Interview with Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir: Bob Keelaghan | Sound Authors Radio

December 15, 2008

[Music]

Dr. Kent: That was a song by the Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir called Dumb It Down from their new album and I am excited to have one of the members on the show today. His name is Bob Keelaghan. Welcome to the show.

Bob Keelaghan: Well, thanks for having me, I’m much obliged.

Dr. Kent: I came across this music while surfing CDbaby and what a fascinating sound. Its half old time music, half Tom Waits. Where did you come upon this sound?

Bob Keelaghan: Well I don’t know I guess its sort of like for me personally its I grew up in a household where there was rock and roll from my brothers and sister and folk music from my parents and in my fathers case Irish music. So I had a mind towards both worlds. My initial first love was rock. When you’re a kid you listen to like your Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Aerosmith and stuff and as you start getting more mature as a person and musician you want to find out where that comes from. Also I had teenage exposure to Stevie Ray Vaughn.

For me it took going back further and further to find those sources and it just kind of led me back to early delta blues and also country music. So it’s kind of like a convergence of going back to the source but also have a knack. I guess it’s a contemporary perspective from rock and roll and some weird stuff like Tom Waits, ### and other innovators. Judd Palmer who is the other name, musical guy in a band, he had more of a love for John Lee Hooker when he was a teenager as well. And I think some of that early blues sort of led him back too, like those same sort of sources. And that’s what I’ve started going for you know?

Dr. Kent: Do you check out the early records from the 20s? some of the style that you all sing in is very reminiscent of that early rough blues straight off of the streets; kind of yell as loud as you can so people on the streets stop by and give you some money kind of blues.

Bob Keelaghan: Yeah definitely; like myself I’m a big fan of people like Skip James, River Davis, Booker White all of those people like that and I know Judd was a big Howard Wolff fan as well and Howard Wolff got his talent from people like Charlie Patton. When I sort of deeply got into this music is was just the idea that like listening to those old recordings from the late 20s or early 30s, you get by all that scratchiness on it and you realize that everybody can sing, everyone can play, there’s no faking it.

If you play the house party somewhere in the southern united states in the 1930s or if you’re playing a house party anywhere with that kind of music in that era, you don’t have an amplifier to rely on. You’ve just got your instrument and your voice and you had to be heard, whereas nowadays if you’re making a record you can rely on the studio. You can rely on an amplifier to get your noise across. But paying attention to the way they did things back then its a lot more pure, a lot more direct I guess.

Dr. Kent: That’s what’s so fascinating about coming across your record; it was really a surprise to find a band that’s really getting out there. There are a few out there, there’s a few bands that can really play street music. For example, what’s their name from oh I can’t remember. A live show from you guys must be the way to see you and I read that you were just in the UK.

Bob Keelaghan: Yeah, we just did a five week tour of the UK and Ireland.

Dr. Kent: How were you received?

Bob Keelaghan: Oh tremendously, it went way better than we ever could have expected. We did a bunch of festivals and club shows and there wasn’t a dog in the bunch. So it was pretty tremendous.

Dr. Kent: And it’s neat. Once you search out fans of this kind of music they’re pretty die hard and what fascinates me is I’m a huge fan of Captain Beefheart and the weird Tom Waites stuff. This is so much there but at the same time its really not. This is really true ethnic music. Did you write all these tunes? Are some of them public domain? What’s the story on that?

Bob Keelaghan: This is our third CD and on each of those we’ve got a mix of originals and covers. I don’t think we’ve ever gone more than about three covers per CD. On the new one our covers are kind of straight up. I mean the Funhouse Song and ### Express and there’s also a Balfo Brothers Song called Vows to Balfa and its just kind of wherever our listening takes us. At certain times we look for inspiration in what you do and sometimes it goes back to dredging up an old song and just reworking it. Its either I’m sitting around by myself or Judd is sitting around by himself and we’ll be playing the guitar or banjo and something will come out. You know, one of these songs will come out and we just bring it to the other guys.

Dr. Kent: How did you go about writing a song in this style? What are these songs about? Are they ramps? Are they personal? Do you write love songs? Do they just come out by the sound? How do you do it?

Bob Keelaghan: Its probably all of that comes into it. I think it depends on what we’re going through at the time I guess. Like our last CD Fighting in Onions, I think there was a lot of despair on that one probably just because various personal circumstances going on. So it was the sort of thing where after we recorded it I realized there was a fair bit of bleakness in it. The new one, I think it’s more uplifting. There’s some of it is kind of funny when you see reviews coming back on things.

The new one I think there is both just kind of philosophical thoughts about the world like in Judd’s case there’s song like 10,000 which is his ode to nature in 10,000 years. Or Go Back Home, which is the idea of just going back home after a long time and seeing how much has changed and maybe how you don’t fit in. For my part, I’m probably a bit more of a ranter but I guess maybe I kind of rant in a vague way. I think for me it’s just like what’s on my mind, whatever I’ve got to get out. Maybe it’s either a mourning death or there a bee in my bonnet I’ve got to get out and that makes me feel better.

Dr. Kent: What’s the next step for the Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir?

Bob Keelaghan: We’ve got to do some shows over the side of the Atlantic, depending on when it fits into our schedule respectively. We don’t know; there’s talk of going back to the UK for more shows. I think also with this new CD I think we’re sort of pushing some of the boundaries of sound. I think we’re at the point now where we’ve got to throw out a few more curve balls. So we’re going to start writing again and see where that takes us. We’re not the sort of guys that plan ahead too much; circumstances come up and we go with it. Wherever the road takes us.

Dr. Kent: The last question I’ve got for you and then I’ll play the track you were just talking about Go Back Home. One question about the title of your band. Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir. Now did mountain gospel come first and you said well we got to say we’re agnostic or how did that come out?

Bob Keelaghan: There are a number of stories about how it came about. Several of the bands I think actually were playing in a gospel choir beforehand. It was a weird gospel choir; it dealt with spiritual issues like it was a weird thing they got tied up in. When that band split the other members of that choir obtained legal rights to the name. It split because I think Judd and Vlad were in that band and they wanted to go in a heavier direction and basically because of the legal issues is where the agnostic came out of as well. They were sort of tied more to the idea of a heavier agnostic sound as opposed to like a new age spiritualist sound.

Dr. Kent: Well I love the title; also 10,000. There’s a picture of a $10,000 bill. Explain that quickly and then we’ll go.

Bob Keelaghan: I was in a Chinese grocery store and I saw a package of banknotes and things that Chinese Buddhists burn at certain festivals to enrich their ancestors in the afterlife. I was looking at that and we have this song called 10,000 years and it turned out also to be the budget record. The bill was in the denomination 10,000 and I thought this is a great coincidence and it would look really good as a cover. So we went with that and within that we play music that’s based on ### and this is our way of saying thanks.

Dr. Kent: Well it’s been a real honor speaking with Bob Keelaghan with Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir. Here is a tune called Go Back Home. You wrote this tune?

Bob Keelaghan: Judd wrote that one.

Dr. Kent: It’s been an honor and I’ll continue to check out everything you do.

Bob Keelaghan: Well thank you very much; it’s an honor on our part too, thanks.

Dr. Kent: Here’s Go Back Home from the latest album 10,000.

[Music]

Dr. Kent: That was a song from the album 10,000 by the Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir. We’ll see you next week. This has been another great show and my name is Dr. Kent and this is Sound Authors. Have a safe week.

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