Lit – Interview

Lit speaks, this time its Kevin on bass giving hip online his take!

You just hooked up with Kid Rock for an upcoming tour. Have you known him for a while?

We’ve met him, but we’ve never hung out with him. We’ve actually hung out with Pam (Lee) more. Our soundman actually knows some of the guys in his band. He’s the guitar player for Speedball, which is a great underground band from Detroit. But he’s told us the guys are really cool, but he was like ‘don’t hold your breath to hangout with Kid Rock’. Oh well.

How often do you get home to relax?

It’s been weird the last month. We come home for a few days and then take off, but I’d rather go out for a few months and then come back for a few weeks. Its hard.

What do you do to keep busy on tour?

Sit in the hotel room and watch TV. (Laughs) We like to go to the mall. It’s funny because we’ll walk through the mall and kids will freak out like ‘what the hell are you doing here?’ They can’t believe we are walking through a mall.

It’s like they think you live in a bubble.

(Laughs) Exactly. You’ll find us in some weird spots too, like antique shopping. And not for like wicker crap, we are really into cool shit from the ’50’s and ’60’s. We are always out and about looking for a flea market.

Do you ever look for vintage instruments? I’ve been trying to find an old tube guitar amp.

Jeremy has picked up some old pedals. We buy mostly stuff for the house like old Hawaiian collectables and furniture.

Are you into talking about bass?

I like to pick people’s brains about how they got this tone or that and see if I can get it.

How much has making music changed going into Atomic to before being signed?

We’ve all gotten a little older, we’ve gotten better, and our songwriting has gotten way better. Some people may say our first album is the best, but in our minds Atomic is way better than that, way better. I wrote two of the songs, which was something new to me. I’ve arranged before, but this time I actually brought a cd in that I burned at home and the band liked it. That really turned me on.

How stoked were you that your songs made the album?

No one in the band does it for the money and I don’t want to write songs to get publishing money, but to be able to play one of my riffs onstage with a couple of friends who I grew up with is incredible. And more than that when we do interviews and people ask the band what their favorite songs on the album Jeremy will say “Live For This”. That is like a huge compliment for me and Jeremy is the songwriter, I love what he does and I think he is an incredible songwriter. So when he says my song is his favorite it blows me away. I don’t know why he says that. (Laughs) I think he might say that because the way I write a guitar riff is different than the way he does. I think he likes the fact that he can play something he normally wouldn’t play.

What do you like to listen to?

I’m really into All. I love energy music that is what I call it. Stuff that makes me want to get out of bed and get on with my day. When I was a kid I used to listen to Van Halen with David Lee Roth and that was the kind of music that got you out of bed. I listen to everything though from Frank Sinatra to Social Distortion. There isn’t enough time in the day to listen to everything you want to. Like AJ doesn’t bring his old albums on the road with him. He buys new cds and plays them until they are scratched to shit. I listen to new stuff, but I also bring my old cds with me like Def Leppard’s Pyromania or old Kiss.

That is how I am. I have anything from Sinatra to the Beatles to something that just came out. I will play the hell out of a cd if I’m really into it.

I keep cds like you wouldn’t believe. But anything that sticks in my collection and there is a reason why I kept it.

I’m a cd whore. Everyone is like ‘aren’t you going to get rid of these?’ I mean I have like four twenty or more gallon tubs full of cds. I must have a good three thousand cds in my collection.

You sound like me. Music fuels you and gets you through your day.

It completely does. And lately I’ve been so into British rock.

The new Coldplay album is absolutely incredible. I put that album right up there with Radiohead’s The Bends.

Do you like both the music that touches your soul, but also the kind that has no reason? Kind of “Panama”.

Yeah, and I still sing “Panama” in my car like it has some kind of meaning. Because the songs are so cool and they have a great vibe to them. But I like All because they talk about the kind of shit like your car breaking down. I like it because they know how I feel. They have something to say both serious and not serious.

Do you think music is lacking today?

Well like all the heavy music today, I’m into it I have Korn’s first album, but I was also this young kid when Poison first came out and they were this new glam band and then there was Warrant and then everyone followed along. And I feel like that is what is happening today. Korn came out and then you have Limp Bizkit, which is your new Warrant and then there are the trickling bands like Linkin Park. They are cool, but they aren’t my bag. There are just so many fucking bands like that today. The other day we played a show and there was this band that was harder than Korn who opened up for us and I was like ‘who the fuck put this show together?’ (Laughs)

There are so many bands that you just couldn’t tell the difference between. Give me something original. Do you think that because you guys write what comes off as being sunny and in the vein of a “Panama” that people latch on to you because its not gloomy?

Yeah. And there isn’t much out there like us, the only real bands like us are Foo Fighters and STP who are energy rock.

I just found the first Foo Fighters album, talk about a classic.

Oh hell yeah. That album blew me away when it first came out.

What is the most memorable shows you’ve ever had?

We were touring with the Offspring and the first two shows that we were on were in our hometown in Irvine Meadows and is the amphitheater that we went to as kids. When we found out we were tripping. That was incredible. Another one was in Baltimore at the Ravens stadium. It’s a giant stadium and the place was packed and with me growing up on Van Halen if you look inside Diver Down there is a photo of Van Halen taking a bow in front of like sixty thousand people. Well my parents got a photo of me at the front of the stage at the end of the show and it was amazing. It was a dream come true. One other show that sticks out is opening up for Kiss in Vancouver on New Years Eve for the new Millennium and we were the only band on the bill that got to meet them. I have an eleven by seventeen picture of all of Lit with all of Kiss in makeup and costume. That was the dream. That was amazing.

+ charlie craine