BSM: So, how is the new album, “Nothing/Everything,” doing?
PK: I think it’s doing well. It’s only been out since September. I think it’s doing ok for the small release that it is.
BSM: Do you have ambitions to get this album to a larger scale release?
PK: I think I have realistic expectations; I wanted to make a record I was really happy with, which I did, and I know it’s a small label, and I know the state of the music industry. So, I don‘t have my head in the sky about it. But, that’s not going to prevent me from taking the opportunity to get it to someone who gives a damn, if I can.
BSM: How frustrating is it to look at the music in the Top Twenty, see all this stuff out there that you know is obviously not as good as your material, and deal with that?
PK: I vacillate between thinking it’s really quite funny or getting really depressed about it. Because, yeah, the songs are really just banal. Like, when you start saying, “’Hit Me Baby One More Time’ is a great pop song,” something’s kind of wrong! I guess, compared to “Who Let the Dogs Out” or something, it's a great pop song, but...
BSM: Maybe you should just cover those on your next album.
PK: God. If that ever happens...
BSM: You can do your big sell out album!
PK: The music industry is really out of control, but it’s so out of control that I think that something has got to give really soon, so that’s what I think me and a lot of other small level artists are hoping for.
BSM: When you’re writing, do you keep in mind the commercial potential of your material?
PK: Not at all. I think if I had ever had a commercial hit, maybe that would be in my mind, like if I was a writer in the Brill Building, paid to write hits, but no.
BSM: How do you write? I’m always impressed by someone that can write a good, melodic rock song, because they seem to be the most difficult to keep original.
PK: It’s kind of hit or miss when I write. I’ll just sit down with a guitar, and the music always comes first, before the words. Chords, and then a melody will just come to me as I play the chords. And then, if it sticks...It’s not something that I sit down and try and do. I mean, I guess if I sit down and play the guitar then I’m ‘trying to do it,’ but you know what I mean? I mean, I’m not like ‘ok, verse, chorus, bridge,’ you know. I’ve sat down before, played the guitar for like an hour, and nothing happened. What I labor over is finishing songs. Finishing lyrics, mostly. The music kind of comes all at one, and the melody comes, but getting the words in there...I’d love to have a lyrical collaborator.
BSM: Where do you get your lyrical and thematic ideas from, and do you favor an autobiographical approach, or the opposite of that, or...?
PK: They’re almost always autobiographical. In fact, sometimes when I’m sitting there playing chords, words will come right along with it. I guess I kind of know what it means because it’s coming from my head, you know? Sometimes it’s about a friend of mine or a situation, but I find that it just naturally evolves. Like, when I was in Boy Wonder and my band before that, Hot Rod, my songs tended to be about my sister who pissed me off, or some crappy relationship that I was in. But now that things have calmed down with my sister and I’m not in a crappy relationship, things tend to be more reflective. On “Nothing/Everything,” a couple of songs are about my music career, if you can call it a career. Or just about how my perspective on that is changing.
BSM: You’ve been in the Boston music scene for just about ten years now. Has your songwriting changed since the beginning?
PK: I fucking hope so, yeah! Do you mean, how has it changed?
BSM: Yeah.
PK: Well, the way I write is the same, that has always been the same. But stylistically it’s changed. I mean, the record that came out right after I was in the Drop Nineteens sounded like--I guess it’s a combination of Drop Nineteens and poppier stuff. It was just like what I was listening to at the time. Your influences just kind of naturally come out, I think. I don’t tend to wear my influences on my sleeve, but I think that happens with anybody. So I just started listening to a lot of 60s stuff, like Phil Spector, when I was in Boy Wonder, so my writing just kind of took that turn. I guess now I listen to a whole to of shit, like Burt Bacharach...I think the constant is that if it doesn’t have a good melody, than I’m just not interested. Not necessarily a good hook, because I guess you can have a hook without having a melody, but...

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