It’s brown. Why did you choose a brown tattoo?
It looks more like a branding, like someone burnt it into me.
What is a pteranodon?
It’s just the sub-bird, or the largest sub-species of the pterodactyl.
So why did you get that?
Because I thought that the horn on the back of the head was a little heavy-handed. I thought it was too obvious, I like that you can just kind of make out the wings. It also kind of looks like a dog, but it has no tail.
So are you saying you like dogs and pterodactyls?
I’m saying I like dogs and I hate pterodactyls.
So why did you name Key Party… Key Party?
Because I think it’s incredibly gross and sexy, and I want to be gross and sexy.
Have you ever seen the show Swingtown?
No.
Are you serious? It’s about swinging couples in the ’70s that have key parties.
It’s perfect.
Yeah, there were only two seasons of it, but it was kind of awesome.
I like when shows have limited seasons, because I know what I’m getting into and it’s just a massive movie.
Sometimes I get really bad anxiety attacks when I watch a TV show and it just keeps going on for seasons and seasons. It becomes more like a weird, bleak pattern of life: it’s never ending. It’s these same recycled, hidden plots that are written into every TV show, and it’s really stressful. But if it’s just a few seasons, it’s really light and easy.
Yeah, and it can have this big arc that’s visible, instead of these corrugated arches that you can just never see. Because, eventually they’re going to run out of ideas. I mean for writers, characters can only develop so much, you know? While still be relatable or I don’t know, believable.
Do you think that idea of running out of ideas and developing somehow relates to music? Do you think even, that there are these overarching patterns in the industry?
For sure. While you can run out of ideas, I feel like that doesn’t happen that much. I feel like a lot of people run with one idea and go in one direction, that makes a lot of sense with their, like, tunnel vision, or point of view. Tunnel vision is probably the wrong phrase. But, I feel like, like David Byrne. I love David Byrne, I think he’s awesome. But he went in such a weird Cuban, groove direction. I love it. I like it. It’s not why I listen to the Talking Heads, though.
What do you listen to the Talking Heads for?
Synthesizers.
Speaking of synthesizers, let’s talk about you as a keyboardist and how it is to be the frontman of a group as a keyboardist. You know, explain to me what it’s like to be in all of these projects and be this figure on stage and also be a keyboardist, which is not that prevalent anymore.
Yeah, it’s kind of an instrument that tends to be in the background, now. I mean you have Foster The People. You have Kate Nash.
Kate Nash is cool.
Yeah Kate Nash is cool.
Although, I saw her at Coachella, probably seven years ago, and she put on the worst set ever. I think she was really nervous and hot, and she played everything like five times faster that it was supposed to be.
I’ve done that before, I hate that. It’s nerves. You’re just like, oh well, let’s make it punk. I don’t know, it’s just panic. It’s kind of like when you talk to fast, when you meet someone pretty. or like when, you laugh like you just did, Madi.
Fuck you!
But it’s awesome I play a big Nord Electro 3, and I say that but it’s actually the smallest one that they make. But, it’s still so big. But, I’ve been playing mostly accordion lately. I fucking love accordion. Because it’s an organ that you strap on and just dance with. It’s so good, and because you can play it like an accordion and you can do French Busqueing, and all of those nonsense show off things.
What is French Busqueing?
It is like everything you can imagine French accordion to be. It’s like light, airy and complex. It’s just a bunch of roughs and sweets. Or you can do these little German Polkas. I mean, while there is a place for it, and it’s definitely cool, it’s not what I do, and it works so well with my music.
So what do you do?
Super choppy keyboard parts, and a lot of screaming on top of it.
That sounds so punk rock.
It’s pretty punk rock. Yeah, so right now we play two different sets. There is one with guitar and one with keyboards, for Key Party. We’re like a four piece which is Roman Williams who plays guitar, Christine Moad, who plays bass, and Emma Holden who plays drums. But they’re great, they’re awesome. So I’ll play guitar for one set, and there are different songs for that one. Or, I’ll play my Nord Keyboard, or my accordion for the other set, and they’re just different songs, because you can just do different things, and it serves a purpose in a different way. But, I always use this one synthesizer because it’s so cool. There are some parts, and I love being the frontman because I can get other people to play certain parts that are what I would play, but not what I feel like playing. I mostly just sing and dance around now, and play the fun riffs on the synthesizer. I love that.
So essentially, you play two instruments in either set?
Yeah. It’s really fun, and it’s nice to be freed up. Because, you remember, I used to be like always doing a bunch of stuff while singing, and it’s like I’m fucking here to party with you. You know?
Yeah, and how does the audience receive this new mode of performance?
They love it.
How does Nashville receive Key Party, in general?
So far, well. Because there is not a lot, well there is a great scene; but, they’re not a lot of keyboardists. There are not a lot, and not to toot my own, uh, keyboard, but not a lot of great [keyboardists] either. I mean, this is what I went to school for, so…and no one plays accordion, and a few people play synthesizer. So, I bring out these crazy sounds, we make these crazy sounds, and people love that. It’s weird. It’s fun. It’s completely original in every possible way. I’m kind of making fun of myself, right now.
Tell me a little bit about Milk People, and what that is? Because, that’s getting some attention down in Nashville as well.
Yeah, I like that band. It’s Emma and Garret, who are guitarists, and Emma is in Key Party as well.
Oh right, and how did you guys meet?
I met this guy Daniel Donato who has this standing gig at Robert’s Western World. Which is this bar on Broadway, and plays a bunch of country covers and stuff. He’s like this kick-ass guitarist, and [Emma and Garret] had hired him to record on this session, for a song called “Steeples”. They needed an organist, and so he knew me, and he told me to come, and we came. We recorded the whole thing, and we all loved it. I really like the song. So we started writing together, and actually we put together a five-piece band. It’s really fun. It’s like new wave, blues and rock.
Wow, so pick bands from these genres that you associate with Milk People’s sound.
It’s like Talking Heads, the Cars, and maybe the Black Keys, and I guess kind of White Stripes, actually.
It sounds like everyone has a hard on for Jack White in Nashville.
It’s ridiculous. I did.
Have you met him?
No, but I went in Sam Ash’s directory and I got his phone number and put it in my phone, after I had already quit.
What is Sam Ash?
It’s like a Guitar Center that doesn’t suck, as much. I quit like two weeks ago. Now I just play with these bands, and I teach.
What is teaching like?
So weird. It’s really fun, though. I’m teaching guitar, bass, keyboard and accordion, and yeah it’s great, oh and like theory.
So how old are your students?
Oh, all over. My youngest student is Kaleb and he’s nine? Maybe eight. Yeah he’s adorable. He doesn’t know this, but he’s in this super Christian household, and I think he could use a little bit more weird in his life, and so I’m teaching him “Jean Genie.” He’s pretty good, and it’ll like serve you wherever you play guitar. And he’s got that, and it’s so good to see him play it. It’s really cool to see a kid who has not touched an instrument play this whole song, because I helped him figure it out.
So you like teaching then?
I love teaching. Especially, I have this one student, Terry, he’s like 22, I think. He’s learning jazz theory for the bass. Which is so specific, but so up my alley. It’s basically a lot of chord scales. So treating it, or considering the harmony of the overall piece — it’s treating each chord change as a new kind of mode.
Like the modal scale?
But a different modal scale depending on what your tonic is, and what your over all is, when you consider where you are in the song. So basically, he’s learning all of the intricacies of the far limits of what will not sound terrible to people in a given situation.
How did your students find you?
I worked at Sam Ash, and I didn’t sell much stuff. I mostly talked to people.
Are you happy to not be selling guitars and actually be more focused on the music end of things?
Mmmm-hmmmm. I went to school for music. I worked at Guitar Center before I went to Berklee, and I got out of college and started working at Sam Ash. It was just like the same life. What the fuck? So to be actually hired to go play places I’ve never been, and have everything taken care of and come out in the black, is remarkable.
So what are these places?
Sweden, Switzerland, Amsterdam, Germany. Yeah. We played Reading and Leeds, dude. This is the Blacklist Royals. They’re like punk, but they’re the punk that is made in 2014. So they’re rock and roll, like very heavily rock and roll.
So garage rock, Ty Segall type stuff?
A lot more Tom Petty than that, and with a lot more Organ.
So you’re playing in that band the most, then?
Yeaaah, well, I’m playing the biggest shows with that band, and going on the most consistent tours. We just got back from Europe and that was the big thing. Before that we did Warped Tour. We played a show with Kurt Vile, in fucking Amsterdam, dude.
What was that like?
It was Reading and Leeds, it was awesome.
How many people did you play to that night?
Oh shit, I don’t know. A lot.
Were you nervous.
Yes. Wait nooo… in Amsterdam I was nervous, because I was on drugs.
What drugs?
Amsterdam! I was high as shit.
How can you get high before you play a show like that?
Because, well, I was nervous, because there was a little band drama. While, I wasn’t involved in it, people were fighting.
Over what?
Well I’m not going to say that.
Over what?
No. Well, over shit.
Like over a girl?
No, stop. OK, well, I will tell it you by not telling it to you. They were fighting over a photograph. Everybody, like all but two of us, were really entrenched in this argument. I was just sitting, literally in the middle of everyone in this band just eating gummy bears, and drinking as we just barrel down this highway. So, I was irritated, and hungry and tired, and I was not in the right mindset. So, I just got really high, and then we played the show: the one in Amsterdam, with Kurt Vile at this festival. I forget what it’s called, I think it might have been Paradise.
So was or wasn’t that a good experience, because of all of the stress and consumption beforehand?
It was awesome. The show was awesome. Just leading up to it, it was super uncomfortable. Everybody was like very quietly not talking. Because it was like that three hours before everybody is cool again. It was just that one moment where everybody is tense.
How did you wind up in that band?
Sam Ash sucked, but I would spend a lot of my time there reading posts on Craig’s List. Specifically ones about people hiring keyboardists, and there is also this bulletin board that’s in Sam Ash for people to just post, usually, shitty gigs — like this Christian Rock Band needs an Organist, for the night. Okay, and there like “Must accept God into their hearts.” Things like that, just so illegitimate. But then I saw this big, white poster with Universal’s logo in the corner, and I’m like what? The poster just said, “looking for a Keyboardist.” Like, “we’re doing a tour in Europe, and we really need someone, and this is pretty last minute.” So yeah, then I took off the little number, and then threw away the rest of the sign. I mean, they had more signs, I’m sure… you don’t need to see anybody else.