Shady Grove’s acoustic music nights, and lately
he’s been engaging in musical collaborations with Austinites. Following his
duet with Kelly Willis on her latest, self-titled album (on which she used his
band), he helped Asleep at the Wheel drummer David Sanger on the Songs of
Route 66 collection that he compiled.
Sanger had heard Welch’s version
of Alan Rhody’s “The Mother Road” (on Welch’s Western Beat) and, rather
than negotiate with Warner Bros. over the rights to it, Welch introduced him to
Rhody’s original version. Welch then added his own contribution, a cover of
Woody Guthrie’s “Willy Rogers Highway.”
Also, Jimmy Lafave fans will notice a most unusual “co-writing” effort between
the two fellow Okies on Lafave’s new Buffalo Return to the Plains (on
Bohemia Beat). Welch originally wrote a new tune titled “Kicking Back in
Amsterdam” for Life Down Here on Earth, which Lafave covers on his own
album – sort of. The first four lines are roughly the same, but then Lafave
completely rewrites the rest of the song and much of the music, and changes the
title to just “Amsterdam.” It was an extreme artistic license taken with
Welch’s blessing.
“Lafave was really liking the song, but he wanted to try to find a different
feel for it. I suggested that he customize the lyrics to suit him, because
there’s talk in the song about coming back home to Tennessee and stuff like
that in there that just doesn’t apply to him. So I said, `Look, I’ll have my
version and you go re-write it and yours will be our Welch/Lafave cowrite.'” As
for the vacation to the notoriously liberal city that inspired the song, Welch
commented, “Man, that town completely rocks.”
Despite Welch’s decision to leave the majors behind, his experience with
Warner/Reprise was much more pleasant than most artists of his ilk can claim.
“I think I experienced both extremes,” he says. “Warner Bros. Nashville is
actually a good collection of people, a lot of musicians work there. For better
or for worse, I can stand by those records [1990’s Kevin Welch and the
aforementioned Western Beat of 1992]; those are the records I wanted to
make. I had no interference.” As for promotion, “It was like trying to tighten
bolts with a screwdriver. They did the best they could with what they had to
work with.
“On the other hand, there were moments of supreme frustration. I was scheduled
to go on the Tonight Show one time, and they [Warner Bros.] didn’t want
me to go on. They said they saw no reason for me to go on, because I had no
singles on the country charts at that time. So, I wound up paying out of my own
pocket, airfares for everybody to go out and do this. We got out there and
we’re leaving the hotel to go to down to the studio and one of the guys from
Warner Bros. Nashville comes walking through the hotel lobby and says, `Oh,
what are you guys doing here?’ We said, `Well, we’re here to do the Tonight
Show.’ There were moments of madness, times when I said `Well, if these
people don’t want to help, that’s fine, but I don’t want them to slow me
down.’
“But generally speaking, except for those kind of extreme times, there was a
lot of support down there, and I left there feeling real good about them. When
[Warner president] Jim Ed Norman cut me loose, he was doing me a favor, and he
knew that, and I knew that, and he didn’t have to do it. They had already
picked up an option for a third record. Had I done that third record, he said
that they were going to have to `get involved.’ But when he finally called me
up he said he felt it would be `dishonorable’ for them to hold me to that. So,
when I left there, I left feeling pretty proud of what he had done.”
Would Welch consider returning to the majors? “I don’t know,” he says. “I’m
having so much fun right now it’s the last thing on my mind.” n
This article appears in August 25 • 1995 and August 25 • 1995 (Cover).