Interview with Aaron Keim: Boulder Acoustic Society | Sound Authors Radio

December 26, 2008

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Dr. Kent: Now it’s my honor to speak with two fellows from the Boulder Acoustic Society; Aaron Keim and Scott McCormick. What a sound they’ve got, the band is called the Boulder Acoustic Society, tonight they’re playing at the El Ray Theatre in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Welcome to the show.

Aaron: Thanks for having us.

Scott: Hey now.

Dr. Kent: So you’re on the way to the gig right now.

Aaron: Yep, we’re at a gas station currently in Wallenberg, Colorado.

Dr. Kent: The sound is amazing, I mean tell me a little bit about how this all got started for you.

Scott: Yeah it started when Kylinn and I met playing on the street in Boulder, Colorado and you know, Kylinn comes from a different background than me and everybody we’ve always collected around us have been pretty diverse people. And that’s just kind of how we do it.

Dr. Kent: It’s sort of like American roots music and I see one of your favorite groups is the Memphis Jug Band and sort of that real old school style but at the same time there’s an element of punk in here, an element of really modern music. Tell me about that.

Scott: Absolutely and the reason behind that is mostly because we all come from such diverse backgrounds. Myself, I actually came from playing in gospel churches and stuff in Chicago and then grew up playing rock at the same time and then Aaron comes very rooted in American music. Our drummer as well is very rooted in like pop rock and any kind of punk rock. Kylinn is for lack of a better term is very world music oriented. He plays a billion different styles; Brazilian and whatever and so when we mix everything, what we try to do is always try to get to the root of the sound but then change it in the way that we can do.

Dr. Kent: So tell me a little about, another unique thing about your band is three of you play ukulele.

Scott: That is true.

Dr. Kent: Tell me how that came about.

Scott: I started playing ukulele first because I mostly play the upright bass and I was lugging it around just to go to a jam session or hang around at a friends house and I worked at a music store and there was a little old Martin Ukulele on the wall and it was so small and so fun to play that I just kind of taught myself and over the years everybody in the band has picked it up too. We like it because you can’t be pretentious when you’re playing a ukulele and you can’t be overly complicated. It’s just the simplest musical expression that you can do, its just rhythm and chord.

Dr. Kent: Now your drummer plays a kahon, which is a great instrument, a good friend of mine played that in college. He plays the washboard, the spoons, and things like that. The sound, you know anything he can get his hands on. Tell me about that.

Aaron: Yeah, well the issue is that he for years has played the giant 25-piece rock drum kit and that sound is fine but we want, you know we do things different and so what we told him was just get creative and come up with it and so he sits on a wooden box and he plays all this manipulated and sound objects that he’s invented. Then he’s got a drum and a big tree full of metal stuff that he hits and yeah, we want him to come up with textures that no ones come up with before. So we made him put his drum kit away.

Dr. Kent: So the album is called The Caged Bird. The artwork is gorgeous so tell me a little about the artwork as well.

Scott: Actually with that we were trying to go for the simplest version of a CD we could come up with. So with that we basically just put two big wings on the cover and then that was about it. We tried to keep it real minimal and real open and real easy. As graphic design is changing, I’m starting to notice a lot more simplicity in the artwork. I think what’s happening is especially with the digital creations, right now like a lot of times you’ll find like a simple image that’s kind of engulfed in digital imagery around it and so with this we kind of just went super, super simple and very rootsy and just stand with one image and very little text and everything like that. So that’s kind of where we were coming from on that one.

Dr. Kent: How did you come up with the idea of the title Boulder Acoustic Society? How did that come about?

Aaron: I don’t really know, that’s like five years old but the main thing about it is that I wanted it to feel like it was bigger than it really was and when people hear that word it sounds large and important. And we really approached it as there’s four members in the band but there’s thousands in the society.

Dr. Kent: Well it’s been a real honor chatting with you and I want to have time to play another tune from your new record The Year of our Lord. Why don’t you tell me a little about the two tunes Maggie’s Farm and In The Year Of Our Lord from your newest record?

Scott: Maggie’s Farm, that obviously is Bill’s lyrics but we changed the melody and kind of played it like an old time fiddle tune on crystal meth; we kind of wanted that edge so that song, the lyrics are so universal that we just wanted to put our spin on it. And then In The Year Of Our Lord is a piece that Scott wrote and that’s kind of like a, if you listen to the lyrics, it sounds like an old murder ballad or something kind of sounding thing. It sounds old time but it’s got this gospel hip hop feel to it, kind of just too good examples of how we mix things up.

Dr. Kent: Well the sound is incredible; keep doing what you’re doing. Tell me about your gig tonight and what you’re on the road for and what the next project is.

Scott: Tonight we’re at the El Ray Theater in Albuquerque and it’s a big old historical theater and there’s two great local bands opening for us that are really diverse and interesting. It’s going to be a big party at a great venue. The show is at nine and tomorrow we’re playing a festival down in southern New Mexico and then we’re actually spending most of September off the road at home because we’re doing a bunch of recording for a TV show and I cant even tell you what it is or what network it is on yet but it’ll be out soon.

Dr. Kent: Great! Well the album is called the caged bird; its really beautiful music. Its wild, it’s punkish and it’s also old-time; I love it. Thank you so much for being on the show today.

Aaron: Thank you.

Scott: Thank you.

Dr. Kent: Here’s another song from the Boulder Acoustic Society, their latest record The Caged Bird. This is called In The Year Of Our Lord.

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Dr. Kent: Well that was a beautiful song from The Boulder Acoustic Society called In The Year Of Our Lord. Thank you so much for tuning into the show today. It’s been a great one. We’re in the middle of political season, only about six days left. We had some great political guests on the show today; Eric Appleman the author of the Race for the 2008 Democratic Nomination and editor for the Race for the 2008 Republican Nomination, collections of political cartoons. Second guest was Chris Korzen, author of A Nation for All, how the catholic vision of the common good gave America a politic of division and of course the Boulder Acoustic Society, and Stop Clutter from Stealing Your Life by Mike Nelson. Have a wonderful week, be safe. Have a good one. Next week on the show we’re going to have four new guests and be safe and we’ll talk to you then.

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