BSM: If your music doesn’t really sell, is that more a failure of the material, or of the marketing?
PK: I don’t think it’s due to the material, because, as you know, songs that are completely free of melody have been number one hits. I think you could probably take any song and make it a hit, at this point, if you had the power to do so.
BSM: When you think about it, your style sort of falls outside of the mainstream, because it’s the sort of power-pop that was big thirty years ago, and now the charts are ruled by fluffy dance-music for teens. Is this something that you just sort of accept and live with, or is there a way that you can work your music into the mainstream?
PK: I could probable go with a more kind of modern , technologically advanced production, but I’m kind of a purist, in terms of instruments. I love analog equipment, I love real instruments...not that I don’t like playing with effects every so often.
BSM: I noticed that you played a lot of the instruments on your album. What sort of recording set up did you have?
PK: The album actually took about a year to record. Between the time Boy Wonder broke up and the time it came out, it was a little over a year, and we started recording piecemeal. Recording started maybe a couple of months after we broke up, and there was a period where I felt like I was cheating on Boy Wonder by recording solo stuff. But the Boy Wonder drummer played on a couple of tracks, and then our new drummer, Jeff, played on the rest. On the first EP, I played bass on all that. We recorded the version of “Everything” on the EP with me on bass, and by the time we recorded the album the band had been functioning as a unit, and we’d been playing that song and it sounded so much better, so much tighter, so we decided to just rerecord the entire thing, with all the regular band musicians in place. Some times, someone couldn’t make it to the studio, so I’d just end up playing something, but...
BSM: So you’re pretty happy with the record overall?
PK: I am. I don’t hate it yet.
BSM: That’s refreshing, because so many people I talk to are so dissatisfied with the albums they’ve made. So, are you thinking at all about your next album?
PK: Oh, yes. And when you asked me about if I think about how commercial I think the songs might be, it’s going to lead me to this tangent: I had a lot of songs I was thinking about for the next album, and they were all really unlike stuff that I’d done before. Not as hokey, but still melodic. There were pieces of songs that sort of flowed together, you know? I guess I’m sort of contradicting myself now, but I was saying, “God, does this suck? There’s not a lot to grab on to here.” I just told myself that I guess it was what I had to be writing at the time. It was almost turning into this weird glob, like kind of an amorphous concept album, if that makes any sense. But it was starting to get a little intimidating to me. So I just kind of put it on the back burner, because every time I sat down, I just had this huge mass of songs with no definition in my head, and I was like, “Ok, I’ve gotta try to make some sense out of this.” And it would never happen, so I just said fuck it and just
started writing other things, and now I’ve got a smattering of some pop songs just laying around, waiting to be recorded. And this big thing looming.
BSM: Were you thinking that the songs didn’t really fit what people would be expecting from you?
PK: No, it’s more like, “Do I like this? Do I even get this?” I think I’ll get it eventually. I think I’ll just let it evolve. I’ve actually chipped two things off the big ball and made other songs out of them.
BSM: Do you have any sort of timetable for when you’re going to start on the next album?
PK: I would say probably by the summer. As opposed to the way we did the last record, I’d like to try to do this one in a shorter period of time. Not that I don’t think that “Nothing/Everything” is cohesive, because I think it is, but because it took so long I feel like “Nothing” is a really old song, and “Are You Gonna Make It” is a really new song. There’s a couple of years that separate them.
BSM: Do you have any songs of yours which are particular favorites?
PK: I do. “Everything” is one of them. It’s one of the few songs I think is lyrically ok. “For Someone,” which is quite personal, that’s the first time I’ve done a string arrangement. Aaron’s brother and I did the string arrangement on that. “Are You Gonna Make It” was a slightly different direction for me, so I like that.

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