This is part of Dead Anyway month. A collection of the posts can be found here
Kicking at Tombstones is a collection of Dead Anyway songs whose lyrics are collected in Kate Arnold’s book of the same name. While it’s explicitly not a Greatest Hits collection (per the bandcamp description), it’s a fantastic sampler of their work over the past few years. Hit play and we’ll talk after:
That’s the first track on the thing, and even if I was puzzled by the lyrics in the book itself, the song is a jam, like Dry Cleaning taking on “Mama Said Knock You Out“.
Kicking at Tombstones covers the discography of the band — 25 songs spanning the nearly 5 years they’ve been releasing music together. Kate was kind enough to let me ask a bunch of questions about it.
In the introduction to the book, she indicates that (with only three exceptions), the music precedes the lyrics. “I think it may be because we have both been in more traditional band set-ups before, where a person fits their lyrics to another person’s (or their own) melody”, Kate tells me. “I have a head full of ideas which I jot down on a document in my phone as things occur to me. Marc sends me tracks on a regular basis, and I’ll find something I think will fit with the mood and the framework.”
“Pigs in Blankets” is of the songs where the process was flipped. Per Kate: “That was just a rant I didn’t expect to stick, and it turned out to be the track which got us the most attention.” It’s a standout for me too:
I asked her about songs on this record that were unusually difficult to get right, or that she and Marc couldn’t agree on. “Reptilian” is the one that came to mind: “I wanted the lyric to be more in time with the tribal drums,” she says, “but Marc was insistent, and, as always, he was right. I love it now.”
I asked her about performing live: “I like doing ‘The Prowler’ live,” she says, “and Marc’s live drum performance in ‘The King and I’ always completely slays me. He absolutely lets loose, and that spurs my performance on.”
You can hear both of those here in a fantastic live recording. I’ve queued up “The King and I” and if you let it run, “The Prowler” is two songs later. The whole performance is worth your time:
I’ll end this with one of my favourites from the record. It’s called “The Lovely Divers”, and it’s got a Miami Vice-style late night guitar jam sound that I can’t get enough of. It’s also one of the few gentle songs on the record, even if lyrics suggest something more sinister:
Many thanks to Kate for taking the time to discuss these songs with me. There’s more to come this week, as we lead up to the formal release of the new record next week (the whoopsie release happened yesterday, you can listen to Tough, Listen on Bandcamp now).
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Something you wrote or made? Something you just think more people should see?