Interviews

Kaddisfly

Interview with Kile Brewer on Oct 14, 2005 by Archive Bot

Kaddisfly are a modern rock take on the transcendentalism movement that was so eloquently carried out by literary masters like Emerson, Whitman and Thoreau. Currently represented by Hopeless Records, Kaddisfly released the first part to a trilogy of albums entitled “Buy Our Intention, We’ll Buy You a Unicorn.”  It is a spiritual embodiment of nature and mankind that raises questions, creates peace and delivers freely moving melodies. Bassmaster Kile Brewer and Punkbands.com’s Katie Ellsweig got down to business over the telephone and not only talked about music, but found common ground amongst each other as well.
 
Katie: In what way would you consider yourself to be a spiritual person?
 
Kile: Hey that’s a good question to open with. That’s deep. I’d have to say that I feel pretty close to the earth as an energy; I feel like I’m part of it as a living being. I think that’s a spiritual part of it. I also drink massive amounts of alcohol and that causes a lot of it as well. That’s pretty spiritual.  I’m not getting spiritual right now though.
 
Katie: Can a person be spiritual but not religious? Are the two intertwined or are they interchangeable?
 
Kile: The two can definitely co-exist, I would say. For me, personally, they can exist together but for other people it seems like they could be one or the other. Sometimes they just throw a cold shoulder to the other as though maybe having a different spirituality while already having a religion is impossible and some that have a spirituality don’t want to look towards religion.
 
Katie: Would you consider yourself more of a classicist or a romanticist? Which is more important, structure or feeling?
 
Kile: I can’t speak for the rest of the band, but for myself I’ll go with romanticism.  I take a huge pride in that structurally what we’ve created in our songs is so different and not really classic. We want a song to flow to where it needs to go and let the structure sort of make itself. We just kind of start writing the songs and where they go becomes the structure. It’s a vacation; travelling through each song shows different tangents of the whole vibe or feeling we’re creating.
 
Katie: I want to talk a little about some of the lyrics in the songs because they’re really a defining feature and definitely what struck me.  One song features the lyrics, “Show mercy to those who act in ignorance for the simple fact that you too are ignorant.” How should we show mercy?
 
Kile: The simple fact of that lyric is a basic rule. It’s just that nobody is perfect and to understand that when something goes wrong, you can’t just make a quick judgment about it. You need to slow down and realize what it’s all about and that you can also be in that situation and you can be judged that way. Every single one of us has been in that situation and we’re all guilty of it.  I’m an imperfect person just like everyone else and I even catch myself in certain instances reacting to someone in a way that’s almost hypocritical but I’m trying to teach myself not to do that and to be better.
 
Katie: What about the lyric, “Humans are trees with different leaves.”
 
Kile: I honestly don’t even know.
 
Katie: Can you take a wild guess? Maybe a crapshoot?
 
Kile: [laughs] Yeah I’ll take a wild guess. Let’s see here…I guess it’s just that we’re all the same deep down and everybody can look or act different but under the surface we’re the same.
 
Katie: Sounds good, I’ll take that. Inside the booklet to the album, there are the words “Write. Influence. Change. Live.” How do you want to influence, how do you want to change and how do you want to live?
 
Kile: I really want the people to make that decision. When we started this band, we wanted to provide guidelines to what our music would stand for but we wanted to really influence people to maybe write and do their own thing. We don’t want to make people change. We try to present music in a way that people will accept and maybe they’ll start doing all that and change to be someone else that our music allowed them to be.
 
Katie: “Buy Our Intention, We’ll Buy You a Unicorn” was such an incredible concept album. For the next one, can we expect the same sort of concept or something completely different?
 
Kile: Buy Our Intention was part one of a three part series. Our next album is going to be called Set Sail To Prairie and the title track is the second to last on our record. It’s kind of installing a timeline of space and history that’s going to be on these three albums. It won’t be so much a concept album in the way it’s laid out but it’ll have some ideas that will allow more of a travelling feel to it than a strict concept. It may feel conceptual because of the similarities but it won’t be as broad. It will be more a vacation in music.
 
Katie: Did you come up with the idea for the trilogy before or after signing to Hopeless?
 
Kile: The first album was created kind of in it’s own, but as we were making it, we thought of the idea for this trilogy to broaden even more what Kaddisfly is and create something that could be a little better than all the things we just mentioned.
 
Katie: Hopeless and Sub-City records are very much about charity work and humanitarianism. Do you feel at home with Hopeless?
 
Kile: I think it’s actually really interesting because historically, Hopeless has been a punk label with all these punk bands and they’re very oriented with a lot of charities and great things so it’s also very interesting that they’re reaching out musically also and we’re reaching out too and we’ve kind of joined them and made this journey together.
 
Katie: After this tour, are you going to get to work o the album?
 
Kile: After this tour, we’re going home to enjoy ou turkey dinners and the holiday season and then we’re going to go ahead and write for this next record and do a lot of brainstorming with the artwork and the way we want to present it because it’s not just the music, it’s the art and the lyrics and the way we get the point across.  We’ll probably head into the studio in Match for up to two months I would say and we’re probably looking at a release in late summer.
 
Katie: Something that’s really interesting to me is the auxiliary percussion usage on the album including everything from a gong to concert bells, glockenspiel and wine glasses.  Is Beau a trained musician?
 
Kile: Beau had a little bit of training, but everything he’s done is pretty much stuff he’s established himself and the stuff on the record is a lot of us too, it depends what the song is.  We just want to add a little spice to everything to make it look great, you know, throw in a little shaker or tambourine or something.
 
Katie: That’s really neat, I actually play glockenspiel and marimba.
 
Kile: Really? We want to put marimba on the new album. We’re trying to introduce a lot of different styles from all around the world.
 
Katie: Have you traveled all around the world?
 
Kile: With our music, yes. And in our dreams.
 
Katie: And with a lot of alcohol.
 
Kile: Yes. With a lot of alcohol. Hopefully with a lot of alcohol, we’ll make a great record.
 
Katie: My last question…can you do this forever?
 
Kile: I can create music forever. It’s the blood that keeps us all going. I feel very lucky to have that. To have music is that outlet.