Our writer Madeline Christy spoke with Suffolk strummer Joe Keeley, of The Joe Keeley Band, early Monday morning; to discuss the group’s new single and upcoming album release.
So you’re from Suffolk in the UK and not a lot of country artists tend to stem from this part of the country. Where was it that your country influence came from?
I was quite fortunate in the way that I was born into music and country music because my dad is a full time musician and a line dancer in the UK. So, since I was I was a kid, I’ve been following him around to different places in the country but as I’ve got older I started to then play.
Was there any particular moments from your childhood where you were watching your dad perform and you thought ‘this is what I want to do when I grow up?’
Yeah! I mean it sounds funny because people say that ‘this is something I have always wanted to do’ but I mean since I was a kid this has always been the natural progression. Maybe that didn’t help me when I was in school because people are talking about different jobs. I’m going to be a musician no matter what happens, whatever goes on, this is what I’m going to do – I’m going to do what my dad does.
So, you released your latest single ‘End of the World’ at the beginning of June right in the middle of the lockdown. Why did you choose to release it at this time?
Well, we finished recording it all in February I guess, I remember we just finished and we had to get a lot of pieces done for it out of house because we can’t have people come into our studio and things like that. So, that was a bit of a problem but I know we were fortunate enough to have all the main parts done, so we were alright with that, but in terms of the timing we did plan to have it out for the summer. We wanted to do a little tour with the launch of it, we wanted to have an EP launch and things like around our hometown. Obviously none of these things could happen so the timing is unfortunate, but in other ways I feel like a lot of people really want to help each other out at times like this – in terms of sharing around the community and things like that. I think it is also quite positive for it – people are in lockdown and don’t have many other things to do. It could turn out to be a bad thing we don’t know but hopefully it will work.
Do you find the response of releasing a single during lockdown has been immensely different to a normal single release?
Most of it is just long nights of contacting, emailing, sharing things around so in that respect it’s not too different. But we had so many plans! Our drummer, who also made the lyric video for ‘End of the World’ had so many ideas, obviously none of these things could happen.
What was the inspiration behind the sound of the track for ‘End Of The World’?
We wanted to go through different avenues of country music. On the album we’ve got Americana, deep 70s rock, and slow old time country. The thing with country music is even if you say you don’t like it, someone could play you some sort of different artists and you’ll find someone that suits your your music taste. That’s really what we tried to do with the album but ‘End of the World’ itself – I always wanted to have fiddle on the album. A guy called Michael Cleveland, who is in a bluegrass group in Nashville, is just an incredible fiddle player. The guy’s amazing. The week after we got him to record a bit of fiddle for us he literally won a Grammy! I’m sure if we contacted him after he’d won the Grammy he probably wouldn’t have been so interested – so that worked out pretty well!
That’s amazing timing! You’re right saying that there’s such diversity in the country music genre, that there is literally something for everyone whether people like to admit it or not that they listen to country. I watched your Facebook live stream on Wednesday, last week, and you performed some lovely Josh Turner. Would you say that he’s a big influence?
Josh Turner, I’ve grown up with. However, I don’t want to say it’s my exact sort of style of country. He’s obviously been one of the artists throughout the years that I’ve had to learn as he’s so popular, but it’s fun to try and sing as low as him!
Do you find that you’re able to have a bit more say…creative freedom and flexibility when you’re conducting live stream performances as opposed to when you performed live in a venue?
Yes! These live streams have been really good, I’ve never done anything like it. It’s all been very organic and also a new ground for us. I can try new things.
You’ve released music as a solo artist prior to the single however this single was released under ‘The Joe Keeley Band’. Can you talk about how the group came together?
It is nothing exciting! I played in a covers band with the drummer who is a good friend of mine, Alex . He runs a YouTube channel called ‘Remote Cottage Covers,’ but they get an artist every week and record a cover . When I met the boys there, we’d done a couple of songs and it worked quite well. When it came down to it, I wanted to rerecord some singles off my old album and have a little bit more of a band feel to my songs. We put it all out and then The Joe Keeley Band was formed just like that.
Do you find that solo artist writer and band member Joe have different approaches to songwriting?
Ah! That’s a good question! I think most of the songs were already written apart from ‘Just Fine’, which is a song on the album which we wrote as a band and I think that’s the one you can tell that we wrote as a band because it just seems to flow so brilliantly.
The band’s album is set for release this Thursday and it’s entitled ‘Blackwood’. What is the meaning behind the title?
I’m a big fan of Steve Earle. When I grew up, one of my favourite songs and one of my favourite albums actually was ‘Copperhead Road.’ It was one of the first albums my dad ever gave to me and I used to play in the car. It was the time when I realised that country music wasn’t just steel guitars and cowboy hats and things like that. That album is mostly about moonshine running and I thought that’s just so cool! I wanna write something about moonshine! So I little bit research…Blackwood was actually a nickname that moonshine runners used to have for the places up in the woods where they used to hide their stills.
Complete the sentence…
Music is …love!
Joe Keeley is…very excited for Thursday when my new album comes out!
